The desperation in her voice stopped me. Reflexively, I grabbed the doorknob, wanting to comfort her, and almost called her name before caution overruled me. I turned away and plunged down the stairs, taking them two at a time.
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The heat thickened near the Anacostia River, the air infested with stinkbugs and flies that landed on my face as I plodded through trash in the vacant lot. The Lobos had sprayed new graffiti over the factory wall, but the gold-painted “RICO” still bled through their colors, the letters shimmering in the sunlight.
I stopped where Rico had died and dropped my father’s gun on the bloodstained earth, my body feverish with hate. I could have killed Trek all over again for what he’d done to Rico, Melissa, and Kaylee.
Wiping the tears off my cheeks, I wondered how I was still alive. Once I had stolen inside Trek’s house, I had thought of myself as dead and, though I had planned an escape, I had never believed that I could make it out. Yet, here I was, tempting fate to end my life with bullets from a Lobos patrol.
By the time the moon had risen behind the misty clouds and no one had shot me, I knew that fate was protecting me because it still had plans for me. I wondered what dreadful purpose I had left to serve as I walked home through the Lobos’ neighborhood without my usual caution. I didn’t stop until I stood in front of my grandmother’s scraggy roses, which had to skimp and wait for rain because our water bill was too high. The blossoms drooped, their petals spiraling to the ground. I caught a handful and, breathing their sweetness, trudged inside and up the stairs, ignoring the light my grandmother had left on for me.
In the bathroom, I took off my clothes, stuffed them into the hamper, and stepped into the drizzling shower. Goose bumps broke across my body. The water heater had gone out again. I dried off and then studied the wound on my forehead in the mirror.
Blood oozed from the gash, the skin distended and warm, infection already festering in the swelling that was tender to my touch. I grabbed the scissors to cut my hair and paused. Even thicker bangs couldn’t hide the mark that revealed what I had done.
I stared at the solemn girl in my reflection.
“You’re not who I am,” I whispered, as if my face belonged to a stranger. “You’re what the neighborhood has made me, but you’re not me.”
The odd feeling that my reflection was detached, a separate and alive mystical twin, stopped as if I had suddenly awakened. I had never heard of anyone falling asleep while standing, eyes wide open, but I supposed I could have dozed off; the sensation had been that of a dream. Even so, while I pulled on my sweats, I kept glancing back at the mirror, half-expecting my doppelganger to peer out at me.
I hurried to my room and grabbed my cell phone, stunned to discover I had no messages. No one had even tried to call. Alarm twitched through me. I rubbed my fingers against my breastbone, trying to calm myself.
I supposed that Trek’s death wasn’t the kind of news that was left in a message. Maybe the 3Ts or Kaylee or Ariel were watching the house, waiting for me to come home. I hadn’t turned off the living room light, so how would they know I was here? I raced downstairs, switched off the lamp, and listened, expecting footsteps to pound up the porch steps.
The only sound came from distant music, which grew louder until the boom-boom-boom-bah shuddered the walls. I fell to the floor, my will to live surprising me, and crawled to the window, expecting to see gun barrels pointed at the house.
A blue Buick parked at the curb, Dante behind the steering wheel. The music stopped and Satch jumped out. I scrambled to the door and opened it before Satch could knock, then stepped back, letting darkness swallow me.
“Trek’s been shot,” Satch announced as he stepped inside, his gaze settling on the shadow where I stood. “The bullet cut a path over his scalp, skinned right through his hair.”
My heart pounded a paroxysm of beats. If Trek was alive, why hadn’t he told Satch that I was the shooter? Or had he?
“Omar got drunk and let the shooter get inside,” Satch said. “Trek’s fired him and he’s mad as hell because, afterward, Omar was so wild for revenge that he didn’t even check to see if Trek was still alive. He left him for dead. Melissa and Dante took Trek to the hospital, but he could have bled to death. We’re going there now to pick him up. Come on with us.”
