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18
I drifted up from sleep, not wanting to leave the dream, where I was safe on a craggy desert plateau with my father. But a strong, intuitive sense of danger kept pulling me away from the arid landscape until, wary and alert, I opened my eyes to the night shadows that swooped across the living room. I was surprised to find myself on the couch. I had only intended to rest there for a moment.
Wind shrilled against the house and, in its lull, hushed voices came from behind the front door. Quick, impatient knocks hit the wood. Immediately, footsteps clanked down the porch steps. Maybe Nando had recognized me, after all, and he and his homeboys were waiting for me on the front lawn, their black trench coats flapping in the turbulence.
I rolled off the couch, the plastic slipcover crackling beneath me, and fell on the rug, my fingers sliding through the velvety fibers as I crawled to the window. Tree shadows, in disarray from the gusts, whirled back and forth over beer cans and puffed-out grocery bags that tumbled down the street, but no posse of Lobos stood in the yard.
I pressed my cheek against the cool glass and still saw no one. Just when I had convinced myself that the sounds had only been trailing fragments from my dream, two faces popped up in front of the window. I startled back, catching my scream, as I recognized Satch and Rico.
“Not funny,” I scolded before my relief burst into laughter. I rushed to the door and swung it open.
Dressed in shirts and ties, Satch and Rico met me on the bottom step, their shirttails loose and rippling in the wind. Rico lost his smile and gripped the handrail, then my arm. “Who’d you get vamped up for?”
“Are you going out with someone?” Satch asked at the same time.
I’d forgotten that I was still wearing the clothes that I’d used to lure Nando. “Melissa made me over,” I said. “Do you like my new look?”
“I liked the way you looked before, but if you did this for me, then I love it.” Rico squeezed me against him, his lips nuzzling my ear, his hands trailing down my back. I pulled away from his kiss and glanced at Satch, who stared out at the street, the grocery flyers skimming over the pavement, apparently more interesting than my half-naked body.
“We’ve come to say we’re sorry,” Rico said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re okay with you being Trek’s lure.”
I was never going to tell them about Nando. “Why are you two dressed like church boys?” I asked, steering the conversation away from me.
“We’re going to a dance and want you to come with us.” Satch held up three red tickets and gave me a glance in which his eyes scanned down, up, and away.
“How ’bout it?” Rico said. “No other gangsters, no guns, just regular kids having fun. Want to be a nobody for a night?”
“As long as you can guarantee it’s only for one night.” I laughed.
“We change back into gangsters at midnight.” Satch grinned. “I promise.”
After pulling on black leggings and my gray school sweater, I slipped into my shoes and joined Satch and Rico, the scent of the approaching storm sweeping around us.
Happiness was still building inside me as we walked past the squad cars parked in front of the community center. The officers ignored the thudding background music that shimmied their cars, their focus on the teens who looked ready to break into mob rule. Gathered at the curb, the energy coming off them was sharper than the wind. The guys glowered, cigarettes pinched as they smoked to the filters, but when they saw Rico and Satch, they moseyed across the street to get away from the real gangsters. The laughter from the few girls, Kaylee among them, pierced the music, their frozen-on smiles not hiding the desperation in their eyes.
I started to wave, wishing Kaylee and I could be friends again, but she turned away and stole a cigarette from one of the guys, drew in deeply as she pressed herself against him, then spun back around and blew smoke at me.
“Ignore her,” Rico said, pulling me inside.
After stepping through the metal detector, Satch handed our tickets to a woman with gray hair whose orange acrylic nails were as long as knives. She stepped aside and we entered the dimly lit auditorium.
On a raised platform in the far corner, a girl from school stood with the DJ and censored the songs to ensure the lyrics didn’t offend the women in the chief of police’s granny corps, who had organized the dance as part of their ongoing war against gangs.
