The windows held a thin skin of fog where breath hit glass and faded. Late October had the air sitting light on the chest, not cold enough to bite, but cold enough to make every exhale visible if you looked for it. Ramon drove one-handed, wrist loose on the wheel. E.J. sat up front, seat pushed back, a hand draped across his knee like he was keeping time with nothing. In the back, Tyree spread out in the middle and Caine tucked himself by the door, phone lighting his hoodie like a small square moon.
He scrolled without smiling. Short clips. Reposts. Still shots of last night stamped with hearts and fire. The words came quick and dumb and flattering. They stacked until they sounded like static. He let them run over him, then thumbed them away. The glow faded a notch.
“Aye,” E.J. said, looking back just enough. “You got bullets in that shit?”
Caine bent and picked the pistol up off the floor. He thumbed the mag release and caught the magazine in his palm. He counted fast. He shrugged.
“Like thirteen.”
E.J. popped the glove box and pulled out a small cardboard box with a corner torn up, plus an empty mag. He tossed both over the seat. “Go on and fill that bitch up.”
Tyree rolled his head toward them, grin crooked. “Look at you. Handin’ the bitch off so another nigga can load her up.”
E.J. didn’t miss a beat. “Nigga please. You the one be at the end of trains. Don’t put that shit on me.”
Tyree laughed into his sleeve. “Says the motherfucker be fucking on white bitches on the West Bank. Nast”
Caine pressed brass into spring. The mag pushed back every time like a small argument. His thumbs burned after the first stack and he shifted grip without looking, breathing steady. The car hummed around them. A streetlight smeared itself across the windshield and slid off into dark.
“Don’t drop none,” Tyree said, the words a poke more than a warning. “Ramon gonna be mad if he finding bullets in his shit for a week.”
“I ain’t no rookie,” Caine said, quiet.
He topped off and tapped the mag flat on his knee. Slid it in. Checked it. Dropped it again and started on the empty one. The heater clicked and sighed. The night outside was clean of bugs and thick air. Buildings passed with their lights down and their signs off, windows reflecting only the car back at them.
Ramon didn’t talk. He watched mirrors like they were always saying something. He took a turn and another, easing them onto a wider road. The East opened up and got empty in the way that made sound travel farther. Somewhere a dog barked twice. A traffic light hung longer than it needed to, then gave.
They pulled behind a building that could have been anything by day. By night, it was just a wall and a metal door and a hum from something electrical. The lot held a few cars with shut mouths. Two old sodium lamps washed everything with a tired yellow.
“Come on,” Ramon said.
They stepped out. The night slid under their clothes where heat had been sitting all week. It felt cleaner. It made breath show for a second before it disappeared. Caine kept his hands low and his eyes up. Tyree cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders like he was getting ready for a picture nobody was taking.
Kevin stood with a handful of guys near the back fence, bodies half in shadow, hands easy but not empty. Ramon walked like he knew the ground. He and Kevin closed the space with a quick grip and shoulder bump.
Ramon pulled a roll of money from his pocket and lifted it just enough to catch the half light. Kevin tipped his chin and drifted to a crate. A black duffel came up from the dark behind it. Zipper closed. He handed it over like it didn’t weigh anything.
“Don’t do all that in one night,” Kevin said, a laugh under the words. “I don’t wanna see my homie on TikTok lookin’ like a clucker on Canal.”
Ramon shook his head, a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Never that. You know I leave them pills to y’all.”
Kevin’s people watched the corners while they talked. Shoes scuffed once. Someone cleared a throat. The lot held its breath and then let it out slow.
They split without a promise. Ramon carried the bag like it was nothing, but he kept it close to his leg. Back at the car, Tyree popped the trunk and the hinges answered with a soft complaint. Ramon set the duffel inside with a low thump and closed it gently with his palm.
“I’m fucking hungry, dog,” Tyree said as the trunk clicked. “Let’s get some motherfucking food.”
Ramon stared at him through the open gap over the roof. “We got four bags of pills in the trunk and you wanna stop for a fucking happy meal?”
