The juvenile courtroom was cold in that institutional way—chilled air, cheap lighting, every surface too clean or too worn. The benches were half-filled with lawyers, clerks, and a few family members scattered like afterthoughts.
Caine entered in cuffs, orange jumpsuit hanging loose on his frame. His head was high, but there was something tighter about him today—like he knew the air was about to get thinner.
They seated him at the defense table beside Markus Shaw, who gave him a quiet nod but said nothing yet.
In the gallery, Sara sat upright, shoulders squared like she was bracing against an invisible wind. Beside her, hands folded tightly in her lap, was Mireya, hair pulled back in a low braid. She didn’t shift. Didn’t blink much. A diaper bag rested at her feet, zipped tight.
Neither of them had said a word since they sat down.
Judge Delacroix, middle-aged, tired-eyed, glanced over the docket. “State vs. Caine Guerra. Bond rehearing. Mr. Shaw, if you will.”
Markus stood slowly, voice calm and measured. “Your Honor, my client is a sixteen-year-old high school student. Prior to his arrest, he was on track to graduate, participated in school athletics, and is a full-time parent to a ten-month-old daughter.”
A pause. He glanced back, just briefly, toward the gallery.
“Her mother is here today. So is his own.”
Sara blinked fast but didn’t look down. Mireya’s jaw twitched once.
“Mr. Guerra is not accused of a violent crime,” Markus continued. “The firearm in question was not in his possession. The allegation is rooted in presence—not action. And while the state would like to paint him as some orchestrator of criminal enterprise, the reality is that he’s a teenager who made the mistake of standing near the wrong people for too long.”
He placed a hand on the table.
“We’re not asking for a miracle. Just fairness. A chance for him to be home with his young daughter while he fights for his future.”
Delacroix gave a slow nod. “Ms. Babin?”
ADA Jill Babin rose with a practiced calm. Her heels echoed more than they should’ve on the tile.
“The defense paints Mr. Guerra as a victim of proximity. The state sees something else: a repeat offender with documented gang associations, a known history of truancy, and a growing pattern of organized theft.”
She flipped through a folder. Didn’t need to read. The speech was memorized.
“Conspiracy. Grand theft auto. Attempted carjacking. Possession with intent. Gang enhancement statutes. Firearm connection. If tried and convicted on all counts, this defendant faces a potential maximum of over one hundred years in prison.”
The room didn’t move.
Caine didn’t flinch.
But his jaw locked tight. A vein pulsed at his temple.
Behind him, Mireya exhaled sharply, hand moving to her stomach. Sara, wide-eyed, whispered a single prayer under her breath—barely audible.
Babin wasn’t done.
“He is a flight risk. He has no employment, no structured supervision at home. He is, in the state’s view, a destabilizing presence in his community.”
She looked toward the gallery. Not at the judge. Not at Markus.
At the women behind Caine.
Eyes sharp. Tone colder.
“Even those closest to him have not been able to prevent his criminal escalation.”
The silence that followed felt like a pin dropped in concrete.
Markus didn’t raise his voice.
Instead, he stepped forward and said: “The state is using fear in place of evidence. They cite gang enhancement with no affiliations confirmed. They reference past cases with no charges. This is a leverage game. A scare tactic designed to push a plea before discovery’s even been reviewed.”
He turned toward the bench.
“Your Honor, we demand full discovery. We also ask the court to recognize the obvious: Caine Guerra is being held not because he’s guilty—but because he’s vulnerable.”
Delacroix took a long pause. Scribbled a note. Then:
“I’ll issue a ruling after recess. We’ll resume at one.”
He stood. Everyone followed.
Caine didn’t turn as the deputies re-cuffed him and led him out.
But in the gallery, Mireya and Sara watched him go—two women bound by a child and a sentence neither of them had asked for.
Sara finally spoke, barely audible.
“Over a hundred years…”
Mireya didn’t answer.
She just reached down and picked up the diaper bag.
Because in a few hours, someone would need feeding. A nap. A clean bottle.
Even if her father never came home again.
~~~
The hallway outside juvenile court buzzed with tension—shuffling bodies, low murmurs, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like static. Deputies leaned against walls with arms crossed, and somewhere down the corridor, a baby cried, sharp and distant.
Sara pushed through the thick of it, eyes wide, breath shallow. She caught sight of Markus just as he was stepping toward the elevator, a folder tucked under one arm.
“Mr. Shaw,” she called, too loud, voice cracking.
He turned. Saw her face. Stopped.
