“Where are you?” His voice is tight, yet there’s a hint of relief. “There’s all sorts of shit going on. Shots fired. People are running. Screaming to get off the streets. Tell me where you are.”

“Go home,” I whisper. “Stay in your truck and go home now.”

“Not without you.”

My head drops forward. “This isn’t a fucking game. My world is going to hell and you need to leave.”

More shots and a man yells out in agony. He begs. For his life. Asking for whoever not to do it. Says he has a brother. He has a mother. He says please. He says it a lot. He says it like he’s a scared child. He says it like he means it and tears prick my eyes. I can imagine him—on his knees, his body trembling, staring up at Linus.

Probably a lot like me when I collapsed on the ground when I was younger begging God for my world not to be destroyed. How old is he? How old am I? My throat tightens, and my lower lip quivers. This is real. Too real. “Go home, Logan. Go home now.”

“Jesus, Abby. Where are you?”

I’m trapped. Bile sloshes in my stomach, and I breathe out hard as I try for cool and calm. “Too far away.”

“It’s okay, Abby. I’m going to find you, and it’s going to be okay.”

It’s not. It was going to be, but now it’s not. “We were going to have a lunch table at school, did you know that? I picked it out. It’s a big circle one, by the windows, and it would have had plenty of sun during our lunch break. Rachel and I would have had the seats in the shade and you guys would have sucked it up and dealt with the sun in your eyes. It was going to be me and you and Rachel and that friend of West’s.”

“Jax?” Logan says like he’s running. “Do you mean Jax?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have it. Even if I have to arm wrestle someone for it.”

I choke on the laugh to keep from giving myself away and my eyes burn. “I would have loved to have seen that.”

“It’s going to happen and when it does, I’ll buy you all the tacos you can eat and then we’ll have quiet. You and me and all the quiet you want. There’s a place near my dad’s. A little brook with a small waterfall. Thought of you last time I was there. There were bunnies.”

Bunnies. My heart hurts. “You’re just trying to get into my pants.”

“You figured me out. Are you in the alley, Abby? That’s where people are running to and from. Tell me if you’re in the alley.”

In the distance, police sirens wail, but they won’t get here fast enough. This will be over soon. Too soon. A dry heave runs up my throat as the images of all I’m leaving behind flash in my mind and I shake my head to ward off the panic. There’s a job to do. A job...a life that’s left undone.

“Logan, listen to me. 5212 Brook Street. Go there. The back door key’s in the birdhouse in the backyard. Second-floor bathroom, move the towel shelf, pull up the wallpaper, take the door off. You’ll need a screwdriver. There’s an envelope. You’ll know who to give it to. It needs to be done tomorrow. Before 3:00 p.m. Do you understand?”

“Where are you, Abby?”

I don’t want to die. Not tonight. Not now. I needed time. Time to make things right. Time to be redeemable. Just time. “There’s enough money in there for a few weeks and after that...”

I don’t know what comes after that. “Ask Isaiah. He’ll think of something. But only then. He’ll understand. He’ll figure out what to do. He won’t fail me on this.”

“Stop screwing with me. Are you in the alley?”

Yes. “Stay out. They’ll shoot whoever enters.”

A crunching of debris under heavy footsteps and I rub my forehead. It’s not Linus. Linus would have given me a heads-up. I wonder if this is how my dad felt, if this is how my grandmother felt, I wonder if this what everyone feels before they meet death...I wonder if they feel like they’re falling into an endless pit of cold.

“I’m here,” Logan says. “Just stay with me.”

He is. God knows he is. Though my knees are weak, I struggle to my feet. I’m Abby. I’m the daughter of Mozart, a legend of the streets. Some people at school call me names. They label me a slut, call me evil. Some call me a killer. But they’re wrong on the last part. They’re wrong on most of it.

When I’m standing tall, I speak what normally doesn’t come naturally—the truth. “No matter what, I liked you.”

Logan begins to talk, but I turn off my phone, drop it to the ground and smash it with my foot. I’ll not take down anyone else with me, legally or illegally. Won’t allow my phone to be the trail of bread crumbs. A dark form slowly approaches, the moonlight glinting off the gun.

He doesn’t see me against the wall, but I’m not stupid enough to think he won’t find me. My slick palm causes a weak grip on my switchblade. That Hunger Games nonsense where the underdog can win with a stick is bullshit. I could try to fight, but I’d rather not be tortured.

