Fredo Bang knocked through the speakers with the bass turned low enough to feel but not enough to carry past the windows. Ramon had the seat pushed back, one hand on the wheel even though the car sat parked and cold, engine off, the lot spread out in front of them under yellow light that made everything look sick. Tyree leaned against the back door with his hood bunched behind his neck, knees wide, scrolling his phone with his thumb moving in long pulls.
Caine sat in the passenger seat with arms crossed over his chest. He watched the lot through the windshield. A rig idled two rows over with its running lights on and nobody in the cab. The video poker room across the street had its neon half-dead, the P and the R flickering out of time with each other so the sign read _OKE_in stuttered pink.
"Son, I hate niggas that’s always lying about time," Tyree said. He didn't look up from his phone. "That nigga Zo said he was gonna text me back in ten minutes twenty minutes ago."
Ramon shifted his jaw once but didn't answer. He tapped the steering wheel with two fingers, keeping time with something that wasn't the song.
Headlights swept the far end of the lot and turned in. A sedan nosed between two parked trucks and rolled to a stop near the curb closest to the poker room. The engine cut. A man stepped out, zipped his jacket to his throat, and crossed the street without looking back. The poker room door opened and swallowed him in a band of light and the muffled punch of a slot machine cycling.
Ramon looked at Caine as Caine looked at the sedan.
Caine pulled the gloves from the pocket of his hoodie and worked them on, tugging each finger tight until the leather sat flush against his knuckles. He reached up and pulled the hood over his head, settling it forward until it cut the top of his vision. He opened the door and stepped out.
The cold hit his face as his shoes found the asphalt and he moved across the lot in a straight line, shoulders loose, stride even. A semi shifted gears somewhere on the highway overpass above and the sound rolled down through the dark like distant thunder.
He came alongside the sedan. It sat alone in the space, paint catching the yellow lot light in dull streaks. He reached for the handle and pulled. Locked. He let it go and reached into the front of his hoodie, fingers closing around the thin metal shim he'd tucked flat against his ribs.
He slid it into the doorjamb, working the flat edge down between the rubber seal and the frame. His hands moved with patience. The shim found the latch mechanism and he angled it, pressed, and felt the catch give. The lock popped and he pulled the door open.
The alarm hit the lot, high and shrill, the horn cycling fast, headlights flashing in rhythm. Caine was already inside, knees on the pavement, his upper body folded under the steering column. He gripped the plastic panel beneath the wheel and ripped it down. The screws stripped and the panel cracked along a seam and came free in his hands. He dropped it on the floorboard.
Wires hung in a loose bundle, color-coded, some taped together in pairs. He found the alarm harness first, a thicker cluster running to the left. He grabbed it and pulled hard. The connector resisted, then tore loose with a dry pop. The alarm died mid-cycle, cutting out so fast the silence felt louder than the noise had been.
His fingers sorted the remaining wires by feel. He stripped two with his thumbnail through the glove leather, twisted them together, and held the connection. The dash lights flickered on. He found the starter wire, touched it to the pair, and the engine turned over once, caught, and settled into an idle that shook the steering column against his forearms.
He pulled himself up into the seat and adjusted the mirror. The rig still idled two rows back. The poker room sign still stuttered. Nobody had come to a window. Nobody had stepped outside.
He put the car in gear and rolled it across the lot to where Ramon's car sat. He pulled alongside and left the engine running.
Ramon and Tyree got out of Ramon's car in the same motion, doors opening and closing with two flat sounds that overlapped. Tyree slid into the back seat of the stolen car and pulled the door shut. Ramon came around to the passenger side, opened the door, and dropped into the seat.
Caine's hand rested on the wheel. The engine hummed under them, steady now, the shake worked out.
"You got the address?" Caine asked.
Ramon nodded once. "Yeah, I got it."
~~~
Mireya pulled to the curb across from the traphouse and put the car in park. The engine ticked under the hood, the heat gauge already climbing from the drive across the bridge. She leaned forward and looked through the windshield at the driveway. Trell's car wasn't there.
She shook her head and cut the engine. The keys bit into her palm as she pulled them free and dropped them into her purse. She pushed the door open and stepped out, the cold pressing through her jeans where the fabric pulled tight at her thighs.
