“What’s the matter?” Melissa asked as she joined us.
“The same old thing,” Ariel said. “We’re trapped.”
“Stop thinking about the world outside,” I said, nudging Ariel. “Just concentrate on how good you’re going to feel Monday when we come back to school. Right, Melissa?”
“I decided not to do the jump-in,” Melissa said softly.
“You’ve been talking about this since eighth grade,” I said. “What happened?”
“Trek thinks I should do the rollins instead,” Melissa said, looking away.
“Are you stupid?” Ariel punched Melissa’s arm, hard enough to make her cry out, then added, “No guy wants his girlfriend to pull a train.”
I tried to ban the mental images that were gathering in my mind. Instead of being beaten into the gang, Melissa was going to roll a pair of dice, and whatever number came up would decide how many guys she’d have sex with in order to join Core 9.
“Trek says it’s the only choice for a girl who’s as beautiful as I am.” Melissa brushed back her hair. “He’s worried I’ll get hurt. You’ve seen the scars on Twyla’s face. Her nose is still crooked.”
“You can’t let Trek decide. You’ve only been seeing him for two weeks,” I said. “What’s he done to you?”
“He makes me happy,” Melissa replied.
“If you’re sexed into the gang,” Ariel argued, “no one will respect you. Even guys like Dante will think they can own you.” She pointed to the school entrance where Dante stood, trying to look tough with a cigarette tucked behind his ear and an AK-47 pendant swinging from a chain around his neck.
“Dante won’t bother me,” Melissa countered. “No one will with Trek standing by my side.”
“Do you think he’s going to be there forever?” I asked.
Melissa gave me a stony smile. “Do you think I’m going to live forever? I got a year maybe, and I’m going to live it the best I can.” She swirled around, the scent of her new musky perfume spinning into the air, and walked away from us.
“Trek’s got Melissa hypnotized with all that money he’s spending on her,” Ariel said. “She never would have decided this on her own.”
“We’re going to stop her,” I said grimly.
“How?”
“We’ll take the dice from her and beat her into the gang ourselves.”
“Can we do that?” Ariel asked.
“Of course we can,” I said. “We’re outlaws. We can do anything we want.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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8
The night of the jump-in, Ariel and I crossed the park, the air cool and flecked with ash from the fires burning inside metal trash cans that formed a large circle under the trees. Sparks crackled off the flames and twisted into the wind, smoke swirling around the 3Ts and seven other homegirls who waited for us in the center.
I thought Ariel was watching the red embers spiral into the leaves, until I glimpsed a man-size silhouette crouched on a branch. The wind shifted, bending the leaves, and the flickering light revealed a young man, dressed in black, who pulled himself onto a higher branch out of view.
“Who’d want to watch us get beat up?” I asked, trying to find his outline again.
“Some wannabe probably,” Ariel replied, smearing Vaseline over her face so the punches would glide off her skin.
“No wannabe would have the guts to show up here,” I said.
“A homeless person, then,” Ariel snapped. “Who cares?”
I stared at her, suddenly understanding. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“Just forget about it, all right? I want to get this over with.”
I didn’t say more because we had stopped in front of the fire near the picnic tables, where Rico and Satch stood with their homeboys, drinking beer, apparently unaware of the intruder in the tree. The Core 9 girls would beat us into the gang, but the homeboys could watch. More homies were wandering up the street from the party at Trek’s house, the music from inside echoing into the night.
My nervous fingers worked my hair into a braid that I tucked into the back of my long-sleeved T-shirt. I’d worn tight-fitting old jeans that I could trash if they got too bloody and torn, but my real preparation for the jump-in had started years ago, when I’d practiced dodging punches and deflecting blows because I had to learn how to fight to survive in the neighborhood.
Dante glanced at me, then laughed and said something to Omar, probably making fun of how scared Ariel and I appeared. The prickling in my stomach had surprised me. I hadn’t expected to feel so afraid.
