UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Advance Reader’s e-proof
courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers
This is an advance reader’s e-proof made from digital files of the uncorrected proofs. Readers are reminded that changes may be made prior to publication, including to the type, design, layout, or content, that are not reflected in this e-proof, and that this e-pub may not reflect the final edition. Any material to be quoted or excerpted in a review should be checked against the final published edition. Dates, prices, and manufacturing details are subject to change or cancellation without notice.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Dedication
For Alessandra Balzer
Contents
Cover
Disclaimer
Title
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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1
The night heat melted over me, the quiet unsettling since the laughter had stopped. I leaned against a tree pocked with bullet holes and scanned the row houses across the street—pretty homes, once, which the owners had padlocked and left to rot.
“They shot out the streetlight,” Ariel said, easing next to me, her breath sweet from drinking at Omar’s party. “Do you think they know we’re here?”
“They’d be chasing us if they did,” I whispered.
From the opposite direction, a rusted station wagon turned the corner and rattled toward us, the headlights beaming across the weeds before sweeping over three homeless teens who lounged on a stoop. Smoke hazed around the first boy, who sucked on something cupped in his hand. I recognized the oldest, his long hair matted. He’d come after us before. The skinny guy next to him shook a beer before he popped the tab. A fine mist sprayed over all three as the car passed and darkness concealed them again.
Ariel glanced back at Kaylee and Melissa, who straggled behind us, their pace slowed to avoid tripping over the tree roots that had broken through the sidewalk. “Kaylee drank too much,” Ariel said. “We’ll never be able to sneak her past those guys.”
“Go back and tell Melissa to get her moving the other way. I’ll stay.”
Ariel didn’t argue. Tonight was my turn. She crept through the weeds, her tight jeans gathering burs as thorned branches caught in her long hair, which was naturally dark brown but had been dyed reddish blond.
I unzipped my purse and grasped the hammer inside. The steel handle, smooth and easy in my fist, gave me a sense of control.
Another car turned onto the street, farther away than the first. I waited for the headlights to lift the shadows, but the car was driving dark.
Adrenaline shot through me. I hurled a stone at Ariel but hit a clump of crabgrass, scattering moths without getting her attention.
My stomach tightened. I had already learned that there were worse things in life than dying. I threw myself into a run, taking a chance that the guys on the stoop had also seen the car and were hiding. Too often, in the Borderlands, the homeless dopers became target practice.
My legs thrashed through the chickweed, raising a storm of gnats, before my feet came down hard on the broken brick walk, the insides of my tennis shoes grinding at my blisters.
Ariel looked up, surprised to see me sprinting toward her. unI pointed to the street and motioned for her to get down. She peered through the scrim of leaves, saw the car, and dropped. Kaylee fell beside her and pressed her head below the weeds as Melissa spread out flat on the nettles. I slid next to Kaylee, squishing into the blackened leaves, the smell of brackish water and slime mold rising from the drainage ditch.
“Lord Jesus . . .” Kaylee began.
I silenced her with a nudge.
The car, packed with gangsters, rolled past us, gun barrels thrust from the windows, Lobos inside, dressed for a mission: black knit caps pulled down to their eyebrows, the necks of their white T-shirts up over the lower half of their faces, leaving only their eyes exposed.
“They’re gunning for Rico,” Ariel whispered, her hoop earrings tangling in her curls. “He’s been puto-ing out their graffiti.”
“How do you know?” I asked in a low voice.
“I watched him,” Ariel said. Sometimes, she went tagging with Rico and, while he defaced the Lobos’ placas and left a challenge with his name, Ariel sprayed the walls with bright-colored murals that no one crossed out because everyone loved her wild style.
I placed the hammer back in my purse, took out the cell phone that belonged to Rico, and texted, Lobos R after U!
When the g-car swung left toward the projects, I gave the phone to Kaylee, who immediately understood and punched in her home number. “Lobos are coming,” she said, her words slurred by alcohol. She handed the phone back to me, her icy fingers barely able to hold it. “Rico’s got to stop before he gets us all killed.”
Gunfire shattered the night. The blasts echoed and reechoed from maybe six blocks away, the firepower cracking harder than thunder. Kaylee flinched but I barely reacted to the noise anymore.
When the barrage ended, I waited for return fire. None came.
Melissa looked at me. “It sounded like they were shooting up the vacant buildings. Why would they waste bullets?”
“They didn’t,” Ariel replied before I could. “They were after Rico.”
“That’s too crazy, even for Rico,” Kaylee said. “He wouldn’t try to outrun them, would he, Blaise?”
“He might,” I whispered, my stomach queasy. I had seen what bullets could do to a friend. In seventh grade, a drive-by had killed my best friend Gabriella while we were walking home from school. I had screamed her name while the drug dealer who had been the real target fired at the car, his bullets punching the air above us as Gabriella’s blood gushed over me.