She closed the distance fast, Mireya right behind her, clutching the diaper bag like a shield.
Sara didn’t lower her voice.
“Is that real?” she asked, trembling. “A hundred years?”
Markus glanced around, then gently guided them away from the foot traffic—near a recessed alcove by a water fountain. His voice dropped low, measured.
“Technically, yes. But it’s theater. The DA says it to scare the judge. And to scare you.”
Sara looked like she might crumple. Mireya caught her elbow, held her upright.
“She said he’s a flight risk. Like he’s gonna disappear into the fucking wind,” Sara whispered. “He’s a kid. He’s a father. He’s…”
“Breathing,” Markus cut in gently. “He’s breathing. And he’s got me now.”
Nicole, Markus’s paralegal, appeared with a phone in one hand and a binder in the other. She passed Markus a paper without a word, then nodded once at the women before moving on.
Mireya’s voice was quiet, but urgent. “Does he know the number?”
Markus hesitated. Then nodded.
“He does now.”
That landed like a gut punch. Mireya looked away, blinking hard.
Markus shifted the folder in his arm. “I’ve got to prep the discovery motions. File them before end of day. I’ll text updates as soon as I hear anything.”
Sara opened her mouth but no words came out. She just nodded—once, tight—then dropped onto a bench like her legs had given out.
Markus gave them both a final look before disappearing into the stream of suits and clipboards heading toward the elevator.
The hallway closed around them again.
Sara stared at the floor.
Voice soft. Barely audible.
“How do I explain that to Camila?”
Mireya didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
She reached into the diaper bag, pulled out her phone with shaking fingers, turned her back to the wall, and pressed it to her ear.
A pause.
Then: “Hey, Mr. Jaime—it’s Mireya. Listen, I was wondering if you had any more hours this week. I can double up. Weekends too if you need.”
Her voice didn’t break.
But her knuckles were white around the phone.
Sara sat with her hands folded in her lap, blinking fast, mouthing words that didn’t come out.
And overhead, the fluorescent lights kept buzzing like they didn’t care what anyone lost here.
~~~
The backyard was overgrown—patches of dead grass between broken cinderblocks, a barbecue pit filled with soggy ash, and an old lawn chair with a busted leg leaning against the chain-link fence. It was the kind of yard that used to be loud with uncles talking shit and kids running barefoot. Now it just sat, quiet and dried out like the rest of the block.
Dre pushed the gate open, letting it rattle enough to announce himself. He walked in slow, not out of fear—but because the air between them had shifted. Family wasn’t what it used to be.
Percy was on the back steps, hunched over in a hoodie and slides, smoking something candy-sweet that didn’t smell like weed so much as fake strawberries and grit. He didn’t get up.
“You came to check my math?” Percy asked, voice thick with smoke. “Far as I heard, my numbers been real convincing.”
Dre didn’t answer.
“You need to fix what you said.”
Percy finally looked at him. “What I said? Man, that shit’s down in ink. I told them what they wanted to hear. You shoulda thought about that before you brought me in.”
“I brought you around family,” Dre snapped. “Let you in my house. Gave you the keys when your moms was couch-hopping. You turned that into a fucking charge.”
That landed. Percy stood, brushing ash from his lap. “Don’t act like I made this shit up. I said what happened. They needed names. I gave one.”
“You gave the wrong one,” Dre said. “Ricardo’s sitting in OPP off your mouth.”
Percy’s smile dimmed, lips pressing together. “He was in the car.”
“He didn’t pull a stick. He didn’t even move that night like that. That was you. Your mess.”
“He knew the rules. He ate just like us.”
“Eating ain’t the same as pulling the trigger,” Dre said. “You crossed a fucking line.”
Percy stepped off the stoop now, coming in close. “You think they care who pulled what? We all get the same charges. Ain’t no point trying to break it down after the fact.”
“I ain’t here for technicalities,” Dre said, voice sharp. “I’m here ‘cause your lie’s about to break three households. Ricardo’s sister had to drop out to come back. His mama don’t sleep no more. Probably about to get sent back to Mexico. And Caine? That boy might never come home.”
“That shit ain’t on me.”
“It’s all on you.”
Percy’s jaw tightened. “They picked me up with no lawyer and a folder full of threats. Said I could go home if I talked. So I talked.”
“You folded.”
“I survived,” Percy said. “That’s what I do. What I always done. When my pops went down, when the lights went off, when y’all left me out there to starve—I survived.”