Tyree shrugged. The shrug said he could eat under any sky. “Them pills ain’t going nowhere.”
E.J. looked from Tyree to the lot and then to Ramon. He didn’t add anything.
They got back in. Doors shut soft, one after the other. The cabin held that small quiet cars have before a radio comes on, but nobody reached for it. Caine slid the fresh mag into his pocket and kept the other in his hand, thumb on the baseplate like he could feel the count through plastic. The smell in the car had changed since they got out. Cold air. Faint oil. Something like fish and fryer grease carried on their clothes from the wind that cut the corner.
Ramon sat for a beat with the engine running. He looked in the mirror and then the other one. He shook his head once like he was agreeing with himself. He put the car in drive and pulled them out slow.
~~~
The building’s parking lot was near empty, the paint on the lines almost gone. A cold breeze skated across the asphalt and found the crack under the door. Inside, the fluorescents hummed like a headache. Everything smelled like disinfectant and stale coffee, the kind of clean that made your tongue taste metal.
Roussel hunched behind the desk, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a stack of files squared into a neat wall at his wrist. He liked them squared. Forms were control you could see. He flipped to the violation section, circled a missed check-in, laid the pen down in a perfect line, then picked it up again. The chair under him squeaked every time he shifted. He did not shift much.
Down the hall, his assistant typed with two fingers. The building had settled into the kind of quiet that made every small sound feel bigger. The heater clicked on, then off. Somewhere a toilet tank refilled and kept refilling.
A knock came at the outer door. The assistant buzzed it without standing, then stood anyway when she heard a man’s voice. “He’s in his office,” she said. The latch clicked. Footsteps crossed the scuffed floor and paused at the threshold like they were taking stock.
Markus Shaw, suit tailored to perfection, stepped in and let the door ease shut behind him. He did not rush. He did not smile. He looked once around the room, taking in the stacked files, the plastic plant that never fooled anyone, the camera dome in the corner. Then he sat.
Roussel did not look up right away. He finished his line, capped the pen, and only then lifted his eyes. “I didn’t tell you to sit.”
“Does that make you mad,” Markus said, the I clear and deliberate. “That I didn’t wait on permission.”
Roussel leaned back. The chair complained. “What you want?”
“What’s it going to take,” Markus said, “for you to stop blocking college visits for my client.”
Roussel let out a small sound, almost amusement. “Nothing you can do,” he said. “If he wanted a future he should’ve stuck to knocking up ghetto trash and playing pretend. Instead, he wanted to be a gangster.”
The word hung in the air. The heater clicked again and failed to catch. Markus did not answer. He watched Roussel like a man watching a fire burn through a field that was not his, the patience of someone who knew heat passed. Then he said, soft, “You’re probably right.”
Roussel’s mouth twitched at the corner.
“What was it like?” Markus asked.
Roussel blinked once. “What you mean?”
“Getting fired,” Markus said. “Troop B. What was it for again?” He tilted his head a fraction. “Soliciting and malfeasance?”
Silence folded over the desk. Roussel’s jaw worked once. He set the pen down. He made the move small like he did not care, like the air did not shift. “You knowing that doesn’t bother me.”
“You’re right.” Markus stood and smoothed his jacket with one palm. “It wouldn’t bother me either. I would be mad, though,” he said, voice even, “if I was a racist piece of shit who lost a cushy state job and had to sit here making forty-five a year while people who look like me clear that in a month.”
He buttoned the top button slow, eyes never leaving Roussel. “I’m going to win.”
“Not in time for that boy to go to college,” Roussel said. His smile showed teeth this time. Power was a smile you could wear.
Markus nodded like he knew weather when he saw it. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out nothing. Just the gesture. A practice of gathering himself. “Have a good night,” he said. “Enjoy your hungry man dinner.”
He turned for the door.
The room swallowed the sound quick. Roussel sat very still. The smile fell slow, like sap. He reached for the pen and found it had rolled out of its perfect line. He squared the stack. He squared the pen. He shook his head at nothing, a small irritation, like swatting a gnat.