Omar remained stone-faced, ignoring Dante, who continued to laugh until Rico slammed his hands into Dante’s shoulders and gave him an edgy stare. The laughter stopped so completely I could hear the flames crackling.
“We’re cool,” Dante said, backing away from the confrontation, his palms up in a gesture of surrender.
Rico waited until Dante left the park before he made his way to me. I handed him my cell phone to hold, then took out my earrings, which had been a gift from my dad, and gave them to him as well.
He slipped everything into his pocket. “Stay relaxed,” he instructed.
“Hey, Toughness.” Satch joined us and handed me a fistful of cotton. “I brought this so you could protect your smile.”
“Thanks,” I said with a nervous laugh before pushing wads of cotton between my lips and teeth.
Hugging me, Rico whispered, “Show them what you got.”
Tara signaled for me to go first. My heart, already racing on adrenaline, knocked against my ribs. I kicked off my shoes. Barefoot, I was more agile, able to jump, pivot, and spin, skills I needed because I wasn’t allowed to fight back, only protect myself.
“See you soon,” I said. The beating would last for sixty seconds.
When I stepped into the circle, Tanya flung her arms around me. “Welcome, Blaise.”
Her friendliness put me on guard. I bent my knees, my toes squeezing the grass. The moment Tara began the count, Tanya tried to throw me to the ground. I kept my balance and broke away, only to crash into punches that battered my shoulders and head, each blow sending a shock through my body.
I bounced back, dipped, and spun, avoiding several hits until more girls jostled around me, closing in tight. So many fists came at me that when I ducked away from one I bobbed up into another. Panic snaked into my stomach. I had been arrogant to think I could escape the beating with dips and spins.
“. . . sixteen . . . seventeen . . . eighteen . . .”
Something razor-edged sliced my scalp, a ring or maybe an acrylic nail. Blood trickled through my hair, dripping warm onto my forehead. I blinked and the color red seeped into my vision. In the second that I paused to wipe my eyes, Tanya caught me and socked my arm, her strength staggering.
“. . . twenty-five . . . twenty-six . . . twenty-seven . . .”
I stood motionless, recovering. The dagger-sharp pain renewed its bite with each breath, while all around me girls continued to punch my neck and chest, their jabs nothing compared with what Tanya could do.
Through the crimson haze that blurred my vision, I saw Tanya coming at me again. My heart skipping beats, I stumbled backward, eluding her, until four other girls penned me in, their fists battering my head.
Panting, I worked hard to deflect their blows, my arms catching their strikes, new bruises throbbing under tender skin. Unable to bear more, I spun to escape them, nearly tripping over their legs, and rammed into Tanya, who swung her hand into my stomach.
“. . . forty-two . . . forty-three . . . forty-four . . .”
Air left my lungs in a whoosh. My abdomen cramped with an explosion of pain as spasms squeezed my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I needed air. Faces and fires rotated around me, melding together in a spin. I steadied myself, fighting the dizziness. If I fell to the ground, the beating would be worse.
r /> “. . . fifty . . . fifty-one . . . fifty-two . . .”
Under a barrage of fists, I stumbled, trying to avoid Tanya, who swung again and struck my nose. New pain seared through my head and crackled down my spine. I wanted to give up, yell for them to stop—but if I did, I’d lose my chance to become part of Core 9 and end up a nobody.
I stepped back, sucking at air through my swelling nostrils, only to gag on the blood that gurgled in the back of my throat. My fear spiked. I could not survive another hit from Tanya, who seemed to materialize in front of me. Her knuckles landed on my cheek, near my right eye. Tiny light-comets streaked through my vision. My knees gave way and, as I started to fall, I thought of my grandmother, how my death would destroy her.
“. . . fifty-eight . . . fifty-nine . . . sixty!”
“Stop!” Tara yelled, jumping in front of me. She braced me against her, holding me up, and took the last hits on her own back.
Slowly, my strength returned. I balanced precariously on quaking legs and faced Tara, who used my blood to write Core 9 across my face, each letter stinging my raw skin.
