“No, you?”
I shake my head.
That makes her smile more.
“Good, that means you need me to be your friend.”
“I don’t need you to be my anything. I don’t need friends. I already have plenty of friends.”
“Liar.”
I frown. “I’m not lying!”
She takes my hand. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone that I’m your only friend.”
I roll my eyes. There is no winning with this girl.
“Let’s find this spider,” I say.
She nods.
We both crouch down and search around the ten-foot by ten-foot square that is the living room.
“I found it!” she squeals.
I crawl over to where she’s staring in the corner.
“You found the web and the spider, hunter.”
She wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue. “Don’t call me, hunter. My name is Liesel.”
“Nope, your name is hunter.”
“But that’s a guy’s name.”
“Huntress?”
She nods, liking that better.
“What’s your name?”
“Langston,” I say my name out loud and shutter. My father calls me Langston. I only think of his beatings when I hear someone call me that name.
She notices; her eyes soft with sympathy as she looks at me more closely for the first time. She’s probably noticing my swollen eye and bruise, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Kill it before it gets away,” I say, pointing to the spider that is now starting to crawl along the wall.
“I can’t,” her voice is quiet.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“You have to kill it. I think it’s a black widow spider. It’s poisonous. It could kill you if you don’t kill it.”
She thinks about my words for a second and lifts her pink sparkly flip flop to kill it, but then her foot slams back to her side. She can’t kill the spider.
There is conflict in her hazel, gold speckled eyes. She needs the spider to be dead, but can’t kill it herself.
I lift my worn, off-brand tennis shoes and slam it over the spider, killing it.
“Killer,” she whispers.
“What?” I ask, terrified that she’s going to be mad at me. I can’t handle that. I really could use a friend.
“Your name. I’ll call you killer. You’ll call me huntress, and I’ll call you killer.”
I grin and nod, liking the nickname a lot better than her calling me Langston.
Just then, my stomach growls. I haven’t eaten anything all day.
Hers growls louder a second later, making us both laugh.
“You got any food?” I ask.
She hesitates and bites her lip before she answers. “No.”
She’s lying—her first lie. I can tell. But when I look her over, I realize she needs whatever food she has a lot more than I do.
“It’s okay. Enzo said he’d bike over later and bring me food.”
“Enzo?”
“He’s my friend.”
“Sure, he is.”
I laugh.
We both lay on the floor, leaning our heads against the foot of the couch.
Her smile drops as suddenly as it appeared. “How did you get that bruise on your eye?”
“That man I killed and put in your trashcan—he fought back. But don’t worry, I won,” I lie. Mine is an obvious lie, unlike hers. I’m five years old. I couldn’t kill someone if I wanted to. The most I’ve ever killed is a spider. Although, I know my future. I suspect killing will become a means to survive.
She nods, pretending to accept my lie like I did hers, but she knows the truth. She knows my mother or father did this to me. It’s the tale of too many kids in our neighborhood.
“I think we should make a pact,” she says suddenly.
I sit up, looking at her. “Oh, yea? What kind of pact?”
“I’ll hunt whatever needs hunting for you, and you’ll kill for me.” She holds out her pinky finger to me.
I’m not really sure why she thinks we need this deal. Maybe she needs me to kill her father for her like I need someone to do it for me. I’m not big enough to kill him now. But if she asks me to kill hers in a few years, I will gladly.
I link my pinky finger with hers. “And if either of us breaks our promise?”
“Then, the other gets whatever they want. They can take whatever they want of the other’s. Demand anything. This is an unbreakable vow.”
“Like in Harry Potter?”
“Yep.”
“Fine, this is an unbreakable vow. I will always kill for you. And you will always hunt for me. Deal?”
We shake our pinkies together. “Deal.”
2
Liesel
Eight Years Old
The sound of the police siren sends chills down my spine as I try to sleep on the couch in the living room. I only have a light blanket, but I’m still drenched in sweat from the summer heat and lack of air conditioning. I don’t know what time it is, but I’d guess past midnight. I should be asleep—I have school in the morning—but even without the sirens blaring, I wouldn’t be able to sleep between the heat and my empty belly.
I wait for the sirens to disappear again, but they grow louder, closer.
I hold my breath as I hear the sirens just outside my house.
When you live where I do, sirens are never a good thing. Sirens aren’t coming to save someone. They are coming to lock someone up or to drag the body off after an overdose or gunshot. The police never make it here in time to stop the suffering. Not in a poor area like this.
I start running out of oxygen, and still, the sirens don’t leave. Their lights continue whirling, reflecting into the living room that serves as my bedroom.
I lift my head to glance out the window and gasp.
The police are entering Langston’s home.
I jump up and run to the window and peer through the broken shades at the scene before me.
My mind races with all the horrible things that could have happened to the boy who has quickly become my best and only friend. I call him killer, but the truth is I don’t think he’s killed much more than a spider. I still call him that because it beats seeing the torment in his eyes when I call him Langston like his father does. Someday, Langston will earn the nickname I give him. I know that. But for now, it’s still an innocent nickname—one that doesn’t haunt him, or me, yet.
What happened?
Did Langston’s father finally take things too far? Did he hurt him, injure him, kill him?
Please, no.
Please let it be his father. Please let him have drunk too much alcohol. Let him have alcohol poisoning or, better yet, be dead.
Let it be Langston’s mother.
Just don’t let it be my killer—Langston has to live.
I should wait inside my house, where I at least have the illusion of being safe.
I can’t.
Not when I don’t know if Langston is alive, hurt, or dead.
I run out the front door, not giving a damn about my own safety.
My feet are bare; my frayed T-shirt hangs down below my knees, hiding my shorts beneath, and my hair hangs in frizzy blonde waves. None of that matters—only Langston.