She crossed the street and took the steps up to the porch two at a time then pushed the front door open and walked in.
A woman sat on the floor near the couch with her back against the wall, her legs folded under her. She had a belt cinched around her left bicep, the leather pulled tight with her teeth while her free hand worked a needle into the crook of her arm. Her face had the architecture of someone who'd been pretty once, cheekbones still sharp under skin that had gone sallow, hair that might have been thick pulled into a knot that was mostly rubber band. The needle found its mark. She pressed the plunger and her eyes fluttered, lids heavy, her head tipping back against the plaster. The belt slipped from between her teeth and hung loose from her arm.
Two of Trell's guys stood over her, arms folded, watching. One of them had a toothpick pinched between his front teeth. The other leaned against the wall to the hallway with his shoulder, his eyes running over the woman.
The woman's head rolled forward. She blinked twice, slow, her pupils swallowing most of the color in her eyes. She looked up at the two of them and nodded, the motion loose and uncoordinated.
"Alright," she said. "I'm ready."
She got to her feet in pieces, one hand bracing on the wall, one knee straightening before the other caught up. She swayed once and steadied. The two guys didn't reach for her. They just waited until she started walking toward the back of the house where the bedrooms were, her steps uneven on the floor, and then they followed, smiles pulling at their mouths as they disappeared down the hallway.
Mireya watched them go, her jaw shifting once and she turned away from the hallway.
Yola and Shad stood at the far end of the living room around a folding table covered in loose cash and a digital scale. Yola leaned over the table with both palms flat on the surface, his chain swinging forward from his neck. Shad sat in a chair on the other side with his elbows on his knees, hands pressed together between them. They were deep into something, voices low, heads close.
They noticed her at the same time. Yola straightened first, his palms lifting off the table, his face opening into a grin.
"I ain't expect to see your fine ass in here today," Yola said. "You come to let a nigga get some of that mouth?"
Shad shook his head, one hand coming up to rub the bridge of his nose. "That's a wild way to talk to people, bruh."
He looked at Mireya and held his hands up, palms out, fingers spread. "I ain't trying to be Dez or nothing. Just saying it's crazy."
Mireya waved the comments off with a flick of her wrist, her fingers cutting the air and dropping. "Y'all know where Trell is?"
Yola shook his head. "He went to Lafayette with Ant and Scotty the other day. Don't know where he at now."
Shad leaned back in his chair and crossed one ankle over his knee. "He probably back. Just call him."
Mireya glanced down at the phone in her hand.
Yola's eyes dropped to it, then came back up to her face. His grin stretched wider. "Damn, that nigga blocked you?" He spread his hands. "So, you a free agent now?"
Mireya didn't give him anything back. "Can y'all tell him that I passed by here when y'all see him?"
The two of them looked at one another. The glance held for a beat, Yola's grin flattening into something more honest, Shad's mouth pressing into a line that said the same thing.
Mireya left that where it lay.
Shad nodded. "Yeah, I got you."
"Thanks," Mireya said.
She turned and started for the door. Her hand was on the knob when Yola's voice caught her from behind.
"Mireya."
She stopped and angled her head enough to see him over her shoulder.
"You ain't answer if you was gonna let a nigga hit," Yola said. He spread his arms wide, palms up, chest open. "I been on a drought for a lil' minute. What's up?"
Mireya's mouth pulled to one side. She let a beat pass before she answered, her voice easy. "I got some things to take care of right now. Text me later and I'll come see you."
Yola smiled, his tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek. "Bet."
Mireya opened the door, stepped through, and closed it behind her. The latch caught with a soft sound and the noise from inside went muffled.
She walked to her car and opened the driver's door, dropping into the seat, pulling the door shut. Cold pressed in from every surface, the steering wheel icy under her fingers when she wrapped both hands around it.
Her right hand started first. A tremor that began in her fingertips, small enough to miss, then moved into her palm, the muscles jumping on their own, then climbed to her wrist where it stayed and shook against the leather of the wheel. She watched it. Her left hand tightened on the other side, knuckles pressing pale against her skin.