When she finished, Tanya began to jump from one foot to the other, back and forth, faster and faster, pounding the ground in praise of me. The other girls joined in and stomped with her until the earth hollered with a stampede of feet. Joy raced through me. I had done it. My heart soared with pride.
A calm I hadn’t felt for a long time spread through me. No matter what happened now, I would always have a family.
The homegirls—my homegirls—took turns hugging me, and when each one pulled back, she had my blood on her face, which no one wiped away, another tribute to me.
Taking deep gulping breaths, I limped back to Ariel, who waited outside the circle, her arms open. As I started to hug her, other arms encircled me, turning me around. With only the use of my left eye, my right swollen shut, I stared up at Satch, who looked at me intensely.
“Are you okay?” His fingers brushed through my snarled hair, the undone braid, and over the cut on my scalp, and when his palms came back wet with my blood, he cradled me against his hard body before he gave me to Rico, who wrapped his arms around me.
“I’m okay,” I muttered, barely able to open my mouth and take out the blood-soaked cotton.
Leaning against Rico, I stared at the red imprint of my face on Satch’s white T-shirt and thought about the way he had held me. I had sensed that he’d wanted to say something more, but my head was too muddled with pain and dizziness to know for sure.
“My turn,” Ariel said, pulling me from my thoughts. “Wish me good luck.”
“Watch out for Tanya,” I tried to whisper, my lips sticking together, gluey with blood.
“I’ll be careful.” She slid between the fires, her boldness not fooling me. She was scared. Probably more than I had been, since she’d witnessed what they’d done to me.
The wind quickened as she walked into the circle. The trees, bending with the gusts, plunged their branches into the fires and swung back with leaves aflame. A halo of blazes crackled overhead, the firelight writhing over the homegirls, who eased in closer, surrounding Ariel.
Tara began the count and the homegirls attacked. Fists hammered Ariel, who bobbed, then stooped and swerved as the wind swept more branches though the fires. Tiny flames climbed over a new tapestry of leaves.
Ariel glanced up while trying to fend off the blows, searching for the person in the tree, and not watching Tanya.
When I started to cry out and warn her, Rico shushed me. “She’s got to do it on her own.”
Tanya plowed into Ariel. The impact threw her to the ground. She landed on her stomach. Her head bobbed up and she seemed confused to find herself sprawled in the grass. Before she could stand, Twyla kicked her forehead and the skin split open. Ariel tucked her head down and, guarding her face with her arms, disappeared in the tangle of kicking feet as the homegirls encircled her.
I looked away and became aware of Satch, standing alone, behind his friends, his stillness giving me the impression that he had been watching me for a while. He smiled, then grabbed a six-pack off the picnic table and walked away.
I might have gone after him but Rico grasped my shoulders, his touch trying to fortify me for what I was going to see.
“It’s over,” he said. “At least Ariel’s standing.”
The wind had toppled three trashcans and scattered the burning debris. Black smoke, speckled with glowing embers, stirred around the homegirls. Twyla and Tanya held Ariel between them, while Tara wrote Core 9 in the blood that covered her face.
After the homegirls had finished embracing her, she hobbled toward me, glancing furtively up into the trees before she fell into my arms, her cheek slick with blood. “We did it,” I rasped, my fingers gliding over the knots that covered her back and arms, and probably resembled the blackened bumps on her hand and chin.
“Help me walk,” she said jaggedly, her voice not as garbled as mine. “I don’t want to have to be carried.”
I nodded and, with Ariel leaning against my throbbing body, the older girls paraded us down the street, past the homeboys who sat on Trek’s porch, drinking forties and holding guns. A few pulled out their cell phones and took pictures of us before we entered the crowded living room, where music vibrated the floor, the air hot and filled with layers of smoke that smelled of cigarettes, skunk, and burnt plastic.