Dre’s face twisted. “Don’t rewrite this like you were abandoned. You were at my table. Wearing my hand-me-downs, nigga.”
“Then maybe that’s the problem,” Percy snapped. “Always felt like hand-me-down love too.”
Silence stretched.
Then Dre stepped forward.
“Take it back,” he said. “Tell the DA you lied.”
“Say what?” Percy shot back. “That I’m the fucking shooter? That I was the dumbass who pulled a piece on a porch light? They’ll bury me. You know that.”
“You deserve to face what you did.”
“And you don’t?”
That’s when Percy moved.
Quick. Sharp.
His hand dipped into his waistband and came back with something small, black, and all too familiar.
A pistol.
He didn’t aim it.
But he held it like he might.
“You think I’m scared to shoot now?” Percy said, voice deadly quiet. “Think I won’t?”
Dre didn’t flinch.
He just looked at him—eyes hollow, jaw set.
“I ain’t scared of dying, nigga,” he said. “You forgetting I been off that porch.”
Percy stood there breathing heavy, the gun still at his side.
Wind rustled the trees. Somewhere a dog barked. The world kept going.
Dre took one step back.
Then another.
Percy didn’t lower the pistol until Dre reached the gate.
“I ain’t no snitch, nigga,” Percy called after him. “I’m just the one who saw the storm coming and put my motherfucking head down”
Dre didn’t answer.
The gate rattled shut behind him.
And Percy—barefoot now, gun tucked back in his waistband—sat back down like nothing had happened at all.
Only his eyes stayed on the gate.
Long after Dre was gone.
~~~
The office trailer stank—sweat, printer toner, and something sourer that clung to the carpet in a way no amount of Pine-Sol could mask. The fan in the corner spun lazy circles, rattling against its own cage, pushing around hot air like it was doing a job it didn’t believe in.
Mireya sat behind the dented metal desk, hunched slightly forward, clicking through a spreadsheet that wasn’t a spreadsheet so much as a jigsaw puzzle of lies. She’d been told to “make the numbers right,” which in this place didn’t mean correct. It meant convenient.
An invoice for fifty bags of mix had been doctored to show seventy. Another one billed a delivery that never happened—at least not to the address listed. The signatures didn’t match. The job codes were blank. She made a note anyway.
Nobody cared.
Behind her, the trailer door swung open hard enough to slap the wall.
Gravel crunched. Work boots stomped.
Kike.
He didn’t knock. He never did. Just leaned halfway in, one arm propped on the doorframe, the other hanging loose by his side. His tank top was damp at the collar and armpits, sweat blooming dark across his chest. A pair of bootleg Cartier sunglasses hung from his shirt like he wanted someone to ask about them.
“¿Estás bien?” he asked, too casual, like this was a social call and not a check-in on a favor he thought she owed him.
Mireya didn’t look up.
“Define good.”
Kike gave a low whistle, like he was impressed by her edge. “Damn. Cold today.”
“I’m at a concrete yard,” she said, typing something just to make the screen change. “Punching fake totals into a computer older than me. What you think?”
He stepped further inside now, ignoring the signs taped to the wall about hard hats and OSHA regs. No one followed those. Not here.
“Could be worse,” he offered. “You could be with someone who don’t got your back, guapa.”
That did it.
She looked up slowly. Her face blank, but her eyes sharp.
“You done checking on your favor?”
He held his hands up, palms out. “I ain’t ask you to say yes. Just gave you the number.”
“You gave me a hole,” she said, voice flat. “And told me to crawl in if I was tired of drowning.”
Kike’s smile faltered.
Outside, an engine coughed and died. Someone yelled something in Spanish. A hammer hit metal. The concrete yard buzzed with the quiet chaos of a place where everything looked just legal enough to pass if you didn’t stare too hard.
Mireya turned back to the monitor. The fan clicked louder in the corner, catching on something with each rotation. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m here, right?”
Kike stood there a beat longer, arms folded now, looking like he wanted to say something else—maybe something soft, or maybe something slick. But whatever it was, it got caught in his throat.
“Alright,” he muttered finally. “You need anything, I’m around.”
“Yeah,” she said without looking up. “Lo sé.”
The door creaked shut behind him.
She didn’t watch him leave.
She stared at the screen. At the blinking cursor asking her to approve another invoice that smelled like bullshit. Then she reached into her back pocket, pulled out her phone, and woke it up.
Camila. On the lock screen in a hoodie twice her size, smiling wide at something just out of frame—one sock missing, curls messy, cheeks full.
Mireya stared for a second longer than she meant to.