Handmade signs on the walls read: No porn dancing allowed. No Freaking. No Grinding. No Doggy-Dancing. No Front-Piggy-Backing. No Hiking Up Skirts. No Hands-On-the-Floor Dancing. To enforce the rules, chaperones patrolled the dance floor armed with flashlights. The beams swirled over the dancers, spotlighting couples who danced too close or too nasty.
“Are you going to stay after reading the rules?” Dante bumped against me, looking sozzled, his eyes red and unfocused. “Everyone knows you like to dance crazy.”
“Get lost.” I shoved him away, surprised to see him here.
He leaned closer, his breath spiking the air between us with the sweet scent of alcohol. He held up a plastic water bottle, the liquid inside clear, though I doubted it was water. “Take this as my peace offering. Instant drunk. No kidding.”
Rico appeared from behind me and snatched the bottle from Dante. “What are you giving her?”
“My grandpa’s white lightning,” Dante said proudly. “It’s his home brew. He’s got a still in the basement.”
“That better be true.” Rico twisted off the cap, took one sip, then guzzled half the liquid. “Whoa.” His face pinched. “It’s rocket fuel.” He handed the bottle to Satch, who took a long swallow.
“The buzz is instantaneous.” Satch pretended to stagger before he passed the bottle to me.
The alcohol overwhelmed my taste buds, then stung my throat as it burned down and curled into my stomach. “It’s going to set me on fire,” I choked.
Dante took the bottle and drained it, his eyes watering from the burn. “The fire’s what makes it so good.”
“Do you have any to sell?” Rico asked.
“I got a crate of merchandise around the corner, outside, but for friends it’s free.” Dante stumbled toward the exit. “Come on.”
Rico turned to me. “Save your kisses for me, Blaise,” he teased, gently punching my chin before he hurried after Dante as the music changed to a love song, the rhythm slow and sultry.
I wanted to dance, but Satch looked ready to desert me for the girl who was sending him flirty smiles. Too bad for her. The liquor had emboldened me and I smoothed my hands around him, trapping him as he started to leave.
His breath caught, as if I had stung him. I thought he was going to push me away. Instead, his hands slid to my waist and he pressed me gently against him. A pleasant shock rushed through me.
“You’re trembling,” I said, racing my palms up his back, absorbing the heat of his body.
“So are you,” he whispered and, as he found the music’s rhythm, I felt the sensual movement of his muscles beneath my fingertips.
The beam from a flashlight spun over my face, circling like an agitated fly. I didn’t want to release Satch, but the chaperone kept me under the light until I loosened my grip.
We eased apart and stood motionless, gazing at each other even after the music changed to a rapid beat and all around us dancers swiveled and pumped.
“What are you doing?” Rico yelled, suddenly returning to the dance floor, seeming unaware of how closely I had danced with Satch. Or maybe he was too drunk to care. His eyes watered as if he had chugged a bottle of booze before coming back inside. He attacked the music, his arms wild, more bottles in his pockets and waistband, protruding beneath his shirt. “Move! Why are you just standing there staring at each other?”
For the rest of the night, I danced between Satch and Rico, gliding against one and then the other, but not with my usual moves. I didn’t want the flashlig
hts to spotlight me.
Even so, the girls who stood against the wall, the ones I saw crying in the school bathrooms, watched me, their eyes hard and resentful that I danced with two guys while they danced with none. They spoke behind their hands to hide their lips. I could just imagine what they were saying about me.
“The old rumors about you being with me and Satch at the same time are going to spread around school again,” Rico teased.
I shrugged. I was still a virgin, though the girls glaring at me were not. It wasn’t desire for the boys that made them sleep around as much as baby hunger. They wanted a baby to fill their loneliness.
At the end of the dance, Satch, Rico, and I joined the crowd sweeping outside, into the storm, where a line of cars waited on the street. Everyone had rides home, except for us. We were the strays who strolled down the alley, sloshing through puddles, the night shuddering with supernatural light. Even the spider webs glistened, misty with rain.
