The classroom smelled like sweat baked into polyester and dry-erase marker that had been sitting too long in the heat. Even with the window cracked, the air was heavy, thick enough that Caine could feel it sticking in his lungs. The hum from the fluorescent lights overhead was just loud enough to make the silence feel full, and every few seconds, one of them flickered like it was thinking about giving up.
Caine sat two rows from the front, legs stretched out, slouched low in a chair. His shirt clung damp to his back from practice, the fabric shadowed darker where sweat had soaked through. His book bag was slumped against the desk leg, zipper half-open, papers sticking out like they were trying to escape.
Mr. Landry leaned forward in the chair at his desk, flipping through a thick ACT prep booklet. The corners were bent, the cover soft from use. He didn’t look like he was in a rush. Nobody else was in the room—it was after school, after practice, the halls outside quiet except for the far-off squeak of a janitor’s mop bucket wheels on tile.
“Alright,” Landry said, running his finger down a page. “Reading comp. Question twenty-seven—underline the sentence that tells you what the narrator’s real motivation was.”
Caine looked at the sheet in front of him. He found the paragraph, read it once, then again. The answer was there, sitting plain as day, but his brain felt slow, like he was running plays underwater. This week had stacked on him—film study before first period, sprints after, four hours of hauling lumber and bags of cement for Mr. Lucas’ crew, Roussel breathing down his neck, Camila waking up screaming for him every night. Now it was Thursday—or maybe Friday—he honestly couldn’t remember without pulling out his phone.
He circled the sentence, slid the paper toward the edge of the desk without sitting up.
Landry glanced at it, then nodded once. “Right. You know this stuff. Problem is, you’re answering it like you got five minutes before you pass out.”
Caine let out a short breath that wasn’t really a laugh, rubbed both hands down his face. “Ain’t far from it.”
“The ACT’s not designed for people running on fumes,” Landry said. “Ideally, you’d walk in rested. Brain sharp.”
“Ideally,” Caine said, eyes still on the page, “I wouldn’t be doing school, football, work, probation, and raising a kid all at the same time either.” His tone was flat, no complaint in it. Just the truth.
Landry set the booklet down. “That’s exactly why we’re here. You pull a good score, it opens doors—college, football, whatever comes after.”
“That’s the plan,” Caine said, leaning back in his seat, the plastic creaking under his weight. “Get the number, get to college, play, then I’ll figure the rest out later.”
Landry tilted his head, studying him. “That’s where you’re wrong. College isn’t just about the degree. It’s about learning to think—problem-solve like an adult. You get that skill, you can work your way through anything. Especially with your background.”
Caine smirked without looking up from the desk. “What? A criminal?”
The pause between them stretched. Landry didn’t flinch. “No more a criminal than half the CEOs in this country. Difference is, they got money and sunscreen.”
That pulled an actual grin out of Caine, quick and crooked. He shook his head once, looking down so Landry wouldn’t see it.
The hum of the lights filled the space again. Outside in the hall, a locker door clanged shut. Somewhere in the building, an old AC unit kicked on and rattled against the window frame like it was trying to shake itself loose.
Landry pushed the booklet back toward him. “Again,” he said. “We’ll keep at it until your brain’s too tired to get it wrong.”
Caine sat forward, pencil tapping lightly against the desk. He could feel his eyelids dragging, but there was a stubborn part of him that refused to hand Landry a bad set of answers, not when the man had stayed after on a Thursday just for him.
He filled in the next bubble, then the next, forcing himself to focus on each line like it was a pass he had to thread through double coverage. Landry didn’t hover—just sat back in his chair, arms crossed, watching the way Caine worked the page.
The minutes stretched. Sweat cooled under his shirt, leaving him chilled, but his palms stayed damp against the pencil. When he handed the paper over, Landry skimmed it without comment, then slid it back with another set of problems.
