They always gave him the left side of the table.
Unspoken, but understood—Ramon took the corner with his back to the wall, Tyree leaned across from him, arms crossed and quiet, and EJ parked next to Caine, smacking sunflower seeds against his molars while watching everything like he was clocking a payday.
Caine didn’t say much.
He didn’t have to.
They’d eaten three meals together now. That was enough for the pod to start drawing lines.
Trayvon hadn’t so much as looked his way since that standoff, and the wolves that used to linger near Caine’s bunk at night were suddenly sniffing at someone else.
But safety in a place like E3 didn’t come clean.
It came layered.
And today was the first day that layer peeled back.
Caine was stacking dominoes—not playing, just organizing—when Ramon set a folded packet of ramen in front of him like an offering or a receipt.
“Got extra today,” he said casually.
Tyree was already unwrapping a Snickers. EJ dropped his tray down with a thud and said nothing at all.
Caine picked up the ramen but didn’t tear it open. “Y’all doing charity now?”
“Nah,” Ramon said, smirking faintly. “Call it investment.”
That sat between them for a second.
Tyree finally spoke. “Pod like this? Eyes don’t blink. You got calm energy. But calm don’t mean safe.”
EJ added, “You ain’t been jumped yet, but that’s credit, not coincidence.”
Caine nodded once, slow. “I get it.”
Ramon leaned forward, arms on the table.
“We ain’t askin’ you to run shit. But just know—we kept shit off your plate the last couple days. Called in quiet favors. Pulled weight that ain’t free.”
“I ain’t expecting it to be,” Caine said, voice even.
Tyree tilted his head. “Good.”
EJ broke his silence. “When we say move, you move. Not ‘cause we your bosses. Just ‘cause when shit shifts, you don’t wanna be slow.”
Ramon nodded. “You ain’t got a mark on you. You got people writing your name on envelopes. That’s leverage. Sooner or later, someone’s gonna want that.”
They let that hang there.
Caine didn’t flinch. He unwrapped the ramen, tapped the corner against the table like it meant something, then tucked it into his pocket.
“I ain’t green.”
“We seen your paperwork,” Ramon said. “You got more heart than most the niggas in this car. Don’t mean you can’t get got by some young nigga trying to earn some stripes outside.”
Caine glanced around the room. The same pod. Same stale air. But the chairs around him weren’t empty anymore.
That counted for something.
Even if he hadn’t asked for it.
Even if it was going to cost.
~~~
The hum of the kitchen light was louder than it should’ve been—an old fluorescent tube that buzzed like it was trying to stay awake. The rice on the stove had scorched at the bottom. Again. Mireya stirred it once with a plastic spoon, not because it could be saved but because she needed her hands to be busy.
Camila’s faint cough echoed from the back room.
She hadn’t cried in a while, which somehow made it worse.
Behind her, the apartment door clicked shut harder than necessary. Maria’s footsteps followed—measured, irritated, tired in the way that sounded like accusation.
“Tu hija’s been wheezing all afternoon,” she said. No hello.
“I know,” Mireya replied flatly. She didn’t turn around. “I left the instructions on the fridge.”
“She needed the Pedialyte,” Maria pressed. “I texted you.”
“I saw.”
Maria walked past her, opened the fridge, and let it hang open long enough for the cold air to spill out uselessly. There was milk, barely. Leftover beans in a stained container. Not much else.
“Then why didn’t you bring it?”
“I forgot,” Mireya said through clenched teeth. “I was running late to the depot drop. I didn’t get off until after seven, Mami.”
“That’s always the story, huh?” Maria let the fridge door close with a thud. “You’re tired. You’re late. You forgot.”
“I’ve been working all day.”
“So has everyone else.”
“I haven’t eaten since breakfast!”
“You want an award for that?”
Mireya finally turned, spoon clattering into the sink.
“What do you want from me?” she snapped. “I’m doing everything I can—”
“No,” Maria interrupted. “You’re doing just enough to say you tried.”
The words cut. Not sharp like a knife—dull like a bruise you’d been pressing on too long.
“I take care of her,” Mireya said, her voice shaking. “I pick her up. I change her. I stay up with her all night when she can’t breathe.”
“And then you hand her off in the morning and expect a parade.”
“I’m sixteen!” she shouted. “With a sick baby and two jobs!”
Maria didn’t flinch. “Then act like it.”
“I am—”
“No. You’re playing grown-up and acting like the world’s supposed to be sorry for you.”
Mireya’s face twisted. “I don’t want sorry. I want help.”