She breathed in through her nose, held it, let it go through her mouth. Then again, slower. The air in the car tasted stale and cold.
She reached up and flipped the rearview mirror down. Her own face looked back at her. She held the stare for a long second, searching whatever she found there, and then shook her head once.
She flipped the mirror back up. The trembling had stopped. Then she jammed the key into the ignition and turned the car on.
~~~
Sara had her feet tucked under her on the couch, coffee mug balanced on her knee, the ceramic warm through the fabric of her jeans. Nicole sat on the other end with one leg folded beneath her and the other stretched out, her heel resting on the edge of the cushion. Light pushed through the blinds and striped the carpet between them.
"I'm so glad Markus was able to get things to move so quickly this time around with getting Caine's probation transferred," Sara said. She brought the mug to her mouth and took a sip, her thumb rubbing the handle.
Nicole nodded. "Louisiana didn't have a leg to stand on. Demanding that he return for one year after letting him spend two years in Georgia just sounds stupid."
Sara laughed, the sound quick and loose, her shoulders lifting once. "Is that the legal term for it?"
Nicole laughed too, her hand coming up to press against her collarbone. "Yeah, it's one of the first things you learn in law school. 'Don't tell the judge something that sounds stupid because they hate that.'"
Sara shook her head, the last of it fading from her mouth. She took another sip and set the mug on the coffee table, pushing it back from the edge with her fingertips. Nicole's laugh settled into a breath and then nothing. The refrigerator hummed from the kitchen. A car passed below the window, bass thumping once through the floor and moving on.
Nicole looked over at Sara. Her fingers drummed once on her own knee and stopped.
"Are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?" Nicole said.
Sara kept her eyes on the mug she'd just put down. "I had no problem just letting it hang around until it died of starvation in the corner."
Nicole rolled her eyes, her head tilting with the motion. "I'll just say it then." She squared her shoulders and turned more fully toward Sara on the cushion. "I don't think being with women is in your DNA."
Sara snorted a laugh through her nose. "I feel like I should take that as an insult."
Nicole's hands came up fast, palms out, fingers spread. "No, no, no. You were good. It was good." Her hands dropped back to her lap and she paused. "You just don't have that..." She waved one hand in a loose circle between them. "I don't know. You can just tell."
Sara's eyes narrowed. She held the look, her chin dipping a fraction, letting the words sit in the air between them without touching them. Nicole's hand finished its circle and fell to the cushion.
Then Sara laughed, her whole face opening with it. "Glad you said it because I was gonna say the same thing." She pulled her feet out from under her and planted them on the carpet. "We're too soft. I need solid. A man's solid."
Nicole put her hand to her chest, her shoulders dropping, a long breath pushing out of her that she'd been holding since she'd opened her mouth. "Girl, you had me thinking you about to throw me out."
Sara tilted her head, one eyebrow lifting. "I mean, I'm still going to keep you around just in case I change my mind."
Nicole's laugh came from deep in her chest. She pressed both palms to her knees and leaned back into the cushion. "Happy to hear that I'm at the top of the list for the extremely unlikely possibility that you start playing for the other team."
Sara pushed herself up from the couch, her hands pressing into the cushion on either side of her thighs. "C'mon. Let's go get something to eat. I need to be moving around with Caine leaving tomorrow or I'm gonna start getting into my feelings."
Nicole straightened up, already reaching for her phone on the coffee table. "Oh, we should try that new place on Vets."
Sara grabbed her keys from the side table and Nicole followed her off the couch, the cushions rising back to level behind them. They crossed the room together, Nicole tucking her phone into her back pocket, Sara pulling the door open with the keys already threaded between her fingers.
~~~
Saul swung into the parking spot next to Zoe's car and killed the engine. The outlets in Gonzales stretched out ahead of him, storefronts running in a long curve under an overcast sky, shoppers moving between the buildings with bags pulling at their arms. He pushed his door open and stepped out, the cold catching his face and his knuckles where he gripped the doorframe.
He reached into the car and pulled the safety vest off over his shoulders, the reflective strips catching what light came through the clouds. He balled it up and tossed it onto the passenger seat, then shut the door. His hoodie smelled like cardboard and the chemical tang of the packing line, sweat dried into the collar from the first half of his shift.