From the front, the assistant cleared her throat. “Everything all right, William?”
“Fine.”
On the desk, the violation form waited. Roussel read the name again and tapped the missed check-in with the tip of the pen until it left a black dot. He imagined the route from this chair to intake. Phone call. Paper. One more number ticked. He could hear the cuffs in his head. He liked the sound. It made choices simple.
He pushed the file aside and pulled another forward. The heater finally caught and blew thin air that made the blinds shiver. A siren far outside rose and faded. The office returned to its hum.
In the hallway, the assistant shut down her computer and put on her coat. She paused in the doorway. “You need anything before I head out?”
“No.”
She nodded and left him with the lights and the plastic plant and the camera dome that had never saved anyone. Roussel leaned forward and blew across the top of his coffee. It tasted like pennies and sugar packets. He drank it anyway. He liked the way bitter sat on the tongue and told the body nothing good was coming.
He opened the drawer, found the box with microwave instructions stamped in faded red, and slid it back shut. He did not get up. Not yet. He took one more file from the stack and set it in the pool of light.
He picked up the next file.
~~~
The taco truck threw a hard white rectangle across the cracked lot. The air carried cilantro and meat and the faint sweetness of tres leches. Their breath showed for a beat when the breeze cut through, then disappeared into the sodium dark. They stood under a dead lamp across the street, trays balanced on a trunk that had seen better paint.
E.J. cocked his chin at the small plastic clamshell tucked into Caine’s bag. “You gon’ teach me some Spanish so I get the extra too, or you keeping that to yourself?”
Caine eased the lid off a cup of salsa verde and stirred it with a flimsy spoon. “Gave ’em more money, too.”
Tyree shoulder-bumped him, grin crooked. “Sound like me and E need to learn Spanish so you give us your money then. I’ll be like, mira papi, don’t I remind you of your people?”
Caine huffed a small laugh through his nose and tipped the spoon, painting the taco careful like the tortilla could take a straight line if he treated it right.
Ramon watched the street more than the food. He stood with his back slightly turned, eyes in the glass of the dark storefront across the way. “We got a rack for you when we get off them pills,” he said, voice even, like he was mentioning the weather.
Caine nodded once, attention still on the taco.
E.J. tapped the box again. “What’s it called? Tres what?”
“Leches,” Caine said, mouth curving.
“Tray leeches,” Tyree tried. “I’m bilingual now. Look out.”
“Nigga, you goofy,” E.J. said. “Caine, say it again. Lech— nigga, how you say it?”
“Leches.” Caine set the cup down. He started to take a bite.
His eyes lifted before his hands stopped moving. A shape down the sidewalk had been part of the shadow one second and separate from it the next. The hood angle was wrong for someone waiting on food. The posture said creeping, not killing time.
Across the street, Ramon’s chin ticked toward the opposite corner. Another shape held at the edge of the light, a little too still. Ramon’s hand found his waist like it had muscle memory older than bones.
He didn’t ask a question. He pulled and fired four times. The shots took the night apart. Light jumped on chrome. The sound bounced off empty glass and came back thinner.
“Shit!” Tyree yelped, already twisting. He fired blind as he scrambled, feet skidding on loose gravel. E.J. dropped hard and smart, jacket scraping asphalt. He rose enough to put his elbows on the hood and sent two rounds flat across the top of it.
Caine folded behind the car, knee knocking a pothole lip. His hand found the back passenger handle and yanked. The door groaned. He slid into the dark pocket where his knees knew the floorboard. His fingers searched and found the gun where it had pitched earlier. The tres leches clamshell crushed under his shin and bled milk into his jeans. He didn’t look down.
Ramon kept talking in that way that was half command, half count. “It’s four or five niggas!” His voice stayed tight. He moved clean until the sound changed.
The new sound hit like a sheet of rain on a tin roof. Too fast. Too flat. The switch turned the lot into a bite pattern. Pavement spat white chips. A line of holes walked a car door and shattered a window into sugar.