Though we were supposed to continue on to the kitchen to celebrate, I leaned Ariel against a wall and surveyed the crowd. Trek sat on the couch, his arm around Melissa, who wore a clingy yellow dress. Her silver bracelets glimmered, reflecting light from a line of candles on the window ledge. She was already shaking the dice, her fingernails manicured, bright pink.
Clumsily, my back and neck stiff, my head aching, I shoved my way through the guys gathered around her, snatched the dice before anyone could count the dots, and fell flat on the table. Pain ruptured in my side as I struggled to my feet and lunged at Melissa, my blood splattering the homeboys, who laughed at my slow-motion boxing when I tried to beat her.
“What are you doing?” Melissa slapped my hands away.
Trek nodded to Omar, who wrested the dice from me and gave them back to Melissa.
“Change your mind.” My swollen lips slurred my words, my teeth aching as I spoke. “Go in the circle. It’s not too late.”
“And end up like you?” Melissa said, wiping my blood from her cheek. “I’m the one who made the right choice. You’re going to be scarred for life.” Then, acting coquettish, she looked at the homeboys and rolled the dice across the smear of blood that I had left on the table.
When I tried to lunge forward again, Omar blocked my way and I stumbled against him. “Come on, Blaise,” he said. “I’ll have to stop you if you try, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
Conceding defeat, I rested my forehead against his chest, too weak to fight. He cupped my elbows, seeming to sense how close I was to collapsing.
“Nine,” the homeboys roared.
My stomach pitched. I turned away, knowing I could not possibly feel worse and, in the same breath, I did. Ariel was slipping down the wall, blood pouring from the cut on her forehead. I struggled back to her, barely able to make my way around the couples who had started dancing now that the homegirls had returned from the jump-in.
“Did you beat Melissa into the gang?” Ariel asked, her teeth chattering.
I held her against me, her skin too cold, and tried to warm her with my body. Fear shot through me when I placed my fingers on her pulse and felt a strange threading of beats that rushed together.
“We need to get you to a doctor,” I muttered.
“I think it’s too late.” Ariel’s eyelids fluttered and she slid through my arms, her weight too much for me to hold.
I glanced back at Melissa, hoping she would see Ariel and help me, but Melissa was already heading up the stairs with a pack of homeboys.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperC
ollins Publishers
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9
I trotted alongside Satch and Rico, who carried Ariel between them, her head lolling against Rico’s arm. The cut on her forehead still bled, her blood dripping onto the sidewalk. We were taking her to Irwin, an old man who had been a medic in Vietnam. Though I supposed his medical practice was illegal, no one snitched, because we needed him to treat injuries that the police might want to investigate.
We took the shortcut through the park. Fires sputtered in the trees and spilled fiery leaves that whirled around us. The heat grew intense near the picnic tables, the singed grass hot beneath my feet. I had hoped to grab my forgotten shoes, but they smoldered where I had left them, scorched and ruined.
When I dodged a burning branch that swept in front of me, I glimpsed someone creeping through the billowing smoke.
Rico slowed his pace. “Someone’s trailing us.”
“There’s no time for a confrontation,” I pleaded, my words slurring together.
“Go,” Satch said as fire engines rumbled to a stop on the opposite side of the park. The revolving lights on the trucks flashed over the swirling soot while firefighters connected hoses to the hydrant.
Two blocks later, we arrived at Irwin’s house. Boards were missing from the sunken porch, as were the stairs. A single cinder block functioned as a step.
I trusted Irwin, but the blood oozing from Ariel’s forehead worried me. How much blood could a person lose and still live? “Maybe we should take Ariel to the hospital where they can give her a transfusion.”
“How are you going to explain the way you look to the cops who’ll be on duty in the emergency room?” Rico asked.
“Car accident,” I said.
“Cops will swarm all over you,” Satch argued, “because the two of you look beaten.”
The door scraped open and Irwin stepped onto his sagging porch, a red robe tied over his pajamas. “Bring Ariel inside. I’ll decide if she needs to go to the hospital.”