“So Trek’s your friend again?” I said accusingly. “You told me there was no way around it, either Trek dies or we die, but obviously you found another way.”
“Don’t you understand?” Satch said, easing closer. “Trek’s going to be maniacal about catching whoever shot him. He won’t have time for anything else.”
“So you think he’s going to forget that we’re witnesses—”
“—of course not—”
“—and not come after us?”
“This just gives us time to get him,” Satch said.
“How long?”
“We won’t know until we see him. Let’s go. Dante’s waiting.”
“And why are you with Dante?”
“He’s a ride, nothing more. Trek’s going to dump him, too. Melissa said that Dante got as drunk as Omar.” Satch offered me his hand. “Don’t you want to see Trek and gloat? No one’s ever gotten to him before.”
“Are you the lure, Satch?” I asked, the heaviness in my heart unbearable. “Are you supposed to convince me that it’s safe to get into the car with you and Dante?”
“What?”
I stepped into the light so he could see my forehead.
He flinched. “You should have waited for me.” His anger sounded sincere, but a good lure had to be a good actor, too. “You can’t go out to the car. Dante knows what that mark means and, more than anything right now, he wants to redeem himself in Trek’s eyes. He’ll call Trek and tell him you’re the shooter.”
“Trek knows who shot him,” I said calmly. “He watched me pull the trigger.”
“The bullet gave him a concussion, so maybe he can’t remember.” Satch spoke so earnestly that I almost believed him.
“Trek could be lying to you,” I suggested, watching Satch’s response. “Lots of people lie when it’s to their advantage.” I stepped away from Satch, my hand gliding over my grandmother’s wedding picture, willing to throw it at him if he came at me.
“The attic,” he said suddenly. “Escape through the attic.”
“And what will you tell Dante when you go back to the car without me?” I asked, my suspicion mounting.
“I’ll say you wanted to change your clothes. That’ll give you time to get away.”
I didn’t move. The emptiness inside me felt odd; the stillness, the quiet. After all my rage and terror, I felt nothing. Perhaps I had had too many emotions, more than my heart could handle, and as a safety precaution, my mental circuit breaker had shut down all feeling.
“Go!” Satch stepped back, giving me room to race past him. “Hurry! Before Dante decides to come inside to see what’s taking so long.”
I only had one way to find out if I could trust Satch. I raced up the stairs to the second floor landing, grabbed the rope connected to the folding ladder in the attic, and yanked hard. The ladder clattered down and, before it had even settled, I jumped onto the bottom rung and scurried up, my speed an act for Satch.
Breathing the dust and heat stored from the day, I balanced on the top rung. When the front door closed, I climbed down, shoved the ladder into place, and made my way to the living room window.
The Buick was no longer in front. I hadn’t expected it to be. Dante had driven down the street to Satch’s house, where it was less risky for Satch to grab me.
Satch hadn’t been able to entice me out to the car and, if he’d tried to force me, I would have fought him. Then, when my grandmother found her living room in shambles and me missing, she would have called the police, who would
have investigated my disappearance as a crime. In his own home, Satch could clear away any evidence of my struggle and, after, everyone would believe my disappearance was simply that of another runaway.
I couldn’t blame Satch for betraying me. To survive he had to prove that he was down for Trek, and turning against me proved that more than shooting Tony.
He and Dante were probably laughing, anticipating the shock and fear on my face when I descended from the attic into Satch’s hallway. Once they realized I had outmaneuvered them, they’d come back, lusting for revenge.
I left through the back door, caught in the gangster’s dilemma. I needed to call the cops and ask them to protect me, but I couldn’t call them because I’d committed too many crimes of my own. I headed toward the wasteland of vacant buildings to the window where I usually broke in, but since my last visit, the District had switched from plywood for boarding up the windows to steel screens. When I tried to pry the screen loose, the sharp edges sliced my skin. I left the frame slippery with blood and considered my options. I’d have to hide out in the garages near Tulley’s.