Zoe sat behind her steering wheel, watching him. She lifted two fingers off the wheel and pointed toward the passenger side of her car. He walked around the hood and opened the door, dropping into the seat and pulling it shut behind him.
The heat in her car hit him first. The vents blew steady and warm, pushing air across his chest and his hands where he rested them on his thighs. His own heater barely worked past a lukewarm wheeze that fogged the windshield more than it did anything for his body. He let his shoulders drop and pressed his back into the seat.
Zoe gestured at him, her eyes moving over the hoodie, the dust on his jeans, the creased line the vest straps had pressed into his shoulders. "You got a job?"
Saul nodded. "Yeah, up the road. Doing packing for the plants."
"That's good." She turned the wheel of the volume knob on the stereo until the music dropped to nothing. "How's your kid and your baby mama?"
"Good. Can't complain."
He rubbed his palms together, working the warmth from the vents into his fingers. He looked at her, his head tilting against the headrest. "What you just showing up here for?"
Zoe's hands settled on the bottom of the steering wheel. Her thumbs tapped the leather once and stopped. "To tell you I don't know where Kayjuan and Maine went. They disappeared after the shooting."
Saul's jaw pulled tight. He turned his head toward the windshield, watching a woman push a stroller past the hood of the car, a shopping bag swinging from the handle. "After your boyfriend and his friend shot your friends, you mean."
Zoe's hands came off the wheel. "Don't put that on me." Her voice hit the inside of the car hard enough that the words seemed to bounce. "I ain't start selling weed then set your plug up to get robbed."
"He was trying to extort me," Saul said.
"You know how you don't get extorted?" Zoe turned in her seat, one knee pulling up onto the cushion, her body angling toward him. "Don't be a fucking criminal."
Saul looked at her and his mouth pressed into a line and he let the air in the car fill the space where his answer would have gone.
"I don't know what you're telling me this for," he said.
Zoe's head dropped back against her headrest. She closed her eyes for a second, opened them, and looked at him long enough for the silence to do all the work. "So you fucking know that ain't nobody coming to look for you. God damn. You're slow as fuck."
Saul rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers digging into the muscle there. "Sounds like you trying to set me up or something."
Zoe shook her head, chin sweeping left and back. "Nah. I can't be bothered with that." She pulled her knee back down and faced the windshield, both hands returning to the wheel, gripping it now instead of resting on it. "I'm just done considering you a friend because your cousin's boys had me face down in the dirt with a gun to my head, too."
Saul's eyes dropped to his lap. His thumb worked the seam of his jeans, pressing the denim flat against his thigh, finding the stitch and running along it. "I didn't know they were going to do all that."
Zoe shrugged, one shoulder lifting and falling. Her grip on the wheel loosened and she let her hands slide to the bottom of it, fingers lacing together. "When you ask hood niggas for solutions, they're gonna give you hood nigga solutions."
~~~
Ramon held the pistol out across the center console, grip first. Caine took it and checked the magazine, slapped it back in, and racked the slide. He pulled his hood up over his dreads and tugged the neck gaiter from around his throat up over his nose and mouth, the fabric settling against his cheekbones.
Ramon and Tyree flipped their hoods up. They pulled ski masks down from where they'd been bunched at their foreheads, the fabric stretching over their faces and tucking into the collars of their hoodies. Ramon adjusted his until the eye holes sat right. Tyree did the same and flexed his jaw under the material.
They got out of the car. The doors closed in three sounds spaced a beat apart, none of them slammed, all of them pulled shut by hand. They walked down the street together, staying where the trees threw shadows across the sidewalk and the streetlights didn't reach. Houses lined both sides, set back behind iron fences and trimmed hedges, driveways holding expensive cars.
Caine pointed at the side of a house where the gap between it and the fence ran narrow and dark. They moved single file along the wall, ducking under windows, their shoulders brushing stucco. The fence at the back was wrought iron, waist height. Caine grabbed the top rail with both hands and swung over. His shoes hit grass on the other side without a sound. Ramon came next, then Tyree.
The backyard opened up. A pool stretched across the center of the yard, the water dark and still, dimly light from below. Beyond the fence, Bayou St. John ran flat and black in both directions.
