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Wilde
I grew up fast in an East Compton trailer park not far from the Los Angeles River. Under pressure from the law, I left “home,” and ran a small drug ring under the radar of the big gangs until one of the prominent leaders used my old man’s crimes to set me up with the LAPD. I may not be big time, but I take care of what’s mine. When turning the tables on the LA gang leader stirs up more trouble than I bargained for, where do I end up? Alone. On the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Bullet in my shoulder. Bike wrecked. Leg—well, I’m not walking anywhere soon. As it turns out, gang wars and bullets have nothing on the little spitfire who comes to my rescue.
PROLOGUE
Eighteen Years Ago
Wilde
For years, eleven to be exact, I watched Ma smoke or shoot up and bring home one man after another. Not one qualified as a male role model, but what did she care? Her concern was her next high, not what it meant to her preteen son to learn to be a man. Ma was twitchy every time, and she’d eye me with a warning to stay quiet. Together, she and her man of the hour would slink through our tiny filthy home to the room behind the kitchen. I couldn’t count the times I’d fallen asleep to the whole trailer rocking and her screaming, moaning, and calling some new name long into the night.
Most mornings, after the man was gone, I couldn’t shake Ma awake. My old man—though I wouldn’t be certain of that fact until much, much later—came and went. Sometimes he brought home the men that kept Ma company. I never spoke to him, but he was the only person who came back again and again, and he was the only one who had the same dark hair as mine and eyes so light blue they were nearly clear. Eyes that always made people stop and stare. Eyes that made the women get all soft without even a touch. Eyes that would haunt me. Eyes like mine.
But that man, he’d been the worst of them.
Ma told me, “Stay in the bedroom when the light-eyed man comes, no matter what you hear. Got me?”
I nodded at her with wide, scared eyes. But I had a stubborn streak from either her side or his. So did I listen? Or obey? Nah.
Her screaming that night was different and ended in a shit-ton of yelling, something about her keeping his money. I didn’t understand, but I really didn’t want to, either. I tiptoed out of my room to see him clock her across the face with the butt of his gun, aim at where she had fallen behind the chair, and pull the trigger. I jumped. He looked at me with a smirk and put a finger over his lips, signaling for me to keep my trap shut. I couldn’t make myself move, and he read that loud and clear. He wrapped his hands in Ma’s greasy hair and dragged her to the truck. There was no fight left in her. She was limp, and her heels left grooves between the weeds outside our trailer.
I never saw Ma again.
Next day, I simply continued the routine. Cold, maybe. But Ma had never participated in my life anyway. I had walked to school every day since I’d started at five. It was the only place I could get a decent meal, so I ate two when possible. Then, when no one was looking, I stuffed extras in my pockets for dinner. The path to school took me down by the river, past rundown warehouses. Bearded men with tats, wearing leather jackets or vests, hung around outside the roll-up door with “Diablo” spray-painted across it. I couldn’t help but stare. Their clothes weren’t dirty like mine; the jackets were nicer than anything I’d ever owned; and they were always laughing. Damn, I wanted to laugh like that.
The men were strong, but they weren’t the ones who came to our trailer. One man—an older one with a lined face, blond hair, and a short beard—pulled a cigarette from his mouth and waved each time I passed. Most days, women were also coming or going dressed in short, tight dresses. Their faces were painted, hair teased several inches from their heads.
Except for the blond man, none of the others ever gave me a second glance. But each time I walked by in that week after Ma disappeared, I grew more and more curious.
Maybe ten days after, I came home to a wide-open trailer door, a black and white parked on the road. I should have turned around then and there, but I hadn’t learned enough about life’s lessons yet.
Flashback alert! Uniforms never listened. Twice, I’d tried to tell them about what went down in the trailer. The one at school had patted me on the head like a puppy. He glanced down at my arms below the sleeves of the two-sizes too-large T-shirt—searching for bruises, I assumed—and said, “You look well enough.”
That may have been my first real lesson in how all adults lied to kids like me. Cops wouldn’t protect anyone from my hood. We were the ones they saved other people from.
Inside my trailer, a policeman looked too comfortable. He sat in a folding chair at the old wire spool we called a dining room table. The cop leaned back so that his watermelon-sized gut stuck out like a pregnant woman’s belly. I worried about the strength of the chair under him but kept my teeth clenched. Through his fat lips, he chewed on a red straw—like the ones in cherry limeades from Sonic. He scooted forward and squinted one eye. “Son, how long you been here alone?”
The word son slapped me across the face along with wet spittle. I ground my teeth. I wasn’t anyone’s son, and I loathed him for the slight.
When I didn’t answer, he continued, “You know what happened to your mom?”
I shook my head. My breath wheezed in the back of my throat, and I balled my fists at my sides.
The cop rambled on a bit but finally said, “They found your mama’s body out on the 114. And by the look of you,”—he scanned me from head to toe, still gnawing on the straw—“it’s your old man we’ve got in the pen.” He lifted both brows, like teachers did after they asked pointless questions.
“Good,” was all I could think to say.
The cop shifted, the chair groaning underneath. “Why don’t you grab a few things, and we’ll get you taken care of.”
Yeah, right. In my eleven years, no one had ever taken care of me. That fat man wasn’t about to be the first. Nodding as if I agreed, I slid through the kitchen, past dishes covered in congealed food rotting in the sink, and into the bedroom. I threw some junk around to make noise, as if I was searching for things to pack. Instead, I went for the window. Getting out was nothing; the screen was in shreds. I was at the exit to the trailer park by the time the uniform realized I’d slipped out, but that front door rattle was something I’d heard all my life. I looked over a shoulder. I’d been walking at a good clip but picked up my feet and ran when the copper screamed my mother-given name.
Who—the fuck—names their little boy Jane? An addict hot for drugs even if only the mild shit—Mary Jane—as soon as she’d pushed out the brat. That’s who. And there I was, on the run from the law for the first time in my life. Jane Wilde, but I’d be damned to the same hell where Ma fried in if anyone was gonna call me Jane.
I stopped running at the river and walked into the warehouse, sweating, but with my head held high.
The older blond man sauntered over, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air. “Who are you, and why’re ya here, kid?”
“Wilde.” I panted and inflated my chest, wanting my shoulders to look broader, like the men who came and went from that warehouse. I made my voice as deep as possible, desperate to seem old enough and worthy enough for whatever went on behind the Diablo door. “Name’s Wilde. I want in.”