Escape is my only option. Fighting signifies I have a choice and I don’t. Set fates typically end in the cruelest fashion.

I don’t close my eyes as the shadow inches closer, I only try to imagine what it would have been like to lie in Logan’s truck, listening to a babbling brook and staring at the starlight.

And bunnies. I would have loved to have seen bunnies.

Pretty images of a pretty world that doesn’t exist.

Garbage crackles under his feet in his search for me and intuition causes him to swing in my direction. Adrenaline shoots through my veins, fear floods my mouth, I duck, a shot to the wall behind me, loose rocks cutting my face, my knife slips and the cut into his body misses the mark—off to the side.

He grunts, I push him away, willing my feet to move faster, willing air to push further into my lungs.

Then there is another bang and then there is...

Logan

I’m running and it’s not fast enough. My shoulder rams into people and they shout at me as I pass, but I don’t care. My cell’s in my hand, next to my ear, and it’s ringing. Over and over again. Abby hung up. We were disconnected. The world is functioning in slow motion.

Police sirens wail. From multiple directions. From every direction. People are screaming. My sight is on the alley. Abby’s in that alley.

As I approach it, a girl stumbles out and she latches onto me. She has blond hair, but the rest of her is covered in red...marked by blood. Chunks of something on her shoulder. Her eyes are too wide and she shakes. “They’re killing people. They’re killing people in there.”

I grab onto her arms, not caring what I’m touching. “Did you see a girl? Long dark brown hair? Your height? My age?”

She nods, too quickly. “She was with a guy, they went left. He came out. She didn’t. I was hiding. My boyfriend said he’d be right back.” She’s growing higher in pitch and tears fall from her eyes. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Help me! Please help me! They shot my boyfriend!”

The girl starts screaming and her panic becomes a pulse in my brain. I release her and race into the darkness. A deafening bang reverberates against the walls and instinct causes me to slam my back into the concrete.

Abby. It’s her name in my heartbeat. Her life as a prayer. Please, God, protect Abby.

“Let’s go!” A deep voice yells and there’s footsteps. Several of them. I crouch against a Dumpster. Two people run past and across from me, a shadow emerges from the alley to the left—Abby’s alley.

“I said let’s go!” the guy calls again.

The shadow steps into the dim light of the moon. The guy’s older than me, but not by much. Hat over his head, jeans, and a gun in his hand. “Did someone double back? I heard someone out here.”

My skin prickles, and as if he can hear my heart beating, he focuses on my general area.

And then he’s off. Gone. Running.

A new shadow cuts into the game and he’s heading to where I need to be. I chase and we’re trapped in a maze. My pulse pounds in my ears, my breaths come out in short bursts. An intersection of paths and then a loud male curse. “Dammit!”

My lungs burst with fear. Abby.

All the thoughts cease and it’s instinct. Find her. Protect her. Kill whoever has hurt her. The shadow crouches over a form. Pushing hair away from a face and my entire body seizes in pain. I reach down, swipe up a piece of long metal, swing it back and...

The shadow’s head snaps up and so do his arms. In his hands is a gun pointed straight at me, and right above him, the razor-sharp edge of the metal halts near his head.

“I’m with her,” he states.

My heart races and I wish for the cold blood that must run through Abby in order to live this life. “Prove it.”

“You were with her earlier. The two of you flirted all fucking night. Kissed near the stage.”

So he spied. “Not enough.”

“I haven’t shot your brains out yet.”

Good enough. I drop the metal and he lowers his gun then flips Abby over. Terror seizes me at the sight of blood seeping through her shirt and the gash on her head. I run a hand over my face. The police won’t find us fast enough. She’s dying and the police won’t find her. I swing Abby up in his arms and the guy jumps in front of me.

“What are you doing?” He’s in a ray of moonlight and I can see his face. This guy’s midtwenties and that ice exists in his eyes.

“I’m getting Abby help.” She’s too light, too pale, acting like a shattered porcelain doll, her breaths come out ragged and all that causes my heart to rip open.

He swipes up a phone—Abby’s phone—and a knife covered in blood.

“That’s evidence,” I say. “Leave it.”