Caine crossed the yard to the glass doors at the back of the house. He pressed his face close to the glass and scanned the wall inside, the corners near the door, the space above the frame. He looked for a keypad, a sensor, a blinking light. He stepped back and looked at Ramon and Tyree and shook his head.
"It's probably tempered," Ramon said, his voice barely above the sound of the bayou moving behind them.
Caine nodded.
Tyree pointed at a window above them, smaller, set into the wall at shoulder height. He walked to a planter near the fence and picked up a brick from the border, dirt crumbling from its edges. He came back to the window and hit the glass with the flat of the brick. The pane cracked in a web from the impact point but held. He hit it again and the pieces broke inward, falling onto a surface inside with flat sounds. He reached through the frame and knocked the remaining shards out with the side of his hand, glass tinkling onto tile, then found the latch inside and turned it. He pushed the window up, jumped, caught the sill with both forearms, and pulled himself through.
Caine and Ramon waited. A few seconds passed. Footsteps moved through the house, muffled by walls, then the lock on the glass door clicked and the door slid open. Tyree stood on the other side and stepped back to let them in.
They moved through the kitchen, shoes on white marble that threw their reflections back at them in dark shapes. The living room spread wide, the same marble running through it, furniture low and modern, everything placed and clean. Caine pointed down the hallway that opened off the far side.
"Bedrooms," he said.
They walked down the hall. Closed doors on both sides. At the end, the last door sat cracked, and through the gap came sounds that carried no ambiguity. A woman's voice, pitched and rhythmic. A headboard tapping the wall in a steady beat.
Caine raised the pistol. He stepped back, planted his foot, and kicked the door in. The frame splintered where the latch had held and the door swung open and hit the wall. Caine swung into the room with the gun up and leveled.
Trell looked around the naked woman on top of him. His hand shot to her back and pressed her body flat against his chest, covering himself with her. His other hand reached for the nightstand drawer.
Ramon fired. The shot punched into the nightstand and blew a chunk of wood out of the corner. The drawer jumped in its track. Trell pulled his hand back and held it up, fingers spread.
"Fucking bitch," Trell said.
Tyree walked to the side of the bed and scooped the woman's clothes off the floor, jeans and a shirt balled in his fist. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her off Trell, her body twisting as she came off the mattress, feet hitting the floor unsteady. He shoved the clothes into her chest.
"Get the fuck out of here," Tyree said. "You ain't see shit."
She clutched the clothes against herself, eyes wide and wet, and ran. Her bare feet slapped the marble down the hallway. A few seconds later, the front door opened and slammed shut hard enough to rattle the walls.
Trell chuckled. He looked from the gun in Caine's hand to the two masked figures flanking him. "That bitch Cass sent another group of niggas to take a shot at me, huh?"
Caine pulled the neck gaiter down from his face. Ramon and Tyree pulled their ski masks up.
Trell laughed. He pointed at Caine, then looked at Ramon and Tyree. "Y'all helping this college ass nigga play gangster?"
Trell threw his feet off the bed and stood. He reached down and grabbed his boxers from the floor, stepping into them and pulling them up over his hips. He turned to the dresser and picked up a blunt from the ashtray, flicked a lighter, and put it to his mouth. The cherry glowed and smoke curled from his lips.
"You must be here to get your ass beat because you mad I been punching dick in your baby mama," Trell said. He pulled on the blunt and let the smoke roll. "That the problem, nigga? You mad I was nutting in your baby mama face?"
"You really think I ain't been off the porch," Caine said.
Trell nodded at the gun. "I know you ain't about to do shit with that." He shifted his eyes to Ramon and Tyree, the blunt still burning between his fingers. "Those lil' niggas might but I'm too locked in with their big homie."
He gestured at a drawer in the dresser with the blunt, the ember tracing a short line in the dim room. "I got another pistol in there. I'm gonna get that shit and I'm gonna have you looking like the Predator when I peel your shit back." The blunt came back to his mouth. "Then I'm gonna call up your baby mama, fly her somewhere and let 20, 30 niggas run a train on that lil' pussy."
"Man, shoot this nigga, Caine," Tyree said.