“Down!” E.J. shouted. He said it again, closer to a growl. “Down, down!”
“Melph, nigga! Fuck 39!” someone bellowed from the dark. The words tried to be bullets too. The echo clipped itself on the cinderblock wall and died.
Caine’s breath came through his teeth. He leaned out and squeezed three, then two more at the place where the figure had been. The muzzle flash stuttered across the hood. His wrists burned but stayed locked. He wanted to see what he hit. If he did. He didn’t lift his head to see.
The keys skittered jagged across concrete and hit his shoe. Tyree had knocked them loose with a foot or a curse.
“Keys, where the keys at?” Tyree shouted anyway.
Ramon’s gun clicked empty. He ducked and reached for a reload. His fingers fumbled. He cursed, a word chewed through his teeth. He crabbed low toward a deeper wedge of shadow.
Caine’s body moved before his head finished deciding. He lunged, grabbed a fistful of Ramon’s hoodie, and dragged him behind a different car. Rubber marks blackened the concrete where their shoes pushed.
“Chill,” Ramon rasped, still fighting the magazine. “I got it.”
Caine’s palm slid across Ramon’s shoulder and came back wet and dark. The blood showed black until it caught a cut of white from the truck’s floodlight. “You hit.”
“I fucking know, nigga,” Ramon snapped back, breath high. “I’m the one fucking shot.”
The switch raked the lot again and the trunk metal sang. Tyree laughed, a wild thin thing that wasn’t joy. He popped up and fired two, then ducked so fast his hat flew. “Y’all niggas can’t stop me!” he shouted at nothing, trying to keep his mouth ahead of his fear.
Sirens stitched into the distance. Thin at first. Then thicker. The city cracked an eye.
“Tyree!” Caine called. “E.J.!” He felt the keys with his fingertips and snagged them. “We out!” The last word came out more breath than sound.
He flattened to the ground and crawled under the open door, shoulder catching the frame. He shoved the key into the ignition by memory. Plastic creaked under his knee. The smell inside the car was sugar, oil, old smoke. He twisted hard. The engine coughed. Caught. The idle shook the steering column like it had nerves too.
More hits stitched along the rear quarter and the trunk jumped. He pushed against the pedal with his palm, awkward, butt half off the seat, and let the car roll backward out of its space. The tires dropped off the concrete stop with a jolt that knocked the breath out of him.
“Go!” E.J. climbed in behind the passenger seat and yanked it back. He stayed hunched, head low, eyes on the rear glass like it could answer questions.
The rear door flew open. Tyree and Ramon tumbled together, half carrying, half shoving. Ramon’s hoodie glistened dark along his arm, the wet spreading. They folded him across the seat and Tyree clambered in after, heels drumming the door panel. He cranked the window down, elbow grinding the handle, then leaned out and spat his last rounds into the dark. “Fuck the Melph!” he screamed, voice cracking.
“Head down!” E.J. snapped, shoving him by the collar back into the car. “Head down, nigga!”
Caine slid left across the seat. His knee knocked the gear. He found drive by feel and buried his foot. The grill took a bite of night and the lot lines blurred. A last few shots chased the bumper and one pinged the metal near the taillight with a hollow, ugly note.
The lot’s mouth came fast. The curb kissed the tires and they hopped it with a scrape. Caine yanked the wheel, followed E.J.’s voice in his ear. “Left, left!”
He took the left. The car leaned like it wanted to roll and then thought better of it. The storefront lights fell behind and the road opened into a strip of low buildings with bars on their windows and closed signs that had been up for years.
Sirens warped somewhere to their right, close and not. The city played games with sound when it wanted to. Caine took another turn that put the taco truck somewhere behind and to the side. He didn’t check the mirror as much as he felt it.
Ramon’s jaw clenched. “Next block, cut again,” he said. He was talking through his teeth.
Caine nodded and did not say he understood. He let the steering wheel slide under his palms, pulled them into a street where the lights were farther apart and the asphalt had a wave like the ground breathed. He tasted milk and bile and the metal that lived in the back of his throat now.
