Nightcrawling(56)

“What you mean?”

He looks so small.

“You were right. None of this shit is real, no record label wants to sign me, I can’t get no gigs, and the only reason I got somewhere to sleep is ’cause Cole and I been hustling. And I didn’t even do what I said I’d do, protecting you and shit. I should’ve been there to keep you safe.”

Marcus looks like he’s drowning in his face and for as long as I hoped he’d say this to me, I wish he didn’t have to. I wish these words could fix it all. I lean in and kiss the top of his head. He wraps his arms around me and I can feel him shaking.

“We still family, Mars.”

He keeps sobbing into my chest and I look over his shoulder to see Tony leaning in the doorway. He turns his grimace into a smile.

“I need you to do something for me now,” I whisper to Marcus. He pulls away from my chest just enough to look at me and nods. “You too, Tony.” Tony nods too, doesn’t even bother pretending he wasn’t listening.

Tony joins us, sitting on the couch, Marcus and I still on the golden rug. The whole studio looks different, everything flashy: new couch, gold carpet with a giant C in the center. Completely new equipment: speakers, soundboard. The low table is now occupied by a keyboard even though none of them can play, so I’m not quite sure why it’s here, resting on the table like someone might sit down and bust out a tune.

I take a breath. “I need your help. Both of you. I told Marcus but I’m in some deep shit and cops are following me. Ain’t safe for me to walk around on my own no more and I don’t got nobody else to ask.”

“Of course,” Marcus says.

I look to Tony.

“You in trouble?” Tony asks.

I didn’t want to tell him about it, have both of them look at me like I’m even more tainted than I already was, but now I don’t have a choice. “The cops investigating me, they ain’t arrested me yet and they say they ain’t gonna, but they brought me in and questioned me and now I got cops following me.”

“Why they investigating you?” Tony asks.

I avert my eyes. “I been helping some of them out. At motels and shit.”

Tony doesn’t say anything, but I know he’s looking at me, imagining what it is I’ve done, trying to forgive me for it.

Marcus sets a hand on my knee and shakes it.

“We still family, Ki.” And I think he means it, beyond words, beyond this moment, beyond the things our parents did to leave us broken.

I nod and, for the first time, I think about what I did, about the panic that sets in when anyone else touches me the way Marcus just did, how many guns have been pressed to my skull, fingers scraping my skin, fists in my hair. In this room, with these golden boys, all the things I’ve done feel vulgar, devastating, like I do not deserve to be loved good again.

“I’ll text Cole and he’ll come pick us up so we can get you home, aight?” Marcus is already collecting himself, pulling his face back in and removing his phone from his pocket.

“I think Cole got a bat or some shit in his garage. I’ll go get it and meet you out front,” Tony says, standing again, and disappearing out of the studio.

Marcus gets up too and pulls me from the floor, hangs an arm around my shoulders. We head back out to the basement, where Shauna is cradling the baby, and walk past her up the stairs and out onto the porch. It takes a couple moments for me to process that I’m back outside, that it’s muggy and hot and someone is still following me.

Cole is pulling up to the house in his flashy Jaguar when Marcus and I step onto the sidewalk. He rolls his windows down and shouts, “Kia, baby, you back,” before stepping out of the car, engine still running. He jogs around to take Marcus in, slap his back, and then turns to hug me.

That’s when the car pulls up, sleek and black, flashing lights from the inside, when the men in the car leap out, reaching into their waistbands and pulling out badges and guns. I catch their numbers, 220 and 17, both of them from the Whore Hotel, both of them staring straight at me as they pull Marcus’s hands taut behind him, then Cole’s, slapping on handcuffs and mumbling something about their rights, something about searching the car. 220 leaving 17 to place them in the backseat of the undercover car while 220 pops the trunk in Cole’s Jaguar, pulls out sacks of powder and automatic rifles.

I look through the tinted window to Marcus, who is crying, fear-crying like he did when Daddy got taken away, and I’m screaming for him, at him, pleading with 220, who smirks at me, comes up close enough that I can feel his breath, grabs my arm. He growls, “Don’t you dare say my name or I’ll make sure everyone knows yours. We’re watching.” He releases me, walks back toward the car, and gets into the passenger seat.

Marcus’s face isn’t visible anymore and suddenly Shauna is running at the car, pounding on the glass, sobbing. The car is screeching away, she’s turning to look at me, raging, and Tony is behind me, appearing right when the danger is gone, pulling me into a hug. I don’t think Tony’s ever wrapped his arms around me before, not like this, not like he is capturing me and cannot let go. Part of me wants him to squeeze me until one of my ribs cracks, until I don’t feel like I’m floating, wants him to squeeze me so hard the tingle fades and his arms are the only things worth feeling.

But the other part of me can’t bear that he stood at the door and watched my brother get taken, didn’t do shit, and my chest starts getting heavy. I start to push on him, shoving, my fingernails digging into his shirt, until he releases.