He only has a few years on me, but looks far older. His eyes are the shade of weapon gray that someone would pick out for themselves if God didn’t have rattlesnake yellow in stock. No compassion or intelligence in them. Only cunning—and sizing you up for cracks. Underneath each eye is a crude teardrop tattoo the color of wash-faded denim. I’ve heard those mean you’ve killed someone.
I walk faster, anger scuttling up my throat from my chest.
“What don’t you know, girl?” Cloud says to Delaney as I enter earshot of their conversation. “Ain’t nothing to know.”
Delaney stares forward, then turns and catches my eye. She looks afraid and relieved. Help me, her eyes say.
Cloud sees me approach and gives me a curt backward nod. “ ’Sup, mane.”
I return the terse nod. “Everything good?”
Cloud pulls a drag off his dragon vape pen. The cords of his neck ripple underneath a tattoo of the face of Jared Leto’s Joker character from Suicide Squad. He releases a gout of white, cherry-scented vapor in my direction. “We real good. Just having a private conversation.”
“We gotta go,” Delaney says, her voice taut.
“Won’t take but a minute,” Cloud drawls. His mouth smirks. His eyes don’t follow.
“We’re already late,” I say in a low voice.
Cloud sidles toward me and spits. I can smell him as he nears—expensive cologne, weed, cherry vape smoke, and something stale and sour. “We’re talking now.”
I try to slip past him to get in my truck. He steps to cut me off, and I almost run smack into him. “Scuse me,” I mutter. “I gotta—”
“You her daddy?” His tone is equal parts mocking and menace.
“No.”
“Hmm? Boyfriend? Y’all smashin’?” He gives me a death’s-head grin with his grille and humps the air a couple of times.
“Man, I don’t want no trouble.”
“Naw?” Cloud gets in my face, staring me down. “What’s your name, mane?” He’s near enough I can feel the sweat evaporating from his skin.
“Cash,” I say, avoiding his eyes.
Cloud snickers. It sounds like a call from a buzzard to come feast on a carcass. “Cash. Sheeeit.” He lifts his heavy gold chain with both thumbs and lets it drop back down on his chest with a muted thud. “It’s me should be named Cash. Look like the only cash you got is your name, bitch.”
I look him dead in the eyes. I know the peril, but I do it anyway. “My name’s my name. Ain’t ashamed.”
I’m not afraid to fight him. I grew up having to fight, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve fought on Delaney’s behalf. But it would probably be the last. I would take him if I knew it would be just him and me, skin on skin. That we’d each take our hits and shake hands afterward. But there’d be tactical knives pulled out of pockets or Glocks pulled out of waistbands. And if I survived that, I’d have to always watch my back in this town, until he finally got himself killed or sent to prison.
I lower my gaze in surrender.
Cloud takes a long drag on his vape pen and spews vapor in my face, long and slow. “Cash Money. Better get to your girl.” Then he draws in close, until his lips tickle my ear. Intimate, but in the way of a wolf lapping blood from a deer’s throat. “You lean on her to say no to me, you’ll deadass regret it, mane. On God.”
With one last glower, he swaggers away, drops into the driver’s seat of his thumping, rattling car, and peels out of the parking lot in a haze of acrid, rubbery black smoke, the back end of his car fishtailing.
I’m shaking and nauseated by the time I’m back behind the wheel of my truck. I take a second to breathe down my sizzling adrenaline.
Delaney murmurs something. I don’t hear her at first.
“Hey.” Her voice finally reaches through my maelstrom of thoughts.
“What?”
“Thank you.”
“Why’s he hassling you?”
Delaney sighs and sags into her seat. “Something about going into business together. Real vague. Like if you thought cops were listening. He’s been on me ever since everything hit the news.”
A few seconds of tense silence tick past.
I shake my head. “What’s he think? After you save humanity from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, you’ll help him cook better meth and make fentanyl out of dish soap?”
“Said he’d make me rich. Piece of shit.”
I chuckle bitterly. “Oh, I bet. Guess we got this to look forward to next year.”
“Maybe not,” Delaney murmurs, studying the side of her left thumb, then lifting it to her mouth.
I reach over and put my hand on hers and gently pull it toward me. The side of her thumb is bleeding and ragged. Delaney diagnosed herself a while back with a “body-focused repetitive behavior.” She picks and chews at the skin around her thumbnails until it bleeds. It happens when she’s stressed or anxious. She can’t afford help for it, so my catching her is the best she’s got.
“Red,” I say quietly.
She quickly pulls her hand back and goes for her thumb.
I grab her hand again and lower it to her lap. “Delaney.”
She sighs and sits on her hand. “Happy?”
“Hate seeing you hurt yourself.”
“Can’t help it.”
“Do your breathing exercises.” She researched coping mechanisms. My job’s to remind her. “What’s going on? Cloud?”
“Not just him.”
“Well?”
“I said a second ago maybe we don’t have to deal with him next year?”
“You’re not gonna poison him, are you? Not that I’m opposed, necessarily.”
“Just replace his weed stash with gympie gympie.”
We both laugh.
“I wish,” I say. “But for real.”
“I got an offer to go to a boarding school up north.”
My heart plummets. With all the press she’s been getting, I knew this day would come.
I swallow, then nod for her to continue. “Oh wow.” The unease in my voice is obvious to my own ears even as the words leave my lips.
“Middleford Academy. In New Canaan, Connecticut.”
“Sounds fancy.” My head swims.