He pockets both like I didn’t speak. “I’m aware.” I don’t have time to argue. As I shove past him, he grabs my arm. “Did you see who shot her?”

Yes, but I don’t trust him. “No.”

I jerk out of his hold and his gun’s out as he sprints ahead of me.

“You tell the police you were on a date,” he says. “You went to get the car. You got separated. Abby called. Got scared. Went into the alley to hide and you went after her. You never saw me and when Abby wakes up, tell her I got her phone and blade.”

“What’s your name?”

“She’ll know who I am,” he says as we reach the street. “Now go.”

Sirens. Multiple sirens. The gunshots. The bar scene. The place is a powder keg and they’ll be coming in hot. I look to the left, look to the right, no cops in sight, but a crowd begins to gather.

I shift Abby in my arms as she’s dead weight. Dead weight. Fury and fear collide in my chest. “Someone call 911. Tell them she’s shot.”

They stand there, staring, understanding from the sirens that police are on their way, but I need them here. Right here. Right now.

“Now!” I scream with so much force that the word scrapes my throat.

People react then. On their phones. Falling out into the streets. Throwing their hands in the air, waving down the cops.

I drop to my knees. One arm hugs her tight. The other brushing the brown strands covering her face. Blood’s smeared over her cheeks. My gut cramps and twists. “Abby? Abby, please.”

I can’t lose her. I can’t.

Nothing. Silence and it kills me. I search for her pulse point and there’s blood. Too much blood and it’s pouring from her back, from her front. She’s been shot. They shot her. Rage rumbles through me and I kiss her forehead, not sure how so much wrath and terror and grief can exist at once.

“LMPD!” Their shouts are echoed, but still too far away.

“Here!” I shout. “She’s right here!”

I lower my head to Abby’s. My forehead touching her temple and I count her slowing heartbeats under my touch. “Breathe, Abby. Please breathe.”

Breathe. I suck in each breath as if it’s hers. Will her to stay with me as if I could force her soul to stay grounded.

“I don’t want to lose you. Please don’t make me lose you.”

I understand fear. Have tasted it too many times in my life and the worst type of fear is when the consequences of actions can never be undone. It’s the permanent type that can never be taken back.

“Just breathe.”

Abby

I’m drowning. Sound is muffled. So is emotion. My eyes flicker open, but there’s bright lights and people yelling. And pain. Pain in my back. Pain in my chest. Pain on my head. Pain that is blinding.

“Don’t struggle.” She has blond hair. Hovers over me. An angel in a blue shirt.

I swallow and choke. Fear rips through my body. I can’t breathe. There’s something in my mouth, down my throat. My hands shoot forward, over my mouth and my arms are caught and forced down.

“Abby! We’re helping you.” The angel appears in my line of sight again. “You have a tube down your throat. To help you to breathe. I need you to stay calm.”

I’m shaking my head. No, I’m shaking. My legs thrash. Dad. I want my dad. I’m scared. Tears burn my eyes. I want my dad. I want my... Thoughts jumble and crash and then they slow. Too slow. Logan. Stars. My father. The night sky. Warmth on my skin. The heat of night.

Then there’s a voice. It’s a calm voice. A reassuring voice.

Breathe...

Logan

There’s blood on my hands.

Blood.

Abby’s blood.

I’m trembling. My blood sugar’s low or high or I don’t know. There’s nurses and doctors and people all around. I slam my hands on the desk. “I don’t give a rat’s ass I’m not blood-related. Her friends are her family so tell me how she is!”

“If you don’t sit down, I’m calling security,” the woman behind the desk bellows.

A body sliding in front of me, a hand on my arm, and I jerk as I’m being pulled away. Isaiah’s best friend, Noah, has his back to me and is talking to the receptionist. “He’s calm. We got this. No need to bring in security.”

I called them. I called Isaiah. I said words. Words I don’t remember and Isaiah said he would be there. To hang tight. To not say a thing to anyone until he reached me.

Isaiah consumes my vision. His hand is the one clamped on my bicep. “Come with me. Now.” He turns me and I walk.

I glance over my shoulder and West is sauntering up to the counter. He flashes his cover-model smile and in his hand is folded cash. West’s a Young, son of the richest man in the state, and he’ll pay for the answers.