Caine didn’t even bother to groan. He just bent over the page again. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear Camila’s laugh from earlier in the week, sticky hands reaching for him before school. That was the picture he held onto while he worked through the questions—because the score wasn’t just about him getting out. It was about her having something better to grow up in.
Landry’s voice cut back in after a few minutes. “You know, you’ve got that vision for… things for a reason. This ain’t that different. Just a different kind of read.”
Caine looked up at him, pencil paused mid-bubble. Landry was leaning forward again, expression even.
“Field’s smaller,” Landry said. “But the decisions matter just as much.”
Caine gave a small nod, then went back to the test, pencil scratching steady against the paper.
~~~
The parking lot was half-lit, two busted sodium lamps humming over cracked asphalt. A warm breeze pushed a strip of fast-food napkins across the ground, catching for a second on a curb before the wind took them again. Ramon’s car sat tucked in the shadow of a closed laundromat, engine off, windows down just enough for the smoke to drift out.
Ramon was behind the wheel, one hand loose on the top, the other holding the blunt. He wore the kind of stillness that came from knowing you had time, that nothing happened until you decided it did. E.J. sat in the passenger seat, slouched deep, knees wide, the glow of the blunt catching in the corner of his eye each time Ramon passed it.
“They ain’t going nowhere this year,” E.J. said, smoke curling out slow. “Shough’s trash. I could throw that bitch better than his ass.”
Ramon smirked. “You still salty about that money you lost last year.”
E.J. shook his head. “Fucking right. We had a poor ass quarterback last year too. A couple of ‘em” He flicked ash out the cracked window, the ember breaking up into sparks. “Niggas in the city stupid, though. Acting like we one player from getting back to the Super Bowl.”
The back door opened without warning, dome light flooding the interior. Tyree slid in, wearing his Brother Martin letterman jacket like he’d just stepped off a school bus. The gold and maroon caught the light, bright against the shadows.
E.J. stared for a beat before grinning wide. “Say, bruh. You look like you about be on one of them musical shits. The fuck you doing in that?”
Tyree shot him a flat look. “Fuck you, nigga. You know I just came from school.” He peeled the jacket off, tossed it into the corner behind Ramon’s seat, and leaned forward to take the blunt.
“I always be forgetting you be out here with them white boys. Don’t let none of the OGs find out. They gonna clown your ass for life,” E.J. said, still laughing.
Tyree ignored him, taking a slow pull, holding it, exhaling toward the open window. He handed it back to Ramon, settling into the seat like he’d been there the whole time.
Ramon turned the key, engine rumbling awake. “Let’s go.”
The drive out was mostly quiet, city sliding past in blurs of streetlight and neon. Every so often E.J. muttered about Shough’s stats or the Saints’ busted O-line, but neither of the others bit. Traffic thinned as they left New Orleans behind, the road opening up into dark stretches broken only by gas station islands and the glow of highway signs.
By the time they hit Baton Rouge, the air had changed—thicker, the smell of damp concrete and fried food leaking from corner kitchens still open this late. Old South Baton Rouge felt tighter, the houses closer to the street, porches sagging under the weight of old furniture and people who’d been sitting there for years.
Ramon eased the car into a short driveway beside a shotgun house with paint peeling in long curls. The porch light burned weak and yellow.
Inside, the kitchen was cramped, two men standing shoulder-to-shoulder near the counter. Their TBG chains caught the dim light each time they moved. The brick of cocaine between them sat wrapped tight in cloudy plastic, edges sharp where the powder pressed against it.
The air was warm and still. Nobody smiled.
Ramon stepped forward, the bills in his hand already in order. He counted them out slow, fingers steady, the only sound the crisp flick of money turning. When he finished, he gave a small nod.
One of the men dipped his chin in return. Hands came up, quick daps, palms smacking in short bursts. No small talk, no extra looks.
They left the same way they came in, the door’s old hinges groaning before it shut behind them.
Back in the car, the silence held for a few seconds before Tyree leaned back with a smirk. “Man, I almost told ’em NBA better.”
