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There’s something else too. A symbol in orange neon down the bottom. I don’t know the gang tags and who they belong to, but I’m betting this place belongs to one I have seen around town. To me it looks like an angry quarter moon.
The guy on a stool outside smokes a cigarette and blows smoke at me. He’s got on ripped jeans that look too big, a black shirt, and around his arm is an orange band.
“Hey, Mami, you here to get lit?”
“Yes.”
“Free to go in. Bold choice in outfit, Mami.” He grins, flashing a gold tooth.
He’s got to be thirty if he’s a day. He stamps my hand, I go in, and it’s dark, loud, and smoky. This isn’t like any bar I’ve seen. It’s like someone turned their basement into one and invited their toughest friends.
Except these aren’t kids, and not one looks like the other younger gang members I’ve seen Jay with. This, to me, is a different league altogether.
And then I see him.
Black eye.
Swollen lip.
Blood on his white T-shirt with a zombie on it that he loves, and my heart breaks, but I can’t fall apart. If I do, we’re both in trouble.
“Jay?”
“Nadia—”
“Shut it, kid,” a man says, punching Jay in the back of his head as he comes up to me. “Your brat started a fight. Not good form, you know. And he owes me fuckin’ money, which means you owe me fuckin’ money, and that bill gets higher by the minute, you feel me?”
“You are?”
“None of your fuckin’ business, bitch. Yo, Tito, get her a drink.”
“I don’t want—”
“You’ll have one.” His head swings to me, the close shave on his head and face doing nothing for him. From what I can see, he’s covered in tats that climb up his throat and down over his hands. “Play nice, Mami.”
“Jay, go wait outside, please, I’ll deal with this.”
“Naw, don’t think so. We’re getting to know each other, aren’t we?”
This time he lands a punch to Jay’s stomach.
“You see, bitch, he comes here on another gang’s turf. That’s a death sentence.”
He’s sixteen,” I snap as a woman dressed in the shortest cut-offs and tightest shirt I’ve ever seen sashays over in heels, handing me a drink.
Because this man’s watching, I take the world’s smallest swallow.
“Good bitch. Now I don’t care he’s sixteen. He’s old enough to fight, to steal—”
“I didn’t!”
“Talk over me, he’s old enough to fuckin’ die.” He grins again.
“No one’s killing anyone. There’s an easy way out of this. I can pay you and we walk out, pretending this didn’t happen.”
It’s pure attitude and fake confidence. I’m not sure he’s buying it, but he doesn’t say anything, so I glance at Jay.
“Get your things,” I say. “We’re going.”