I slowed my pace when a car turned the corner, headlights askew, one lantern pushed sideways on a dented fender. The driver had turned off the windshield wipers, and raindrops glimmered golden on the glass, hiding whoever sat behind the steering wheel.
Rico seemed unconcerned about the car rolling toward us. The alcohol had killed his normal vigilance.
“Do you recognize the bucket?” I asked.
“I’d remember an old wreck like that one,” Satch said. “Maybe it’s someone’s new ride to work.”
The car hitched forward, the window came down, and Trek leaned out, the rain drumming his face. “Jump in,” he urged. “You’re getting wet.”
“We can’t get any wetter than we are,” I said, certain Trek had been driving around searching for me. At the same time, I had a terrible feeling that running into Dante hadn’t been an accident either.
“Where are you off to?” Rico asked, too drunk to feel suspicious, when normally he would never have trusted this kind of coincidence, especially one that involved Trek.
“I’m going down to the Tidal Basin to catch some lightning,” Trek replied. “Want to go?”
A chill came over me. “Why did you have to steal a car for that?”
“The forecast calls for hail,” he said too quickly. “Do you think I want to put dings in my car when a dozen more dents in this one won’t make any difference?”
I had no answer, though my wariness intensified. I couldn’t imagine Trek paying attention to the weather.
Satch gazed up at the clouds aflutter with sheet lightning. “Let’s do it.”
“You’re too drunk,” I warned.
I had played the game in seventh grade with Rico during a storm like this one. We had gripped the railing that encircled the Tidal Basin and waited, rain pelting us as thunderbolts crackled across the dark sky. Even after static had raced over my skin and lifted my hair in tendrils above my head, the thrill, the utter exhilaration, had kept my hands clasped to the metal. When Rico let go, I had wrenched free, diving into the wet grass where we rolled together, losing the charge, victorious over the lightning that had hit the railing and thrown jagged spikes into the cherry trees.
Rico had said, “It’s the adrenaline. Isn’t it the best feeling in the world?”
It was.
The sound of the car door opening pulled me back from the memory.
“We won’t make you watch,” Rico said. “We’ll drop you off at your house. Get in.”
“I’m going with you,” I argued, throwing myself onto the backseat, which smelled of wet feathers and dog hair. “Someone will have to identify your charred bodies.”
Rico slammed the door and squeezed in front next to Satch, who had opened another bottle of booze.
Thunder crashed, the vibration shuddering through the car, as we started forward.
A few blocks later, Trek drove onto the lot of a convenience store. “I should have checked the gas gauge before I stole the car,” he announced. “We’re running on fumes. I need to fill up the tank.”
“Then why did you drive past the pumps?” I asked.
“I want some brew, is that okay?” Trek said as he continued around to the Dumpsters in back.
“Of course,” I muttered.
Drenched and shivering, I decided to leave them, buy a coffee, and walk home. Satch and Rico no longer needed me to watch over them. They were going to be too knocked-out drunk to hold on to the railing, anyway. I climbed out of the car before Trek turned off the engine.
“Blaise, stay here,” Trek called after me.
The very tone of his voice should have warned me to go back, but I tramped through the puddles to the front of the store and pushed inside.
The smells of coffee and grilling hot dogs hit me on a wave of heat as a loud buzz announced my arrival. The cashier didn’t bother to glance up from the magazine she was reading. She kept her face down, but even so I caught a glimpse of silver rings that pierced her eyebrows, lips, and nose. The face metal presented a tough image, as did her jet black, dyed hair, cut short and choppy. The only thing girlie about her were the stars inked into bracelets on her pale wrists. I smiled to myself, knowing she wouldn’t need to dress so dangerous if she really was.
I rounded the counter and bumped into the boy who had let me into Nando’s apartment. He looked up, startled, his coat pockets bulging with chocolate bars, the bottoms of his pajamas dripping rainwater. He had apparently snuck out of his home, barefooted, to come here and steal candy.