“Where the towels at?” Tyree asked, panic slipping around the edges. “A shirt, something. He leaking like a bitch, bro.”
The car rattled over a sunken manhole and Caine eased off the gas for a second, then put it back down. The wheel shivered. He listened for the car to tell him if those hits had mattered. The car answered with the same old complaint it always had. He believed it like he had to.
A stop sign rose out of the dark. He didn’t stop. He looked left, then right, then left again, quick and flat. Then blew through it. A sedan nosed onto the cross street two blocks back. It either meant nothing or everything. He could not tell yet. He took the right and put a building between them.
Caine swallowed and turned again. He knew which way home was and did not point the car at it. He gave the city a crooked line, not a straight one. The sirens changed directions and faded. The cold night came in steady through the vent and made the blood smell sharper.
They passed a strip of shuttered storefronts and a bus bench with no ad. A plastic bag wind-skated across the asphalt and caught on a storm drain and surrendered. The road went darker for a block. Caine kept his mouth closed and his eyes on where the light ended.
The night watched them pass. A dog went off behind a fence and didn’t stop. Somewhere behind them, some other set of sirens got loud for someone else. The city kept eating.
They hit another ripple in the asphalt and everyone in the car felt it. Caine let the wheel breathe in his hands and breathed with it. He chose a turn that no one had told him to take. The taco truck was gone now, even in the mirror. The dead lamp, the rectangle of light, the extra cake smashed to sugar and milk—gone.
He didn’t look at the blood pooled in the seat crease. He didn’t look at the milk on his jeans. He watched the smear of road their headlights painted and the place where it ended.
He kept driving.
~~~
The plywood stack was rough beneath her, edges swollen from rain and warped where the weight of other boards had pressed them flat. Mireya sat with her back against the wall, knees drawn up, arms wrapped loosely around them. The cool October air cut different than the summer heat had—sharper, thinner, the kind that made her pull her hood tight even though the fabric didn’t do much. Dust from the yard clung to her jeans and hung low in the air. Every time she shifted, a splinter pressed through denim into her thigh.
She let her eyes drift closed. Out here it was quiet except for the faint hum of a forklift idling somewhere past the fence. The break felt stolen, something she had carved for herself out of nothing.
Then voices carried around the corner. Sharp, clipped. Mireya turned her head and saw them: Stasia and Jamie, a few yards off in the gravel lot. The light from the office window threw their shadows long. Stasia’s finger was stabbing the air in Jamie’s face, her bracelets catching the glow. Jamie leaned back, then forward again, throwing his hands out wide like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Their words didn’t reach Mireya, but the heat of them did—the rhythm of a fight that had already been going too long.
Mireya watched without moving. Stasia’s mouth kept working, firm, relentless. Jamie shook his head, gave a sharp motion like he was done, and turned away. His boots crunched against the gravel, heavy steps fading as he crossed the lot. Stasia stayed behind, jaw set. She ran a hand through her hair, tugging it back, then let her fingers fall to her side. For a moment she stood still, shoulders tight, before she reached into her bag. The flick of a lighter snapped in the cool air. She pulled a joint to her lips, dragged once, and blew smoke upward, head tilted back.
When her eyes dropped, they caught Mireya in the shadows.
Stasia’s face didn’t change. She walked over, slow but certain, each step too clean for the grit underfoot. Designer slacks, silk blouse, pointed shoes—things that didn’t belong in this lot, but she wore them like armor, like the dust couldn’t touch her. She lowered herself onto the pile of OSB beside Mireya, unbothered by the splinters or the grime.
Without a word she held the joint out. Mireya took it, fingers brushing hers, and drew in smoke that burned hot down her throat. The sharpness caught in her chest, mixing with the cold. She let it out in a thin stream and handed it back.
“What was that about?” Mireya asked, tilting her chin toward the direction Jamie had gone.
Stasia exhaled slowly. “Difference of opinion about how things should be running and who should be running them.”