Trell laughed through the smoke. "He ain't built like that. Nigga probably don't even know how to use a gun. I'm gonna get my shit now."
Trell stepped toward the drawer.
The shot cracked the room open. Trell dropped, his knee buckling sideways, his body folding as he hit the floor. His hands grabbed the knee and blood pushed between his fingers. He laughed through it, the sound strained and wet, his teeth showing.
"This lame ass nigga really shot me in the knee," Trell said.
Caine walked over to him. He grabbed the back of Trell’s head and yanked his face up. He brought the pistol down across Trell's mouth. The metal connected with bone and Trell's head snapped to the side. Caine pulled him back and hit him again. Trell opened his mouth and Caine hit him a third time before a word could form. The fourth caught him across the bridge of his nose. The fifth split his lip open against his teeth. Caine kept swinging, ten, twelve times in total.
Caine stepped back. Trell sat on the floor with his knee leaking blood onto the marble, his face a mess of broken skin and swelling, teeth cracked and showing pink at the gum line, his chest heaving under ribs that rose and fell too fast. Blood ran from his nose and dripped off his chin.
"Your bitch still took the dick, nigga," Trell said. His voice came out thick, the words catching on split lips and loose teeth. "Niggas was nutting all in that bitch. You lucky she ain't get pregnant."
Caine grabbed Trell's jaw and forced his mouth open. He shoved the barrel of the pistol past his teeth and held it there, the metal clicking against enamel. Trell's eyes looked up at him over the gun, amusement still in them around the swelling.
"You go around her again, I'm coming back down here and finishing what I started," Caine said. "And I got the money to make it disappear."
Caine stood up and pulled the gun free. Trell's head tipped forward, blood and spit stretching from his mouth to the barrel before the thread broke. Trell laughed, the sound gurgling in his throat.
"I ain't worried about your lame ass, nigga. I been ready to die." Blood pooled in the spaces between his words. "I'll have your bitch strung out on the corner, banging dope in her veins while homeless dirty dick niggas fuck her in the ass."
Caine shook his head. "I said what I said."
He turned and walked out of the bedroom, starting down the hall. The marble carried the sound of his shoes, even and steady, growing fainter with each step.
Behind him, Ramon's voice filled the room Caine had just left. "Shouldn't been fucking with the opps, nigga. It's that three over everything."
Then guns started firing.
~~~
Von opened the door and Mireya stood on the other side with her weight on one hip, her hair falling loose past her shoulders. She smiled at him and stepped inside without waiting for an invitation, her hand trailing across the front of his sweats as she passed, her fingers dragging the fabric and pressing against him through it. Her nails caught on the drawstring and she let them, the contact deliberate.
His breath pulled in sharp through his teeth. The smile on her face widened and she kept moving, letting her hand fall away as she walked into his apartment. She took in the space without slowing down, her eyes tracking across the living room, the kitchen counter stacked with mail and a cereal box left out, the TV mounted on the wall with a game paused on the screen.
Von closed the door behind her. "You got here fast as fuck."
Mireya looked at him over her shoulder. "I was driving around when I texted you."
Von walked past her toward the sofa in the living room, already lowering himself onto the cushion, his arms spreading across the back of it. "So, what you trying to do?"
Mireya tilted her head. "Why are you sitting there?"
Von's hands stopped on the cushions. "What you mean?"
"Let's go to your bedroom."
Von pushed himself back to his feet, palms pressing off the armrest. "Say less."
Mireya smiled at him as he walked by her, his shoulder brushing hers, and she turned to follow. He led her down a short hallway, his hand finding the doorframe of the last room and swinging through it. She stepped in behind him.
LED lights ran along the trim where the ceiling met the walls, casting the room in a low purple glow that colored the bedspread and the carpet and the skin on her arms when she crossed them in front of her. The bed filled most of the room, sheets twisted. A candle on the dresser had been lit recently, the wax pooled and the wick still smoking, the vanilla cutting through whatever cologne he'd sprayed before she got there.
Von crossed to the nightstand and picked up a small speaker, thumbing the side until music pushed into the room. Tory Lanez. The beat filled the space between them, bass heavy enough to feel in the floor through her socks. He set the speaker down and sat on the bed, scooting back until he reached the middle, his back against the headboard, legs out in front of him.