Ramon’s hand shot back without warning, reaching back and smacking the back of Tyree’s head—not hard enough to hurt, just to make the point. “You stupid as hell, nigga. I’m not trying to get caught in these niggas beef.”
E.J. cracked up in the passenger seat, head dropping forward as he laughed. “That nigga YoungBoy is weird weird.”
Ramon pulled them back onto the street, headlights sweeping over the cracked pavement ahead. The night pressed in again, the engine’s low hum the only sound as they headed for home.
~~~
The fan in the corner had a tired rattle in its spin, like something inside was just loose enough to never settle. Every rotation pushed warm air across the room in slow waves, carrying the chalky smell of concrete dust and the faint damp of paper that had been through too many humid mornings. No matter how many times she wiped the desk, the grit always came back—settling into the wood grain, catching under her nails when she ran her fingers along the edge.
Mireya sat behind the desk with the ledger open flat, elbows braced on either side, pencil balanced between her fingers. The slips in the pile to her left were uneven, corners curled where rain had caught them on the yard, ink blotted or faded. She worked methodically, eyes moving from slip to spreadsheet, checking, marking, moving to the next. The wall clock above the door ticked just off-beat with the fan’s rattle, a small reminder that time here moved differently—slower, heavier.
Through the narrow, dust-filmed window, the yard glared under the late sun. Trucks sat angled along the fence, tires white with dried dust. Near the loading bay, Felix was talking to Jamie, Stasia standing between them. Felix’s posture was loose but contained, the kind of stance that didn’t waste motion. Even from this distance, Mireya could picture the way his voice carried—precise, clipped, that faint accent she could never place giving certain words a weight that made you pay attention.
Stasia’s back was to her, hair catching in the sunlight each time she moved. Her stance didn’t angle toward either man; shoulders square, head level, weight even. She looked like someone who knew she didn’t need to adjust to be heard. Mireya’s eyes stayed on her a moment too long before she made herself look back down. The numbers on the page blurred for a second before settling again.
The screen door gave its usual hinge-complaint before slapping shut. Mireya didn’t look up right away—learned habit—but she felt the shift in the air when someone took the chair across from her desk.
“You never answer my texts,” Leo said, leaning forward, forearms resting on his knees.
“That’s because I don’t work for you,” she said, pencil moving over the page. Her tone was even, flat, not giving him anything to grab onto.
He waved his hand, wrist loose, like he was brushing away the point. “That’s semantics.” Then he leaned back, stretching his legs under the desk until the toes of his boots almost touched hers. “What you doing this weekend?”
She kept her eyes on the column, marking a slip for correction. Didn’t answer. The silence stretched between them.
He let the pause hang long enough to feel intentional. “How come I never see your man around here? You do have one, right?”
Her head came up then, eyes locking with his. “Probably ’cause he’d kill you, and I’m not trying to send him back to jail.”
Something in his face slipped—barely, but enough for her to catch—before he tried to pull the smirk back into place.
The main door opened, bringing a rush of yard heat and the dry tang of dust. Jamie came in first, Felix behind him, Stasia close enough that her shoulder brushed his.
“Leo,” Jamie said, voice steady but sharp at the edges. “Fuck off.”
Leo stood, muttering something low as he left through the screen door. The wood slapped the frame with a harder clap than usual, making the fan’s hum sound louder in the sudden quiet.
Felix stopped beside the desk, shadow falling over her ledger. “What is it you think you do here?” That slight accent bent the shape of the question, making it feel heavier than the words alone.
“I make sure the slips match the spreadsheet,” she said, straightening in her chair.
“And if they don’t match?”
“Then we make them match.”
Felix’s mouth twitched at the corner—quick, unreadable. He gave a short nod, like she’d given the right answer, and turned toward Jamie’s office.