Isaiah grips my neck, forcing my attention forward, and Noah’s on my other side. It’s like I’m on a countdown and I don’t know what happens when the clock hits zero.

“Just keep walking, Logan.” Isaiah’s too damn calm. “We got you. Keep walking.”

I called Isaiah from my truck. The police took me there after my blood sugar tanked.

Police showed. They yanked me back from Abby. They tried to ask questions, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Abby. EMS showed. They worked on Abby. My blood sugar tanked. The police officer freaked. I dropped the bomb I was diabetic and had what I needed in my truck, telling him I didn’t want the paramedics’ focus off of Abby.

He drove me there, but only after I watched them load Abby into the ambulance. The police officer wanted to call my parents, but I told him no. I’m eighteen. Had to prove it with my driver’s license. Eighteen.

Mom held me back in school, kept me from starting kindergarten when I should have. I’m eighteen. Older. Should be wiser.

Abby’s seventeen. She’s seventeen and a bullet tore through her body. A bullet I couldn’t stop. I have no idea if Abby has family to call.

Isaiah opens the door to a one-room bathroom, only releasing his grip once we’re in. Noah locks the door behind him. Isaiah snatches paper towel after paper towel out of the dispenser and Noah waves his hand near the motion sensor on the sink. I ignore the mirror as I wash my hands. Red runs down the drain and my lungs constrict.

Abby was shot, there was a gaping wound on her head and her blood is on my hands. I grab hold of the sink and lean over. Nausea races through me and I turn my head to suck in air.

Isaiah and Noah remain silent. Permit me the moment to get my shit together. I continue to breathe in and out. Just like I begged Abby to do. Just like when I tried to breathe for her. When I straighten, I find Noah leaning against the door and Isaiah next to me, offering the paper towels.

I take them, then wipe my face. “She wasn’t breathing right. Would take a breath then stop. Then breathe again.”

“She quit breathing at any point?” Noah asks.

I shake my head no, then needing the support, collapse against the cinder block wall. “Abby called. I was at the truck. I told her to stay put, but she didn’t. She knew they were coming. She told me things.”

An address. Directions of what to do. Isaiah. She said if I ran out of money to involve Isaiah. My thoughts don’t have a start. Don’t have a stop. “I went into the alley for Abby and there was a shot.” I didn’t get to her fast enough. I failed. “There were footsteps so I went against the wall. I hid.”

“You did right,” Noah says. “Did you get a good look at any of them?”

I scrub both hands over my face. I’ve tripped down a dark, deep hole.

“Logan,” Isaiah pushes in a low voice.

My arms drop to my sides. “Yeah. The guy who shot Abby. I saw him. And another guy. He went into the alley before I did, but he said he was with her. He took Abby’s phone, walked me to the street and disappeared.”

Isaiah and Noah share a long look then Isaiah tips his head to the door. “One of us needs to be in the dark and stay clear of problems. To protect what’s ours if it bleeds into our lives.”

Noah stares straight into my eyes. “I’m right outside.”

I nod to Noah and he leaves. Isaiah’s gray eyes search mine. “The guy you found hovering over Abby—was he our height? Midtwenties. Cold son-of-a-bitch.”

“Yeah. He could have shot me, but he didn’t.”

Isaiah rubs the tiger tattooed up his arm. “Because he needed you to get Abby out without him being involved, otherwise he would have. His name is Linus and he’s high up the food chain. You see him again, run in the opposite direction. It’s a problem he knows who you are and he’s not going to like you were a witness.”

“He was watching us at the bar.”

A muscle in Isaiah’s jaw jumps. If Isaiah knows his name, then he and Linus are aware of each other, and Isaiah’s real protective when it comes to keeping Rachel away from his days on the street. Isaiah has a legit job working on custom cars and he busted his ass to reach this point in his life.

“He asked if I saw who shot Abby and I told him no.”

“Good call. I’ll ask around. See if any of our names pop up. Did the person that shot Abby see you?”

“His instincts said I was there, but the two other guys he was with were on the move so he left.”

“What did he look like?”

“My height, leaner than me, jeans, winter hat on his head. It was shadowed so I can’t give too much description, but if I see him again, I’d know him.”

“What did you say to the cops?”

Exactly what Linus had told me to say. “That me and Abby were on a date, we got separated, she called me scared from the alley, that I went after her...” That’s when my blood sugar tanked and they stopped asking questions.