The vroom of a car engine startled me back to the present. I lifted my head as the g-car took the corner, headlights on now that the mission was completed. Tires shrieked in a sideways skid and rubber scorched the pavement. The gangsters inside uncovered their faces. I recognized all of them from my high school. Hard-core Lobos who called their crew the locos, which meant “the crazy ones.” In street language, it also meant “the brave ones.” Kil
ling Rico would earn them the right to that name forever. In the backseat, the only girl, Gatita, took off her knit cap and let her hair flow into the breeze.
My phone beeped. Rico had texted, M Ok. U?
I sent back a smiley face and finally exhaled. “Rico’s okay,” I announced as I slipped the phone deep in the pocket of my baggy jeans.
“You have to be careful, Blaise,” Ariel said. “If Rico gets away too many times, Lobos are going to come after you and Satch.”
I said nothing. I already knew that being one of Rico’s best friends made me a target.
“Anyway, Lobos aren’t the danger now,” Ariel said. “We have to get out of here before those dopers come after us.” She pulled herself up and, keeping low, crept away through the weeds that lined the drainage ditch, Melissa close behind her.
Kaylee giggled and lolled back into the weeds. “My legs aren’t working.”
“Try again.” I stood and grabbed her arm. “And don’t do this to be funny.”
“I’m not,” she squealed as loud thudding footsteps came from the dark.
The dopers smashed over the sweetbriar and ran toward us, their voices filled with an ugly excitement that caused my skin to prickle.
“We got them!” the first one shouted. He carried a rope, coiled around his dirt-caked arm.
The scrawny teen hurled a beer can at us, then a stone, his eyes wild as he picked up a broken bottle. “Don’t run. We just want to party.”
“We’ll be nice,” yelled the one who had chased us through the Borderlands less than two weeks ago. He wiped at the mangy brown hair that fell across his face.
“Help me,” Kaylee whimpered.
“I’m trying.” I tugged on her arm, but she weighed more than my 103 pounds, and I couldn’t lift her alone.
Ariel spun around and raced back to us. “On the count of three!” she shouted, seizing Kaylee’s free arm. “One. Two. Three!”
We yanked Kaylee to her feet and ran with her tottering between us, through the drainage ditch and onto the street, where the light stretched our shadows into long silhouettes in front of us.
“No one will ever find our bodies,” Kaylee moaned.
“Stop it,” Ariel snapped at her. “Just run.”
Already the shadows of the guys chasing us bobbed into my side vision, their sour odor infusing the heat.
Still sprinting, I released my hold on Kaylee and pulled out the hammer, confident that I could stop one guy, maybe two. I only needed to slow them until Kaylee and Ariel got farther away.
I started to turn back when Melissa, a block ahead of us, shouted, “Cops!”
Three squad cars, one after the other, chased through the intersection near her, their sirens blaring with high-tech blasts, bar lights flashing over trees and an abandoned car.
In the same moment, the steps behind us fell silent. Like phantoms, the guys chasing us had disappeared, probably slithering into crawl spaces and basements in the abandoned homes, where cops would never find them.
Kaylee grabbed her side and, bending over, gasped for air.
“Come on. You know they’ll be back.” I pulled her forward, my own feet burning with pain.
We crossed the intersection and, after two more blocks of running in the steamy heat, we left the Borderlands, a stretch of city blocks that separated the neighborhoods of three rival gangs. Mass 5, Lobos, and Core 9. This was a part of Washington, D.C., that no tourist ever saw.
Ariel smiled and pinched her false eyelashes, which were peeling off at the edges. She wore heavy black eyeliner in wings to the sides of her brown eyes. “We survived another night,” she said.
“Sun hasn’t come up yet,” I countered as we entered the alley behind Mr. Tulley’s liquor store that marked the beginning of our neighborhood.
Melissa scooped up her shiny black hair and held it on top of her head to cool off. She wore a guy’s T-shirt that she’d cut down to a sleeveless, slinky top that revealed her flat stomach above her hip-hugging jeans. She started singing, the way she did when she was happy. “Did anyone talk to Trek before we left the party?” she asked finally.
“Why?” Kaylee said, swaying slightly.
When Kaylee grabbed the fence to steady herself, Mr. Tulley’s Doberman charged from his wooden crate and launched himself against the wire mesh, startling us with his barking. We squealed and jammed against each other, our yells exciting the dog, whose growls became vicious.
Laughing, her voice raised over the barking, Melissa said, “I don’t know. I thought he might have said something about me.”
“Someone’s crushing,” Ariel teased.