Stasia lingered in the space between them for a beat. Her gaze found Mireya’s, steady enough to make Mireya’s pulse pick up before she even realized she’d been holding it. There was nothing hurried in the way Stasia’s eyes moved—just the slow, certain look of someone taking her measure. The wink was quick but deliberate, enough to leave a mark without breaking the room’s stillness. Then she followed Felix and Jamie through the door, the latch clicking shut behind her.
Mireya let out the breath she’d been holding, setting her pencil down. The fan pushed another stream of warm air across her neck, lifting loose strands of hair. She looked back toward the window—the glare made it hard to pick out detail now, the yard already swallowing whatever space Leo had been standing in minutes ago.
She pulled the next slip from the stack, the paper rough under her fingertips, and laid it on the desk. The clock ticked, the fan rattled, and she bent back to the work, each number aligning exactly where it needed to be.
~~~
The building was quiet enough that Roussel could hear the hum from the vending machine down the hall. Past midnight, the air inside had settled into that heavy, stale mix of paper dust, old coffee, and the faint tang of bleach from the janitor’s mop earlier in the evening. The overhead fluorescents cast a flat, cold light, shadows pooling at the corners where the file cabinets lined the wall.
Across from him, the new intake sat slouched in the metal chair, one leg bouncing a slow rhythm. His DOC release clothes—faded gray sweats and a stretched-out white T-shirt—looked like they’d been folded and unfolded too many times. Ink curled out from the collar toward his jaw, another mark disappearing up his sleeve. Roussel noted both, pen moving neatly across the box for “identifying marks” on the form.
“So, Terrell,” he said, tone even, almost conversational, “how’s freedom feel?”
Terrell’s eyes slid toward the clock on the wall. “Feel like my baby mama waitin’ in the car since y’all takin’ all night.”
“Of course you got a baby mama and not a wife,” Roussel said, still writing.
Terrell’s mouth opened like he might bite back, but he stopped himself. The bounce in his leg slowed.
Roussel looked up, catching his eye just long enough to make the silence work for him. “That’s what I thought.”
The pen scratched again, his handwriting precise in the narrow lines. “You know how this works, Terrell. You violate, I send you back in. No hesitation. You understand me?”
“I know the drill.” Short. Flat. His gaze didn’t lift from the desk.
The pause between them stretched. The hum from the vending machine filled it, steady and low. Roussel slid the release papers across. “Sign. Date. Keep your appointments and you won’t see me more than you have to.”
As Terrell leaned forward, Roussel reached for a manila folder set aside on the desk. Jill Babin’s block-printed label was clean, the corner unbent. He opened it, eyes flicking to the grainy color CCTV still—four kids at the Mardi Gras barricades. Caine in the middle, jaw set, beads around his neck, holding his daughter. The others—Ramon, E.J., Tyree—faces blurred but familiar to Roussel from past sweeps, field interviews, and mugshots.
He slid the photo across the desk, one finger tapping the edge. “Ever seen ’em?”
Terrell didn’t lean in. “You askin’ if they bangin’?” He shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”
Roussel let the shrug hang in the air, eyes on him longer than the words required. He tracked the way Terrell’s jaw flexed once, twice, like he was working something back down before it could make it out. The bounce in his leg had stopped.
Roussel sat back, the leather creaking under him. The smile that touched his mouth was thin, calculated. “If you ever do know, Terrell… might make me see you in a different light.”
“I ain’t no snitch.” The words landed firm, but his pen hand hesitated over the date line.
“No,” Roussel said, voice even, “you’re just the type who enjoys going back inside.”
The silence after was heavier than the room’s air. Terrell finished the date, dropped the pen so it clicked against the desk.
Roussel closed the folder, pushing the papers back toward him. “Welcome back to the real world. Try not to waste the opportunity.”
Terrell shoved his chair back, the scrape of the legs loud on the tile. He stood, shoulders tight, eyes still avoiding Roussel’s, and left without another word. The door clicked shut behind him.
The vending machine hum filled the quiet again. Roussel picked up the photo, studied it for a moment longer, then tucked it back into the folder. His pen was already in hand when he reached for the next file.
