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She barely nods.
“PAUL!”
“I’m coming!” I shout back. With Luna in my arms, I exit into the short hallway. Someone half my age, a teenager, is blocking my path to the stairs. He puffs out his chest like he’s a threat, but a bad mixture of anger and pity rise inside me. “Get outta here, man.” I walk past him.
He doesn’t fight me. All bark.
Descending the staircase hurriedly, I hit the bottom stair. Everyone in the crowded living room zeroes in on me and Luna. My dad has his arms outstretched like he’s been keeping the peace.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” someone shouts at me.
“What is he doing, Sean?!”
“Put the girl down!”
Luna is trembling in my arms. I hold her tighter to my firm chest. “You all go!” I shout at them. “Leave me here with her. I’ll take the fall.”
Mutterings, dismissals, refusals.
“How do we know the cops are even coming?” Ryan snaps. “They could be lying!”
My dad scowls. “Why the fuck would we be lying? Are you really that dumb?”
I glance at the door. Could I just bolt outside? No. Liam and someone larger are guarding the exit and eyeing me skeptically. If I charged at them, I couldn’t fight ‘em off. Not while carrying Luna, and they’d pry her out of my arms.
“They’ll probably be here soon,” I warn. “You could let me take her. I won’t say anything to anyone.”
“No fucking way,” Colin spits. “We should at least take some pictures of her before—”
“Nah, there’s no time,” I cut in. And fuck you. Venom bleeds through me, and I shift my gaze so nobody can see that I’m pretending to care about them.
“No one has the names of who’s involved tonight,” my dad announces. “Either give Paul the girl or leave him with her. It’s the smart thing to do.”
They start talking over one another. Discussing more seriously. No one has left the row house yet, and suddenly, Luna goes limp in my arms. Her body slackens, and my pulse shoots to the moon.
“Luna,” I murmur.
Luna. Luna. Luna.
She’s dead weight. Unconscious, and I round the banister. “Get up. All of you. Get the fuck up,” I tell the four guys on the couch, a boulder in my lungs.
They stand with their pipe and drugs, and I place Luna on the lumpy plaid cushions. Crouching down to her face, I touch her cheek tenderly. “Luna?”
She looks asleep. I press my fingers to her neck, feeling the slow thump, thump, thump of her pulse.
“Is she dead?” someone asks.
“Fuuuck,” another guy curses. “I’m not going down for murder.”
“Let him take the fall. He offered. We should let him.”
More agreements.
“Nah, she’s just playing,” someone says.
“Just kick her. That woke her up the last time I did it.” He laughs, and my head whips in the direction of that voice.
Patrick. He’s a foot from me, and rage flames like lit gasoline in my veins. I stand and whirl around on him, my fist slamming into his face with the strength of my entire fucking body—physical, brute strength that I never had as a kid, not to this degree. The crack of his nose causes a few “ooohs” and winces from cousins, but no one assists him.
And no one stops me.
Not even as I throw a second, a third, a fourth furious punch into his face, and he’s on the floor. My knuckles sting. My muscles and lungs sear, and I inhale the fire of my wrath like toxic fuel. Anger isn’t a darkened boiling pool I ever blister this deeply inside, but I can’t crawl out. A fifth, a sixth, a seventh fist to his face. I’m beating the shit outta him—he should be writhing or moaning, but he’s trying to block my hand. He spits out a tooth. And he’s laughing.
I hate meth.
He’s numb to this pain. Now at least, and it staggers me back and on to my feet. Panting, I twist towards Luna, safe on the couch. I hover over her thin frame, about to lift her in my arms. She needs a doctor now.
“Shhhh!” my dad yells. “Do you hear that?”
Everyone goes quiet. I freeze, only hearing my heavy breaths.
And then…sirens.
“Cops,” Colin says, sprinting to the backdoor, but it’s too late. Every entrance whips open, and police swarm the row house.
“Hands up! Everyone!” Cops chase after my cousins who try to hurdle furniture and flee out kitchen windows. “Stay where you are! Don’t move!”
“Shitshit,” cousins curse.
“Fuck.”
I raise my hands, my pulse jackhammering. I haven’t taken my eyes off Luna, so I don’t sense a cop at my back.
I’m shoved hard to the floor. Chest meet Ground. His knee digs into my spine, and I turn my head so I can see Luna. “She needs—”
“Shut up,” he sneers, yanking my wrists painfully behind my back. Cold metal clips around my wrists.
