Eighteen (18)(62)

There are people on the front porch when we climb the stairs, and Danny stops to tell them all to go in the back. They grumble, but they finally go.

Danny sticks his key in the door and then stops, looking intently at me. “Don’t be pissed, OK? I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

He just takes in a deep breath and opens the door. There’s kids passed out on the floor. One about two, wearing nothing but an overfilled diaper. One is a little bit older and she’s got on a dirty sundress. And there, on the other side of the girl in the dress, lying on a blanket, the only thing between her and the filthy hardwood floors, is Olivia.

“What the f*ck?” I whirl around and see Dana, the babysitter, sitting on the couch, smoking and talking on her phone.

She looks at me, takes a second to recognize what’s happening, and then she says, “Shannon’s here.”

“What the f*ck?” I say again. “What the f*ck is my niece doing at a drug house?”

I look at Danny and he tries a shrug. “I thought you knew,” he says. “I swear to God, I thought you knew. She’s been here for a couple months. Ever since Dana got evicted.”

“What?” I look at Dana. “You live here? Since when? You lived down the street the last time I saw you.”

“Well, I was supposed to live with Jason, but he said we had to kick you out first.”

I run over and pick up Olivia, who is miraculously sleeping. “Is she even OK?” I ask Dana, feeling rage bubble up inside me as I check my poor little niece. “How the f*ck is she sleeping with this party going on? Olivia?” I say, pressing my lips to her head. “Olivia?”

“She’s fine,” Dana says. And then I hear Jason’s voice on the other end of the phone. “Here,” she says, thrusting the phone at me. “He wants to talk to you.”

I take the phone and spit, “You better have a good f*cking explanation for this.” Which is stupid. There is no good explanation for this.

“Just shut the f*ck up, Shannon. She’s not your concern anymore. And if you take her—” There’s a scream of police sirens in the background and Jason says, “Fuck.” And then the call drops.

“What the—” I look at Danny. “They’re on a drug run?”

“You told her?” Dana screams.

“Yeah,” Danny says, but he’s talking to me.

“Well, I think they just got busted. There was a siren and then the call went dead.”

“You bitch,” Dana says, getting up from the couch and coming at me. Danny throws her off to the side. She crashes back into the cushions like a rag doll. She must be wasted.

“You let her take my niece while she’s on drugs?” I ask Danny.

“Shannon—”

“Don’t f*cking Shannon me. In what world did you think I was OK with this?” He says nothing. “I’m so f*cking out of here.” I walk to the door and pull it open, but the cops are just pulling up, flashing their red and blue lights. “Jesus Christ.”

Danny slams the door and points to the kitchen. “Let’s go out this way. We can cut through the back.” He grabs my arm and drags me down the hall. All the while Dana is screaming at us, still trying to get up from the couch where she fell.

He throws the door open and drags me down the back steps. The party is raging now. There are kegs and music is thumping so loud, no one even notices the police cars in the front yet.

Danny weaves us through the crowd of drunk and dancing people, and then Rocky yells for him just as the music stops.

“Fuck,” he says, standing on his tiptoes, trying to see over a tall guy in front of us. The call comes again, and he whirls around, looking back at Phil’s house. “Keep going,” he tells me. “On the left side of the garage is a gate that leads out to the next street. Meet me there.”

I look at the crowd of people I have to get through. “Shit, Danny.” But when I look back, he’s gone. I swallow hard, holding Olivia tightly to my chest. She’s still asleep, even with all this noise. Something is definitely wrong with her.

I start pushing people out of my way and end up crashing into a short girl about my height. She spins around, beer spilling out of her red cup, and I say, “Sorry.”

It’s that girl I insulted back on the first day of the semester in front of the PE field.

“Oh, look who it is,” she says, slurring her words. “Pinche puta. You’re not f*cking Mexican, huh? Then why do you live in my hood, bitch?”

I push past her, my eye on the prize. The back gate. But she grabs my arm, and when I turn around, there’s a lot more of them now.

“Put the baby down, bitch,” one girl says. She’s a lot taller than me. And a lot meaner-looking too. “Or we’ll kick your ass while you hold it.”

“It?” I see red. “Touch me, and I’ll cut your tits off and feed them to my dog, cunt. But if you do decide to mess with me, you better take your best shot, and you better make it good. Because you won’t get a second chance.” I am fluent in street venom. I can spew threats with the best of them. It works in my favor, because it stops the whole group of them for a moment.

And that moment is all I need, because someone yells, “Cops!”