“You’re a pitiful thief,” I said in a low voice. “Do you want to break your mama’s heart?”
He shook his head but he didn’t put the candy back, either. His gaze shifted to the cashier, who was still reading, her face hidden. Maybe all the kids who lived nearby snuck out of bed to rob the store on her shift.
I handed him a twenty, the bill wet from my rain-soaked pocket. “Use this to buy the chocolate so you don’t end up at the police station tonight. Your mom probably needs her sleep.”
He gave me a sweet smile. “Can I keep the change?”
“What for?”
“My sister’s birthday,” he said earnestly.
I rolled my eyes, then smiled. “You can have what’s left after you buy my coffee.” I stepped around him, not understanding why I suddenly needed to set a good example.
As I grabbed a paper cup, I became aware of someone moving in the liquor aisle behind me. Less than twenty feet away Nando stood in front of the refrigeration unit that held the beer.
Scabs encrusted his lips, his face swollen over knobby bruises. Under his right eye, the black threads hanging off the irregular stitches gave me the impression that he had sewn the skin together himself with a needle and thread taken from someone’s sewing kit.
He popped the tab on a beer and drank it where he stood. When he set the empty on the refrigerator shelf, he must have caught my reflection in the glass, because he turned without warning and lunged at me.
I could feel his hatred and took a quick step backward, searching for a weapon, when the deafening blasts of gunfire stopped me. Trek held an AK-47 assault rifle, his eyes fiery with excitement. He had removed the flash suppressor and, when he fired, a long white flame streamed from the muzzle. Bullets riddled the wall above me, crossing the convex mirror that shielded the surveillance camera. Glass burst apart and, glittering, spiraled down, the shards falling on Nando, who pulled a gun from his waistband as he dived behind a wine display. Bottles exploded and the fruity scent of grapes splattered around me.
The boy! I could feel his panic before I found his gaze. He stared at me, shivering violently, his hands over his ears against the thunder of the firing guns. Not knowing where to run and with no place to hide, he had crouched on the floor, an easy target. I raced to him, my heart jolting, adrenaline throbbing through my veins, while brass bullet casings hopped and pinged across the floor and snapped against my legs.
Before I could reach him, bullets tore through his jacket. He screamed, calling for his mother, as plumes of crimson
puffed from his chest. Breathing in the blood-misted air, I fell beside him and pulled him into my arms. The shooting stopped and, through the echo of gunfire, I heard a cry gurgle from the boy’s throat.
I cradled his small torn body, the scents of chocolate and blood and wine blending into the fetid odors brought from death. My lungs strained to find oxygen in the smoke and blood-thick air.
Rico and Satch crashed through the door. Specks of the boy’s shredded coat floated around them as they joined me, their faces hardening to hide their sorrow while Trek strode toward us, triumphant.
“Did I, or did I not, promise to kill Nando if he touched you? And he touched you, didn’t he? So it’s his own damn fault he’s dead, isn’t it?”
I forced my lips into a grim smile and rose as I calculated my chances of disarming Trek before he could fire and kill me.
Rico yanked me against him and, half-dragging me, took me outside into the downpour, his tender, tough grip strangling my fight. “It’s suicide what you’re thinking,” he said against my ear. “We can’t do anything while Trek is the only one with a gun.”
Laughing, Trek followed us outside, Satch close behind him. “This will make the nightly news!” Trek yelled, face up to the storm. “Civilians are going to be afraid to stop at a convenience store. Because of me! I’m nothing but terror, roaming the night, policing with my own justice.”
Trek thrust the assault rifle in front of me. The barrel hissed and steamed in the rain, the vapor warm on my face. I had heard the ritual described enough times to know what happened next. I had to place my fingerprints on the weapon in a show of solidarity to affirm my silence.
Satch grabbed hold, as did Rico.
At last, I clutched the barrel, the metal scalding my skin.
The ritual complete, we returned to the car as sirens broke through the unrelenting sound of rain.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
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