“They didn’t ask if you saw anything?”

“Things were bad. If I talk to the cops again maybe I could work with one of those sketch artists—”

“You’re going to need to be careful with that,” Isaiah cuts me off.

“What?”

“Talking to the cops—make sure you watch what you say.”

Pure anger pumps into my bloodstream. “Abby’s lying on some table bleeding and you’re concerned about what I say to the cops?”

“She’s a drug dealer, Logan. You say the wrong thing, she’ll be the one in handcuffs, not the guy who shot her. She’s not innocent. Who she is, what she was doing, why she was there... You bring up Linus and you might as well be the one who locks her cell. Whatever story you tell, keep it simple, keep it straight, and make sure you tell Abby and you two tell the same story over and over again.”

“Abby wants more than this life,” I say, and I’m not sure why. “Maybe she’ll talk to the police and cut some sort of deal.”

Isaiah pulls on his earring and he sucks in a breath like he’s trying to keep his ass from plowing into me. “Abby doesn’t know normal. Drug dealing—that’s her life.”

“You don’t know that.” My posture straightens, acting as if he’s the one attacking her. “None of us, not even you, know what’s going on behind the closed curtain.”

Isaiah reads my body language and pushes off the wall, his muscles tightening like we’re about to go to war. “Her father’s a drug dealer serving a life sentence in a prison downstate. Does that sound real enough for you? Want to know how I know? I’ve driven her there for family visitation weekend...twice. Abby doesn’t have a mother. Abby doesn’t have a father. Abby has Abby. We became friends because we understood each other. She fed me when she had extra food when I was in a bad foster home and I had her back when she wasn’t strong enough to handle herself on the streets.

“We used each other to survive, and in order to survive, Abby became what she understood. She’s a dealer. Abby won’t walk away from this life—it’s in her blood. What you see when she’s flirting with you, when she’s laughing with Rachel, it’s a part in a play. Abby’s pretending, she’s lying, and I’ve let the game go on too long with all of you. The real Abby would scare the shit out of you.”

“So that’s it? Abby’s a dealer?” Her voice circles in my brain. What? Am I not worthy of her friendship? Of yours? “She’s dirt and you’ve washed your hands of her? I thought you were a better man than that. A better friend.”

Isaiah closes the distance between us and I brace myself for impact. “You better shut the fuck up, Logan. You’re my friend, but I love her like she’s my sister. I’m protecting Abby the only way I know how. You say the wrong thing, she goes to jail. If the police act on what you say and her employer thinks she’s the one that snitched, her throat will be slit by sunrise. This ain’t your world. It’s her world and there’s a different set of rules.”

I whip away from Isaiah, searching for something to hit, someone to blame, circling the tiny room and it grows smaller with each pass. “So I keep my mouth shut? I refuse to talk to the police?”

“You can talk,” says Isaiah, “but you only offer what will help them find the bastard that shot Abby, but if they start asking about drugs...you gotta make a choice and that choice is between obeying the law and living in Abby’s world. I’m telling you to be careful. It’s a slippery slope and once you start down Abby’s path, it’s easy as fuck to trip and fall.”

I kick at the trash can. “I want to protect her.”

“So do I.” Isaiah jams his hands into his pockets. “But you can’t protect someone who decides to play with live explosives. If you want me to be honest, I’d be impressed if the cops find who did it. If this is a war between Abby’s employer and Eric, odds are it’ll be taken care of internally.”

“Eric.” I spit out his name. Isaiah and Rachel had problems with him last winter. I helped the two of them out as much as I could, but an accident laid me up for a few weeks.

“You don’t want to hear this,” says Isaiah. “But Abby’s not going to leave this life.”

“Bullets change things.”

Isaiah shakes his head like I’m a kid not understanding simple addition. “Not for Abby. What reason does Abby have to sell drugs? Her dad’s gone and he’s not coming back. She never had a mom. She had a grandmother who died a few years back. Abby’s got no ties to drugs, yet she chooses this life.”

I run a hand through my hair and I stop pacing as I realize how exhausted I am. “Maybe she does it for money.”

Isaiah shrugs. “Could. I already told you everything I know on Abby. Beyond that, she’s a blank page.”

Could. “Who does she live with? Where does she live?”

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