Mireya frowned. “What does that mean?”
Stasia gave a short laugh. “It means I don’t like Leo. That’s the problem. But people love giving their nephews jobs.”
Mireya shifted on the boards. “I don’t like him either.”
Stasia looked sideways, eyes narrowing just enough to show a glint of amusement. “I could see why.” She drew again from the joint and let the silence fall heavy between them.
The yard around them sat quiet. The clang of a chain echoed once from the far gate. A truck rolled past on the road outside, headlights dragging shadows across the lot, then faded. The cool air made Mireya’s fingers ache. She shoved them into her hoodie pocket.
“You’re at the end of high school, huh?” Stasia said finally.
Mireya nodded. “Yeah.”
“When you turn eighteen?”
“In like a month and a half.”
Stasia studied the smoke curling from the end of the joint. After a pause, she nodded slowly. “Talk to me then.”
Mireya turned to face her more directly. “About what?”
Stasia smiled, lips curling around the wordless promise. “Better opportunities.”
The phrase landed heavy. It sounded rehearsed, like something she’d said before to somebody else. Mireya sat still, waiting, but no explanation followed.
“Like what?” she asked.
But Stasia only smiled again, softer this time, as if Mireya had already asked the wrong question. She stood, brushed at her slacks though there was nothing to wipe away, and tucked the half-smoked joint into her lighter case.
Mireya kept her eyes on her. The silence stretched until the scrape of a receipt skittering across the gravel cut through it. The paper caught against a nail and fluttered there, stuck.
Stasia turned her face back toward the building. She gave Mireya one last look, unreadable, then walked away with the same calm steps she had come with. The click of her heels carried across the lot until the door opened and shut behind her.
Left alone, Mireya leaned back against the cinderblock wall. The OSB groaned under her weight. She pulled her hood tighter and stared out at the empty lot. The cold seeped through her jeans, into her skin, making her shift but not move.
Better opportunities. The words echoed, vague and dangerous.
Her stomach tightened. She pressed her palms flat against the OSB, grounding herself in the scratch of it. Splinters bit her skin, small and sharp.
She lifted her eyes to the sky above the yard. Breath left her mouth in faint clouds. Somewhere distant, a siren wailed and faded.
~~~
“Man, you bleeding all over me, nigga!” Tyree shouted, voice cracking through the car. His hands shoved at Ramon’s side like he could push the blood back into him.
“Shut the fuck up,” Ramon snapped, jaw locked, breath ragged. His good hand pointed forward. “That house, right there. Pull in.”
Caine jerked the wheel. The tires screamed against the pavement, and the smell of burning rubber rushed inside as the car lurched to a stop crooked in front of the shotgun house. Cold air slid through the cracked window, mixing with the heavy iron stink of blood.
Doors banged open all at once. The four of them tumbled out, Ramon staggering, clutching his shoulder. The stain on his hoodie had spread, deep red to near black. Tyree cursed under his breath, his own shirt smeared. E.J. glanced down the block once before hurrying after them.
Caine shoved his pistol into his waistband, the slide still tacky with blood. His hands shook, but his steps didn’t. Ramon fumbled his keys, cursed, and jammed them into the lock. The door banged open under his shoulder.
The living room light was on. Nina rose from the sofa, her phone still in her hand. “Ramon, I told you—” Her words cut off when she saw the blood. Her eyes went wide, hands lifting to her mouth.
“Jesus Christ.” Her voice cracked. “What happened?”
Ramon half fell against the kitchen table. “Don’t start. Just—fuck—just shut the door.”
Nina’s hands shook as she slammed it shut, back pressed against the wood. “You can’t—look at you. You need a hospital—”
“No fucking hospital.” His words came out hard, through gritted teeth.
Nina’s chest rose fast, disbelief twisting across her face. She looked at Caine, then Tyree, then E.J., all three of them marked with streaks of blood, eyes darting, clothes ruined. “You’re bringing this shit into my house? Into my house?” Her voice broke. “Ramon, what the fuck did you do?”