Mireya's eyes stayed on him. She nodded at his sweats. "Take those off."
Von laughed, the sound loose and warm. "I like a chick who know what she want." He lifted his hips and pulled the sweats down his legs, working them off his ankles and tossing them toward the corner where they landed on a pair of sneakers.
Mireya reached for the hem of her hoodie, pulling it over her head and throwing it aside. She stepped out of her shoes, one foot and then the other, the carpet warm under her soles from the heater running somewhere behind the wall. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her leggings, pulled them down past her knees in one motion, and kicked them over toward where the hoodie had landed, her eyes on Von the whole time,. The purple light moved across her stomach and her hips as she straightened.
She got on the bed, knees sinking into the mattress, and settled between his legs. She reached back with both hands and gathered her hair, spinning it into a ponytail and holding it twisted in one fist. She lowered her head and held the ponytail out behind her toward him.
"You mind?" she said.
Von exhaled a laugh that came out closer to a groan. "Shit, girl. You a freak, huh?"
He grabbed her hair where she offered it, wrapping it once around his fist. Mireya laughed, the sound vibrating against him. "You ain't seen nothing yet, baby."
Then her head went down.
~~~
Caine's head rested against the window, his body sunk into the leather of the first class seat, his legs stretched out under the partition in front of him. He had his hood up, his arms folded across his chest, his breathing slow and even. The cabin held the low drone of the engines and the soft clicks of overhead bins being checked by crew moving up the aisle.
A hand touched his shoulder. Light pressure, two fingers, held for a second and then released.
"Sir, we've landed."
Caine opened his eyes. The flight attendant stood in the aisle beside him, her hand already pulled back, a practiced smile on her face. He blinked once and straightened in the seat, pulling his hood down with one hand.
"Thanks," he said.
He reached up and opened the overhead compartment, pulling out a black duffel bag by the strap and swinging it down to his side. The line of passengers had already started forming in the aisle ahead of him, bodies angled sideways, bags bumping against seats and shoulders. He stepped into the gap when it opened and moved with the line toward the front of the plane.
The flight crew stood at the door in a row, their voices cycling through the same phrases for each person who passed. "Thank you for flying with us." "Have a great trip." "Enjoy your stay." Caine nodded at them as he went through, the duffel strap cutting into his shoulder where he'd hiked it up.
The jet bridge stretched ahead of him, the floor ribbed and uneven. His shoes scuffed on the carpet. He yawned, his jaw stretching wide, and ran his hand through his dreads, fingers catching on a tangle near the back before pulling free. The air in the bridge carried the faint chemical bite of jet fuel mixing with the recycled terminal air pushing in from the other end.
He stepped through the threshold and into the terminal. The noise hit him in layers. Announcements rolling over one another from speakers mounted in the ceiling, the words overlapping until none of them meant anything. Rolling luggage clicking across tile. A child screaming somewhere behind a row of seats. A group of women laughing as they passed him going the other direction, shopping bags swinging from their arms. Bodies moving in every direction, some with purpose, some with none.
Caine pulled his phone from his pocket and thumbed it open. He found the text thread and scrolled to the message with the name he was looking for. He read it once, locked the screen, and started walking toward the signs overhead that pointed to baggage claim. Escalators carried him down one level. The crowd thickened as he moved through a corridor lined with ads for rental cars and hotels, the images blurring past his peripheral vision. He kept his eyes ahead, his stride unhurried, the duffel bag steady at his side.
The baggage claim opened up around him, carousels turning in slow ovals, luggage dropping from chutes and tumbling onto the belts. He stopped near the edge of the nearest carousel and scanned the chairs along the wall.
A man pushed up from one of the seats and started toward him, his hand already extended before he'd closed the distance. He wore a polo tucked into khakis, a lanyard around his neck with a credential hanging from it.
"Caine?" the man said.
Caine nodded. He took the hand and shook it. "Joe?"
Joe nodded back, his grip firm, his smile spreading wide. "That's me. Welcome to Los Angeles. We're excited to have you join the Trojan family."