“Whatever.” Melissa smiled, showing off her dimples and perfect teeth. Tall and curvy, with delicate features, she had green eyes that radiated joy and the promise of fun. Everything about her was flawless, except for her hands, which were red and chapped, the fingernails torn to the quick. During the winter, I gave her my gloves and went without.
“I’m going after Trek,” she said. “He’s got money and looks and—”
“That stupid dog!” Kaylee interrupted, anger twisting her pretty face.
“It’s just a dog,” I said as we reached the end of the alley, where layers of graffiti crisscrossed the garage doors. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, but her voice sounded strange.
Melissa started singing again, strolling ahead of us.
“Would you please stop?” Kaylee snapped. “You’re giving me a headache.”
Melissa swung back, the truth dawning. “If you staked out Trek, I’ll back off. I saw you with him, but I didn’t think it was more than talk.”
“I hate Trek,” Kaylee replied. “How can you think I’d want him? He’s conceited and cruel and . . .” She stopped when she realized we were staring at her. “He’s a monster.”
“Everyone likes him, Kaylee,” Ariel said defensively.
“He’s always a gentleman with me,” Melissa added. “He knows how to treat a girl right.”
Kaylee stopped in front of the Laundromat where we normally said our good-byes, her fingers tapping out her aggravation on the shopping cart that belonged to Miss Beverly, who stood inside while a washer spun her only clothes.
“You’re living in the wrong neighborhood if you’re looking for Prince Charming,” Kaylee said to Melissa. “And you’re a fool to think you’re going to find him here.” Staggering, she walked away.
“She’s wasted,” Melissa said. “Why’d she drink so much?”
“Why do any of us drink?” Ariel said.
“I better follow her and make sure she gets home.” I left them and found Kaylee in front of my grandmother’s church, kicking at the white dandelion heads that dotted the lawn. She twirled unsteadily through the floating seeds until they spun with her, then she flicked on a fancy butane lighter and set fire to the tiny swirling parachutes. A row of feathery seeds flashed into flame and settled in her brown hair.
“Kaylee!” I patted out the fire, the stench of singed hair wafting between us, then took the silver lighter that she’d stolen from someone at the party and tossed it in the gutter. “What happened tonight, Kaylee?” I asked. “You’re acting crazy.”
Kaylee stared at her blackened thumbnail as we started down the street. “Trek said Core 9 has been courting you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was waiting until I’d made up my mind.” I tried to keep my pride from showing, but we both knew I was the lucky one, the one chosen. Our neighborhood crew didn’t accept just anyone who wanted to join. You had to have something to give, like me. I never backed down from a fight.
“Did Trek ask you?”
“The 3Ts did.” That alone gave me prestige. Everyone feared Tara, Tanya, and Twyla, who were Core 9 homegirls.
As we turned the corner, Kaylee slowed her pace. The squad cars that had passed us earlier blocked the street near Orchid Terrace, a huge complex built of gray cinderblocks where she lived with her mother and siste
rs, and 89 other poor families.
People in bathrobes and pajamas had gathered to watch the police officers cordon off the wasteland of vacant buildings. Yellow crime scene tape wagged in front of Rico’s mother, who stood beside the officer in charge. She pointed to the bullet-pitted plywood that covered a window, probably where she had last seen Rico. She didn’t know yet that he was safe, and I couldn’t tell her, because the cops would start questioning me.
Kaylee opened the door to Orchid Terrace and, without saying good-bye, headed inside.
I caught the door before it closed. “Is this how it’s going to be?”
She turned too quickly and fell against the wall. “Why prolong it?” she asked angrily. “You’re going to leave me behind just like Trek said you would.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I said, wondering why Trek had told Kaylee about all of this when he had just met her at the party. Maybe he’d wanted to impress her.
“You’ll say yes, like Melissa and Ariel already have.” Her face puckered. “You should have told me about them, too.”
“Nothing’s going to affect our friendship,” I promised.
“We’ll see.” She gave me a sad smile and, teetering against the wall, walked away.
That deep, aching sadness, always inside me, stirred closer to the surface. I started running and didn’t stop again until I lifted the door to the garage behind my grandmother’s house. I eased inside, next to her ’89 Chevy. My grandmother rode the bus to work, even though she worked the graveyard shift, and saved her car to drive to church and, at times, to visit my dad at the cemetery. On those days, I pretended not to hear her when she asked me if I wanted to come along.
I unlocked the door to the kitchen and went inside, the hot air thick with camphor and eucalyptus from my grandmother’s arthritis rubs. The green linoleum crackled as I crossed to the living room and switched off the lamp that she always left on for me when she went to work. The sudden darkness would tell anyone watching the house that I had come home, but I didn’t want to be an easy target for a drive-by either.
Using the streetlight that shone through the window, I turned on the burner beneath the teakettle. Blue flames shot up with a loud pop and the smell of gas leaked into the room.