Maria pointed toward the hallway. “You had help. And then you brought chaos into my house. You brought a baby you weren’t ready for. A boy you couldn’t save. And now you act like this is something being done to you instead of something you chose.”
“I didn’t choose this life!” Mireya screamed.
“You chose him. And that means you chose all of it.”
Mireya’s hands trembled at her sides. Her breathing was ragged. For a second, it looked like she might throw something, or cry, or collapse right where she stood.
But she didn’t.
She walked to the counter and grabbed her keys.
Maria watched, arms folded, still unmoved.
“Where are you going now?”
“Away,” Mireya said.
“To who? Walking out like tu papa?”
Mireya spun. “Don’t act like you know what I’m doing. You don’t know a fucking thing about the hours I work, or how much it hurts to leave her every morning. You don’t know what I give up just to keep the lights on.”
“I know what it looks like when a girl thinks pain makes her special.”
“I’m trying!” Mireya shouted. “And it’s never enough for you!”
Maria’s voice was quieter now, but colder. “You want me to cry for you? Feel sorry because you got a baby too soon and no man at home? Newsflash—your life ain’t unique. And tired ain’t an excuse forever.”
The room pulsed with silence. Even Camila had stopped coughing.
Mireya’s mouth trembled, but her spine stayed straight.
She turned, walked out.
The door slammed so hard behind her the spoon in the sink rattled.
And Maria—alone now—looked down at the floor, at the burn bubbling at the edge of the rice pot. She turned off the burner. Opened the window.
But the smoke still lingered.
And the silence in the apartment wasn’t peaceful.
Maria didn’t move for a long time. Then she reached over the sink and turned the burner off. Pushed the pot aside, scraped out the ruined rice in the trash. She opened the cupboard, pulled out a clean bottle, and filled it half with warm water. Set it on the counter next to the bib Mireya had forgotten. Then she sat back down at the table and lit a cigarette with shaking hands.
She didn’t cry.
But she didn’t finish the cigarette either.
~~~
The heat in the garage clung like a second skin—grease-thick and unforgiving. The overhead lights buzzed, one flickering. Old rap bled from a speaker wedged between a dented tool chest and a stack of tires. Tito was under the hood of a busted-out Impala, forearms slick with oil, cigarette hanging from his lip like it had been rolled hours ago and forgotten.
Dre stood just inside the bay, hands in his pockets, eyes on the ground. He waited until Tito straightened and wiped his hands on a red shop rag before speaking.
“I need a run,” Dre said, voice low.
Tito didn’t look surprised. Just tired.
“Type?”
“Short. Quick. Enough to put something on the books.”
Tito tossed the rag onto a stool, then finally met Dre’s eyes.
“Caine?”
Dre nodded. “And Ricky.”
Tito let out a long breath and shook his head slowly.
“You think anyone’s gonna front work to a rat’s people?” he asked. “Even if you solid, that name’s dirty now.”
“Come on, man,” Dre said, stepping forward. “You know that ain’t me.”
“Yeah. But I also know your blood ran his mouth to save his own ass. People see you, they don’t see Dre. They see Percy. And Percy’s a liability.”
“That ain’t fair.”
Tito stepped closer, lowering his voice just enough to make sure it cut.
“Fair ain’t part of the business, son. Trust is. And right now? That trust is shot, lil’ brudda.”
Dre swallowed hard, his jaw working, fists clenched in his pockets.
“I ain’t asking for no front,” he said. “Just a door.”
“There ain’t no door.”
Behind them, a younger crew—three teens in mismatched hoodies and beat-up sneakers—stood half-watching from the side of the garage, pretending to sweep or change out a filter. They weren’t even hiding it. Just watching.
Dre caught one of them snickering.
He turned without a word and walked toward the street, the pavement cracking beneath his steps.
No one called after him.
And he didn’t look back.
He just kept walking, the weight on his shoulders a little heavier now, the road ahead still empty—and closing fast.
~~~
The breakroom was dim, lit by a single fluorescent bar overhead and the blue glow of a vending machine that hadn’t been stocked right in weeks. The fan on the wall turned in lazy half-circles, doing more to shift dust than move air. Sara sat at the corner table with a Styrofoam cup of instant coffee cooling in her hands, her scrubs wrinkled from two shifts and her hair pulled back in a loose bun that had started to fall by midnight.
Across from her, Denise—an older woman with kind eyes and orthopedic sneakers—dug through a sandwich bag of trail mix and watched her quietly.
“You look beat, girl,” she said finally, voice low and unjudging. “When’s the last time you slept right?”
Sara didn’t answer at first. She just stared into her cup like it had more to say than she did.
Denise tried again. “This your second shift this week, right? Split double?”