I had almost reached the street when the call tone from a cell phone broke the stillness. I dropped to the ground and slid under a wisteria, the purple flowers fluttering their fragrance around me.
While Dante talked on the phone, Satch, who lagged behind him, bent down to examine what Dante had ignored, my footprints in the fallen wisteria petals.
My fingers closed around the neck of a discarded bottle. Though I could release my feral instincts on Dante and jam the glass into his eye, I didn’t know if I could attack Satch with the same ferocity.
Dante ambled back to Satch, pulling his attention away from the petals, and handed him the phone. “Trek wants to talk to you.”
Speaking loudly, as if Trek was groggy from painkillers, Satch said into the phone, “We’ll find her. She’ll try the vacant buildings first, and then the garages near Tulley’s. I know all her hiding spots.”
I thought of a place that Satch might not know. Years before I had even been born, my grandfather had built a box against the house to cover the gas meter. A new electronic model had replaced the old meter, but the little shed still housed the original, which my grandmother had called an eyesore. I might be able to hide inside.
After Satch and Dante turned the corner, I slipped away and ran quietly to my house.
Less than waist high, the shed seemed too small. Rust and dirt flaked off the bolt as I worked it loose and lifted the latch. The door wobbled open, the hinges rattling nervously as I squeezed into the cobwebs filled with insect husks, and curled over the meter and pipes, my back pressed against the top planks. I pinched a cross board and pulled the door closed.
Within minutes, my feet started to go numb. I had crammed myself in so tightly that I was never going to be able to spring out and run if they found me.
Dante’s laughter rang out from somewhere near. He didn’t even have enough sense to be stealthy when they stalked me. I wondered why Satch wasn’t warning him to be quiet.
Silence followed. I tensed, my calves and thighs quivering. What were they doing? If they had gone past my house, I should have heard their steps. My heart sank. I knew they had found me even before the cross board snapped from my fingers and the door swung open.
Satch stood, staring down at me.
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“Nothing but an old gas meter and cobwebs,” Satch lied, slamming the door before Dante could see me. “A little kid couldn’t even fit inside. I don’t know why you wanted to check it.”
A click of metal told me Satch had closed the latch, but when the deadbolt rasped into the slot, the hope that he had been protecting me evaporated. He had no reason to lock me inside unless he planned to keep me trapped so he could take me to Trek himself.
“You didn’t let me see,” Dante complained, his shadow flickering over the light that came through the cracks.
“Why do you need to?” Satch asked. “I already looked.”
“Trek asked me to find her,” Dante argued, but his tone conveyed that he was backing down.
“We better check the garages near Tulley’s,” Satch said, stepping away. “That’s where she’ll be.”
“All right,” Dante agreed too readily.
I knew he was going to come back, alone, the moment he could. He had a dangerous need to please Trek and was clearly suspicious.
As soon as the only sound came from the stuttering swamp cooler across the street, I pressed my foot against the door and bore down, trying to bust the hinges. Nothing gave way. After my second attempt failed, I squirmed off the meter and shoved my shoulder and head against the door.
The hinges jangled and nails creaked, pulling from the wood. A board cracked with a loud snap and the shed shifted. I lost my balance and slipped down, caught between the meter and the bolted door. I could barely breathe.
I edged my foot flat against the rear of the shed, then pushed off the back wall, using the strength of my leg to ram my body against the door. Blood rushed to my temples. I knew I couldn’t last much longer. With all my remaining energy, I gave a final shove.
Wood rasped with an eerie screech. The door split open and I fell onto the grass as the shed broke apart, an explosion of wood. A board hit the bridge of my nose, and then I lay still, gulping air, letting the pain hold me as the cramps in my muscles loosened. The effort had left me drained and shaking.
