I pried his arms off of my neck. “If I do, you will have to obey my every command.”

He settled on the seat beside me. “I always listen to you when we go to the theater.”

“No, I mean before that. You have to clean your room. I mean really clean it.”

He scowled. “I don’t want to go to the theater that bad.”

I laughed.

“I forgot salad dressing,” Mom said with a long sigh. She picked up the keys to my car from the table where I’d left them for her. “I’m using yours. Mine wouldn’t start when we headed home. I had to get a jump. You’ll have to take me to work tomorrow and then we’ll figure out a way to afford to get mine fixed. Go ahead and put the salad together while I’m gone. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“Okay.”

I tapped Creature on top of the head. “I have a great idea. Why don’t you help me in the kitchen?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“If I have to clean my room, that’s gonna take a while.”

I laughed and then Creature leaned forward on the sofa, his gaze fixed on the living room window, a puzzled expression on his face. “Fireworks.”

Fourth of July was still over a week away. There was no—then I heard it, the scraping of metal on metal and tires as they screeched away from the house. “Creature, get on the floor now and stay there.” We didn’t often have gunshots in the neighborhood but there had been a couple of times. Hoping I was wrong, I hurried to the door and peeked through the window.

The front end of my car was rammed into the front of the neighbor’s car two houses down. Steam poured from beneath the hood. People were rushing toward the accident.

“Stay here.” I instructed at my brother and took off running in my bare feet toward the car. She was a good driver. No, Mom was a great driver. So careful. Please,please,please be okay. I need you. Mark needs you.

One of the neighbors grabbed my shoulders as I reached the crowd, trying to prevent me from seeing. “Your mama’s hurt. The ambulance is on the way.”

I wrested myself away from him and reached my mother. I started glaring at the people gathered, demanding to know why they were all standing around. Why weren’t they helping her? I took Mom by the shoulders and lifted her bowed head upward. I smoothed her hair away from her face and froze. Blood seeped through her shirt near her shoulder. I put my hand on the back of her head and wet stickiness oozed through my fingers. I started screaming. I don’t remember stopping.

*

RYAN

A few minutes before six, Juvante and I silently left Mama Leena’s house. My whole day was shitty because Tana had ordered me to stay away from her. From her tone, it was clear she was done with me. As a result of that, I was in no mood to put up with Rat’s excuses. He was out of time. He had to pay up so I could keep Chanos away from Tana. I knew what would happen if that went down the wrong way.

We didn’t run into much traffic on the way to the crack house so we made good time. A group of teenagers in track suits were hanging out at the park and watched us with sullen expressions as we passed. They were hunched forward, as if the chip of poverty on their shoulders was a heavy burden. An argument started in front of the liquor store and as we passed the two men, they began punching each other.

Juvante adjusted his ball cap, making sure the bill faced backward. In this neighborhood we had to be careful. Wearing a ball cap with the bill slanted one way or the other could signify a gang affiliation the same way certain colors did.

When I parked in front of the run down house, Juvante looked at the overgrown yard and said, “You know I’ve got your back, but you need to start packin’ again.”

“I’m not returning to that life.”

“Sometimes it chooses us and we don’t get to stay away, you know that.” Juvante looked pensive for a second. “Some bad shit with Chanos.”

“We’ll get the money, we’ll give it to him and it’ll be finished.” That was the way it had to work.

“I’m gonna beat the shit out of Clarke and Roman again just for the hell of it.” He opened the door and waited for me to walk around.

If it was possible, the stench from the house was ten times worse than when we’d been here the Saturday before. The front door was shut all the way. Juvante shoved it aside.

A handful of people sat around on the floor talking in quiet tones. Subdued. The party atmosphere from last week was missing. A group of candles flickered in a circle. I didn’t see Rat.

“Shit,” Juvante muttered, looking at me over his shoulder with a “now what?” expression.

“Where is he?” I asked the girl Rat had been with last week.

Her eyes were red-rimmed but she didn’t look high. “He died about four this morning.”

“Did he OD?” Juvante demanded.

She shook her head and the limp, greasy strands of her hair lifted and fell. “He was shot.”

My blood ran cold. I knew. I fucking knew, but I asked anyway. “Who did it?”

Pointing to a shirtless fat guy in khaki shorts, she said, “He says Chanos.”

“Hey!” I called out and the guy looked at me. “You saw Chanos hit Rat?”

He nodded and formed his fingers into the shape of a gun. “Boom and he was down. I never saw so much blood, man. He was begging.” The guy swallowed. “And Chanos hit him again.”

“He say anything?”

“He said, “Nobody fucks with me” and then he spit on him.” The guy swallowed, looking like he needed to puke. “They left him laying in the middle of the road and the guy driving asked him if they were going after Stana.”

“Stana?” Juvante mouthed at me, raising his eyebrows.

Dark dread filled me. I grabbed the guy’s arm and he winced. “Tana?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Shoving the guy away, I turned and ran from the house with Juvante on my heels. I started begging every god I’d ever heard about to please let her be okay. I dialed her number. No answer. Putting the phone on repeat dial, I jumped into the Charger and we raced toward her house. In my mind, I saw Tana in a house built of paper and Chanos standing outside the structure blowing as hard as he could and I was the one who’d led him straight to her.

Chapter Twelve

TANA

The clouds rolled in and the sky wept the rain softly at first and then it ugly cried. The police came with their usual everyone’s-guilty swagger. Just the facts, ma’am. Did she have any enemies? Do you know anyone who might do this? What did you see? The detective’s lips moved, but he wasn’t making any sense. It was all white noise.

The first responders drove away, their sirens crying out into the oncoming darkness as they carried my mother away from my brother and me. The neighbors stood around speaking in hushed whispers, saying how the neighborhood was going to hell.

The car door was still open and the rain blew in on the seats. “This one needs a miracle,” I’d heard one of the paramedics mutter as he’d worked on my mother. I’d caught his eye as he’d run alongside the stretcher and loaded it in the back of the ambulance. His eyes had held the cynicism of one too many bad calls. I shook my head to clear it from what I’d witnessed.

I had to get to my mom. She needed me. I had to get my car so I could drive to the hospital. I pushed past the detective, past the yellow tape, ignoring their orders to stop. I reached for the door of the car, but a police officer stopped me. His face was carved with pity and his voice gentle. “We have to take the car for evidence.”

“But, I don’t have another one. I need it.” I tried to blink, to focus on his voice that came from a thousand miles away.

Then an afraid voice, a little voice on the teetering edge of hysteria, called my name. My brother was in the middle of the street and the rain plastered his hair flat on his head. “Where’d they take Mom?” He jammed his fist into his mouth and looked beyond me to where the ambulance had disappeared. His entire body shook.