Ramon slammed his good hand on the table, rattling it. “You think I wanted this?” His body shook with pain.
Tyree yanked at his hoodie, peeling it back from the wound. The fabric clung, wet, and came free with a sticky sound. Blood smeared across his palm, hot and thick. “Nigga, you all fucked up,” Tyree muttered, gagging but still tugging it over his arm.
Caine’s eyes locked on the counter. A white plastic box with a faded red cross sat at the edge. He grabbed it, unzipped it with hands that slipped once on the tab. A stapler, bandages, alcohol wipes. Nothing that made this look like it could work.
E.J. pulled two fingers across the blinds, peering out. “No cops yet, but they close. I hear ’em. We gotta ditch that whip.”
Nina’s voice rose, frantic. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
Ramon twisted toward her, face contorted. “Don’t you dare.”
“This is serious, Ramon,” she snapped back. Tears rimmed her eyes but didn’t fall. “You’re bleeding all over my fucking table. And for what?”
“Shut up, Nina,” Ramon groaned, teeth grinding as Tyree pressed a rag against his shoulder. “Just—shut the fuck up.”
Caine pulled one glove from the kit and snapped it over his left hand. His right stayed bare, too sticky to slip through. He dug out the stapler, turned it over in his palm. It looked cheap.
“You even know what you doing?” Ramon asked, voice sharp despite the weakness creeping in.
“Fuck no,” Caine said.
Nina let out a choked sound, half anger, half despair. “You can’t let him—”
But Caine was already leaning close, his face tight, eyes on the wound. He pressed around it, fingers firm. Ramon hissed, body jerking against the chair. Blood welled fast, spilling across Caine’s glove.
“I see it,” Caine muttered. He didn’t look up. “Hold him.”
Tyree pressed a hand down on Ramon’s wrist. Ramon tried to pull back anyway, teeth bared.
Caine shoved his finger into the hole.
Ramon roared, body twisting, nearly throwing the chair back. “Fuck! Nigga, get your—”
Tyree locked his arms tighter around him. “Nigga, don’t move!”
Caine felt the hard edge of metal against his fingertip. He pinched, dug deeper. Blood poured over his knuckles, slick, almost burning. He hooked the slug and yanked it out, the sound wet and obscene.
The bullet clattered onto the table, rolled, and left a dark smear where it stopped.
Caine yanked his hand back, wiping it across his hoodie in one brutal motion. The streak glistened dark against the fabric.
Ramon’s breathing tore in and out, sweat shining down his temple. “Fuck. Fuck.” His voice was a rasp now.
Caine picked up the stapler. His hand trembled once, then steadied. He looked Ramon dead in the eye. “You want a countdown?”
Ramon barked a laugh that ended in a groan. “Countdown? From ten?”
“Yeah. Ten.”
The stapler clicked down. The metal bit through skin, snapping shut across torn flesh.
Ramon howled, the sound tearing out of him, fist slamming the table again. His head dropped forward, breath ragged.
“Goddamn,” Tyree muttered, backing off quick, hands shaking.
Caine moved the stapler and put two more staples into his arm, jaw tight, eyes locked on the crooked line holding the wound. Blood still oozed, but slower now. He pushed his sleeve across his forehead, smearing sweat and blood together.
Nina stood frozen against the counter, one hand over her mouth, the other gripping the edge so tight her knuckles whitened. Her whole body trembled.
E.J. let the blinds fall back into place. “We gotta get rid of that fucking car,” he said quietly.
Ramon leaned forward, breathing like he’d run miles. His eyes were glassy, unfocused, but his voice still bit. “That it?”
“That’s it,” Caine said, low and certain, though the blood still spread slow under the staples.
Ramon grunted, head dropping into his good hand. “Fuck.”
Nina turned away, pressing both palms to the counter, her shoulders heaving. She whispered it more to herself than to them: “This has to stop. It has to stop.”
No one answered. The room smelled like iron and sweat, heavy in the cool October air seeping through the cracks of the old house.
better get on that grant grind though