Slowly, I became aware of the boom-boom-boom-bah of music. Dante was returning sooner than I had thought possible. I rolled onto my belly, splinters impaling my skin, and dragged myself off the shattered wood. Blood dripped from my nose, pattering onto the grass, as I crawled toward the porch. The space under the stoop, where my grandmother stored her gardening tools, offered me refuge. I wriggled in and grabbed the hand cultivator. The claw, used to weed the soil, made a lethal weapon.
The Buick pulled up to the curb, the music died, and Dante, alone in the car, stared at the broken shed, his face confused, his last hope stolen. I almost felt a twinge of pity for him. He wanted so desperately to belong, but respect was hard won and easily lost, and Dante had lost his. He had backed down too many times, proving he no longer had the fearlessness needed to be a Core 9 gangster. He drove away, the music silent, defeat in his slow speed.
Unlike Dante, Satch would understand that I had injured myself. I needed to leave before he returned. A gardening tool wouldn’t be enough to stop him.
As I staggered across the street, muffled thumping came from down the block. With only seconds to hide, I threw myself beneath my neighbor’s swamp cooler, where shadows covered me. The muddy water from the constant dripping soaked into my sweats and eased the sting of the splinters in my arms.
From behind a cluster of bobbing dandelions, I watched Ariel and the 3Ts run up to my house, men’s wool socks pulled over their tennis shoes to hush the clap of their soles on the pavement. Ariel used the key that I had given her to unlock the door and they vanished inside.
I tried to ignore the ache in my chest that prompted my annoying need to cry. A shooting within a gang always forced its members to reconsider their loyalties. Those were the consequences of taking a stand, nothing worth crying over. Even so, I hadn’t expected Ariel or the 3Ts to turn against me.
A light came on in my bedroom, a half circle over the wall. For some reason, they had set my desk lamp on the floor. When a car turned the corner, the bedroom light went out and four figures appeared at my window. As they watched the car, I wondered if they thought I had defected and shot Trek for money, paid by an enemy gang.
After the car passed, they stepped away from the window and the light switched on, again. I settled back in the mud and, wincing from the pain, began to flex my ankles, pulling against the knots in my thighs and calves. Though Ariel and I had wrestled against ea
ch other, the 3Ts had never fought me. At the jump-in, I hadn’t been allowed to fight back. This time I could, and they would feel the difference.
Hours later, the front door opened. Ariel and the 3Ts snuck down the porch steps, leaving my house as furtively as they had come. I scanned the misty morning, certain Trek would send someone else to watch my house, and when I saw no one, I dashed across the street. I slipped inside, grabbed my cell phone off the coffee table, and listened to my only message as I raced up the stairs and shut myself in the bathroom.
“Blaise,” Trek’s groggy voice said. “Call me. We’ve got things to discuss.”
I hated his smugness and texted back two words before I stepped into the shower and let the cold spray wash over my swollen nose, knowing that if my grandmother came home, she would think I was getting ready for school, unaware that this was the last time she would see me. A cry sputtered from my lips when I thought of her, but I choked back the sob and steeled myself. I didn’t have time to cry.
In my bedroom, my hair dripping water down my back, I rushed into my closet and looked through the hand-me-downs that I never wore. I dressed in jeans, a purple paisley blouse, a pink sweater, and the shoes that the 3Ts had bought me. Quickly, I packed a nightgown, underwear, and a wide-brimmed, floppy hat into my purse, then slid my phone into my pocket.
As I hurried to leave, I glanced down and stopped. On the floor, tucked under my lamp, was a stack of money. I felt overwhelmed. My friends hadn’t abandoned me, after all. They had left an unopened pack of cigarettes with the money, though I didn’t smoke, to let me know they had given me everything they had and were wishing me well.
I picked up the money and the cigarettes and stuffed them into my purse as a car pulled up outside. I glanced out my bedroom window. A police officer was climbing out of a squad car, undoing the snap on his gun holster. Blood drained from my head. Had Trek given me up to the cops?
Anxiety tripped me up, but only for seconds. I still had time to escape through the back. I rushed down the stairs and almost collided into my grandmother, who was crossing the living room.