Then she clicked the phone off, set it face-down on the desk, and went back to work.
…
She left the trailer twenty minutes before her shift ended.
Jaime had told her to drop a stack of payroll slips off in the back shed—really just a converted shipping container with a busted lock and a box fan wired to the ceiling. Half the yard was still active, the sun a dull smear behind thick haze, casting everything in a sick, yellowed light.
Mireya moved quickly, folder under her arm, boots crunching against gravel.
As she rounded the corner, she slowed.
The shed door was open.
Voices inside—low, clipped. Not arguing. But not casual either.
“…he said it’s gotta be off the books. Push it through the depot and loop it back. If we do it clean, no one’ll flag the load,” one man said—older, white, Cajun drawl thick enough to stick to the walls. Not Jaime.
“Same site tag?” came another voice. Younger. Laughing lightly. Leo, maybe. “Damn. That’s four in a row.”
Then a third voice, casual in the way that made her stomach turn.
“That new girl’s got nice legs though.”
A pause.
Then Leo again: “I’d split her in half.”
Jaime’s voice came in low, annoyed but not exactly outraged. “She’s only sixteen.”
“Shit,” the older one said, chuckling. “And already got a kid? She knows what she’s doing then.”
He laughed harder now—ugly, open, like he’d said something clever.
The others didn’t stop him.
Mireya froze outside the door, fingers tightening around the folder until the edges bent. Her stomach flipped—not just from the words, but from the fact that no one corrected him. Not even Jaime.
Then a pause.
“She hears something?” Leo asked.
“She don’t,” Jaime said flatly.
And then, quieter: “She needs this job.”
Mireya backed away one step.
Gravel shifted underfoot—too loud.
Silence from inside.
She turned and walked fast, breath short, folder pressed tight to her ribs. Didn’t run. Didn’t glance back until she reached the trailer steps.
Only then did she look—just once.
Enough to see a man standing in the doorway of the shed, arms crossed, just watching.
No wave. No smile.
Just watching.
~~~
The interview room smelled like cinderblock and dust. No windows. Just the familiar flicker of the overhead bulb and the hum of the vent that didn’t circulate anything but noise.
Caine was already seated when the door opened, his wrists cuffed to the table, shoulders stiff under the thin fabric of his jumpsuit. A healing scab marked the corner of his mouth from the fight two days ago.
Markus entered first, tie loosened. Nicole followed, a legal pad already in her hand, pen poised but eyes quiet. They didn’t say anything until the deputy pulled the door shut behind them.
Markus dropped a folder onto the table, took the seat across from Caine. Nicole leaned against the wall, ready but not intruding.
“You saw the ruling,” Markus said evenly. “No bail. We’ll appeal, but for now… you’re here until trial.”
Caine didn’t blink.
He just nodded once, slow.
Markus leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table.
“How you feeling?”
Caine’s voice came flat. Barely above a murmur.
“If they gonna give me a hundred…” His jaw flexed. “Then I guess I’ll do a hundred.”
Nicole’s pen moved.
Markus didn’t interrupt.
Caine looked up now, meeting his eyes for the first time.
“I ain’t snitching.”
Markus gave a quiet nod. No surprise. No judgment.
He turned slightly toward Nicole. She scribbled a note without looking up.
After a beat, Markus asked, “You had any visits yet?”
Caine shook his head once.
“No.”
“Why not?”
He paused.
“Because I don’t want Camila in here. She don’t need to see this shit.”
His voice wavered—not breaking, just barely tethered. Not a crack, but the pressure of one coming.
Markus sat back, folding his hands together.
“I get that,” he said. “But you need to think about this long-term. This isn’t a sprint. This trial… it’s going to stretch. Weeks, maybe months. The pressure’s not just on you. It’s going to hit them too.”
Caine’s fingers twitched slightly around the chain.
Markus continued, softer now. “You should ask your family to come. Especially your daughter. And her mother.”
No answer.
Caine stared straight ahead, past Markus, past Nicole, past the walls.
Just silence.
Markus didn’t push.
He stood slowly, nodding once. “We filed the discovery motion today. I’ll be back after I see what they hand over.”
Nicole gathered her folder.
Markus looked back at Caine one last time.
“Don’t try to carry the whole sentence before it’s even been passed.”
Then he walked out.
Caine sat still in the silence after they left, cuffs clinking faintly as he flexed his hands.
He didn’t move when the lock clicked shut again.
He just sat there.
Alone with the weight.
And the time.
all caught up.