Sara nodded. “Trying to pick up a few more. Just until… something gives.”
Denise raised an eyebrow. “Rent hike?”
Sara shook her head. “I’m saving. Might have to move. Not sure yet.”
The silence after that invited more.
Denise didn’t push—but didn’t look away either.
Sara’s voice came out soft. Measured.
“My son’s in jail.”
That landed like a small crack in the room. Enough to make the silence feel different.
“He’s sixteen,” she said. “And they’re trying to bury him like he’s already dead.”
Denise sat still, the trail mix forgotten in her hand.
Sara’s voice wavered, just once. “They might try him like he ain’t even human. Like he’s nothing but paperwork and a mugshot.”
She pressed the heel of her hand under her eye, not bothering to pretend it was anything other than what it was.
“I keep telling myself to believe he’s coming home. But some days I can’t even say it out loud without choking on it.”
Denise reached across the table and set her hand gently on Sara’s.
They didn’t speak for a moment.
Then Sara straightened, blinking the tears back. Not gone—just shelved.
“But I’m saving,” she said, voice firm now. “Because if he does come home, he’s gonna need a roof that doesn’t hate him.”
Denise gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
“That boy’s lucky,” she said softly.
Sara didn’t answer.
Just exhaled, drained and still standing, and sipped her coffee like it was armor.
~~~
The visitation room was cold in that institutional way—windowless, colorless, built to make you forget the world outside. Caine sat at the booth, cuffed at the waist, ankles shackled to the stool. His arms rested on the small metal ledge under the glass.
When the door opened and Quentin Landry stepped through, Caine’s posture stiffened just slightly. He hadn’t seen Mr. Landry since that night. Since Percy raised the gun and Caine shoved it off target—toward the sky, toward nothing.
Quentin looked different now. Not in his face, but in the way he carried himself—like someone who’d spent weeks turning over questions with no good answers.
He took the seat across the glass. Lifted the phone. Caine waited a beat before picking his up.
Neither spoke right away.
Quentin sat across from the boy he hadn’t seen since that night. Back when everything snapped—Percy’s arm, the scream, the muzzle flash. He hadn’t known then if showing up like this would help or just reopen something. But he’d shown up anyway. Because sometimes doing right didn’t feel right at all. It just felt necessary.
Then Quentin said, quietly: “I’ve been meaning to see you.”
Caine gave a small shrug. “Didn’t think you would.”
“I wasn’t sure what I’d say.”
They let the silence breathe.
“You saved my life,” Quentin said, finally. “You didn’t have to. But you did.”
Caine’s eyes dropped. “Didn’t save much else.”
“That wasn’t yours to carry.”
Quentin leaned forward, and from the bag on his lap, he pulled two books. He held them up so Caine could see the covers—The Fire Next Time and a worn collection of essays by James Cone.
“Thought you might want something with weight.”
Caine raised an eyebrow. “Ain’t no libraries in here?”
“Not the kind that tell you why the system was built to swallow boys like you.”
That landed. Caine didn’t react right away, but something shifted in his grip on the phone.
Quentin lifted one more item into view—a GED prep booklet.
“I know you’re still on track for your diploma. This is just extra. Something to keep the rust off while the courts play their game.”
Caine smirked faintly. “What, you trying to make me a scholar now?”
“I’m trying to make sure they don’t get to decide what you know,” Quentin said. “They want you angry. Or stupid. Don’t give them either.”
Caine looked at the books again. Not like he was judging them—more like he was weighing something invisible in his mind.
“I’ll make sure they get delivered,” Quentin added, tapping the side of the glass gently with the corner of the Baldwin. “If they don’t let ‘em through, I’ll find something that does.”
Caine gave a slow nod. Not agreement. Not thanks. Just acknowledgment.
“They treating you alright in here?” Quentin asked.
Caine hesitated. “I’m still breathing.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
The guard behind Caine tapped twice on the glass—time’s up.
Quentin stood first.
“I’ll come back,” he said. “Next week, if they’ll let me.”
Caine didn’t move, didn’t speak.
But as Quentin walked away, he watched.
And when the door closed behind him, Caine sat with the phone still pressed to his ear for a second longer, staring at the space where the books had been.
~~~
The office was quiet after hours, just the ticking of the wall clock and the low hum of a desk fan pushing stale air across open folders. Outside, downtown New Orleans flickered—blue streetlamps, the glow of passing streetcars, neon signs buzzing tired promises.
Nicole sat cross-legged on the couch with her laptop, a half-drunk La Croix sweating beside her. A legal pad balanced on her knee, scribbled with timecodes, footnotes, and arrows connecting statements like spiderwebs.
Markus was at his desk, tie undone, sleeves rolled past his elbows. He looked like he hadn’t blinked in an hour.
Nicole broke the silence.
“I found something.”
Markus didn’t look up at first. Then he did—slow, expectant.
Nicole rotated the laptop and slid it to the edge of the desk. “This is the gas station camera they’re leaning on for timestamp verification. Claims they caught the car turning onto Dumaine ten minutes before the first witness report.”
Markus leaned in. Clicked back through the footage. “I’ve seen this.”
“Now watch the clock,” she said.
He did.
Three cars passed.
She clicked once. Froze the frame.
“The timestamp reads 7:41 p.m. But the clerk’s end-of-day register tape”—she flipped to another PDF—“shows the machine logged 7:41 twenty-three minutes after the surveillance footage ends.”
Markus blinked.
“Clerk ran his report right before close. Footage is off by at least twenty minutes. Maybe more.”
She handed him the handwritten affidavit from the arresting officer. “Which means this line here—‘surveillance footage confirms vehicle direction and timing consistent with eyewitness’—is garbage. The footage doesn’t confirm anything.”
Markus leaned back in his chair, the faint creak of old leather echoing in the room.
He read the affidavit again. Then the surveillance transcript. Then again.
Nicole stayed silent. She knew that look.
“This might not win us a trial,” Markus said finally, eyes still on the screen. “But it could collapse their case if we hit it hard during pretrial.”
He tapped the affidavit, once.
“They built this narrative on certainty. That timestamp is supposed to be their anchor.”
Nicole nodded. “And now it’s drift.”
Markus stared at the frozen frame. A blurry sedan. A streetlamp haloing the hood.
Then he said it, low and even:
“A knife in the dark.”
He stood and crossed to the whiteboard, wiping off an entire corner of scribbled case theory. He wrote TIMESTAMP – DISCREDITED in block letters.
Behind him, Nicole closed the laptop and stood to gather the new filings.
They didn’t say anything else.
The office was quiet again.
But the wedge had been found.
~~~
The pod was quiet now—quiet in that way only concrete and bad sleep could make. Lights dimmed, sinks dripped, distant voices from other wings muffled behind reinforced doors. The kind of silence that never meant peace.
Caine lay on his back in his bunk, arms behind his head, eyes tracing invisible cracks in the ceiling.
Then a shadow broke the edge of his bed.
Ramon.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just crouched low enough not to be heard by the night CO.
Tyree leaned against the opposite wall, arms folded. EJ hovered near the sink, back turned, but listening.
Ramon spoke low. Not whispering, but close.
“We might need a favor.”
Caine didn’t move.
Ramon went on: “Nothing heavy. Just something small. Soon.”
Caine blinked slow. “Inside?”
Ramon gave a slight shrug. “Could be.”
Tyree stepped forward just enough for the light to catch the edge of his jawline.
“You down?”
Caine held his eyes.
One beat.
Two.
Then nodded once.
Not with enthusiasm. Not even with fear.
Just the kind of nod a boy gives when he understands how a system works, even if it never said the rules out loud.
Ramon stood up, hand briefly resting on the side rail.
“Sleep easy.”
Caine didn’t respond.
But he stayed awake long after they left, the buzz of the light fixture above him matching the weight in his chest.
He reached under his bunk and pulled out the ramen from earlier. Held it in one hand for a moment, turning the package slowly. Then he set it on the floor, untouched. Left it there like a marker. Like a reminder that nothing in here was ever free.
~~~
The car was still. The radio off. Camila’s breathing soft from the backseat, a slight snore curling up from her stuffy nose. Her little fists twitched in sleep, bundled under the last clean blanket Mireya had in the trunk.
Mireya sat in the driver’s seat, fingers tight around her phone. The banking app stared back:
-$4.67
She didn’t curse. Didn’t cry.
Just let the screen dim and placed the phone gently in the cupholder.
Then she grabbed the crumpled five from her pocket—sweat-wrinkled, barely holding form—and stepped out.
Inside the Wendy’s, the cashier didn’t even look up.
“One cone,” Mireya said. Her voice surprised even herself—so calm. So hollow.
She slid the bill across the counter, took her change without counting it, and walked back out with the little swirl of vanilla in hand.
It melted fast in the heat. She sat on the hood of her car and ate it slowly, like it deserved her attention.
Camila slept through it all.
And Mireya stared out at nothing in particular, the taste of cheap sugar on her tongue, her eyes glassy but dry.
The cone dripped onto her hand.
She didn’t wipe it off.
