I shouldn’t have listened to her.  She did, after all, murder my friend.  Her husband.  My only run-in with cops had been a speeding violation when I was eighteen.  There was zero reason to involve myself.

“Jesus Christ, Jennifer,” I muttered to myself.  Standing in the gap of their hedges, I looked at the front door.  The little pots of basil and thyme, sitting next to a palm-sized clay turtle.  “The fuck is wrong with you?”

It felt like I was betraying him by mourning her but I was shattered, scraping to wrap my head around it all.  I’d even Googled how to mourn your murderer friend—even in this decade of good old USA, there’s not one entry.

Two hours ago I’d sat at the chipped plastic desk, interlacing my fingers over and over again as I looked into Melissa’s wild gaze through the smudged glass.

“Remember where we keep our keys?” she’d said.  “If you don’t get it, if no one finds it, they’ll come after the kids.”

I’d just stared at her.  Murderers were supposed to be monsters, but she still looked the same.  My friend, but now not my friend.

Melissa folded her arms and rubbed the bare skin under the baggy jail sleeves, then sat back so hard in the chair she grunted.  She’d shaken her head, eyes drilling into mine, as if to ask why I was still there.

As if I was the crazy one.

Insane.  Fucking insane.

But here I was at their doorstep, my back to the rest of the neighborhood as I crouched down, popped the head off the clay turtle and reached inside.  The key ring hooked over my finger and I switched hands.  My nails scraped against the rough bottom but something smooth and cool made me freeze.

No fucking way.

Pinching it in my fingers, I pulled it out of the turtle’s severed neck.  Held it up at eye level and stood, as if it’d help my perspective.

A USB memory stick.

“What the actual fuck, Melissa?”

*

I stared out the window of my friend’s Tacoma, losing myself in the sweet emptiness of Phoebe Bridgers.

Sometimes I don’t think.  Lately it didn’t feel like I knew anything at all.  I’d taken that USB not knowing what was on it, not thinking about the consequences.  Was taking it actually keeping John's kids safe?  How?  Did taking it make me the target instead?

Or maybe the bitch was just all-out nuts and there was nothing on it and no one was after it in the first place.  After all, she’d killed her husband to “stop the fighting” and watched reruns on TV the rest of the night.  I’d never forget the unusually dark house, a window flickering lights from the TV that I’d never noticed before.

Stop, I told myself.  I cleared my throat.

“Do people actually use USB sticks anymore?” I asked Chris.

“What?” He turned down the stereo.

I repeated myself.

He laughed, a borderline high pitched giggle followed by the sweet fragrance from his vape.  “USBs?  Yeah, of course.  Mainly the USB-Cs now, obviously.  What you plug your phone in with.”

My phone?  I turned to look at him and then realized what he meant. “No, I mean the stick.”

“A flash drive?”

I shrugged.  “Sure.”

Grey vapor blew over the dashboard, cresting and breaking against the windshield.  He rested the vape pen at his thin lips, his sky blue eyes on the road.  “Depends on what you’re saving.  For websites and shit, we use external hard drives.  You could use the USB-C thumb drives, but they don’t hold much.”

“Like what?  Like a few documents or some video, if you’re trying to keep something secure?”

“Limited video.  That’s a lot of memory.”  He took another drag.  “But yeah.  Either will do.  A floppy disk will really fuck with some people though, if you’re looking for security.”

“Chris.”

He laughed.

Shrugging, I followed his gaze toward the wet roads, the little blazes of red taillights in front of us like traffic chainlink.

“That’s a random question,” he said.

The stop and go traffic continued.

“So that’s it?  You’re not gonna tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

He took a quick hit off the vape and laughed.  “Oh hell no.  Now I’m not letting you out of the truck until you tell me why the fuck you’d ask about a goddamn USB stick.”

The guy couldn’t even hold his own secrets.  I rolled my eyes.

“Bitch, how long have we known each other?”  Second grade.  “You better tell me!”

I shook my head.  What did it really matter?  “Don’t be such a drama queen.  I just… I visited Melissa the other day—“

“Who’s Melissa?”

“My … she was my neighbor.”

“The bitch that killed her husband?”

I sighed.

“Why didn’t you tell me? The fuck’d she say?  What’d you say?”

“Doesn’t matter.  But she told me about this USB stick—“

“She called it a USB stick?”

“Chris.”

“Sorry.”  Quick hit on the vape.  “Well, go on.”

“I don’t know.  She seemed crazy about it.  Like, get it before someone goes after the kids as ransom looking for it, type of thing.”

“What the fuck’s on it?  I mean, you got it right?”

Fighting a laugh, I glanced at him.  The only motherfucker that wouldn’t even question getting it.  Impulsive and all in for intrigue.

“Yeah.”  I shook my head.  “I don’t know.  It’s in my bag.”

“You didn’t look?  What if it’s a video of her killing her husband?”

I cringed.  “Why would she want me to see that?”

“Because she’s fucking crazy.  Obviously.  Also, she’s gonna plead not guilty.” Chris cranked the defroster.  Pin points of clear glass built, eating away the fog on the windshield.

“She confessed.”

“Yeah, but they never stick with that.  She’ll go not-guilty.  And maybe whatever’s on that,” he gestured to my bag, “will either free or convict her.”

Fuck.  I raked my hand through my hair, flipping it to the side.  “I got the feeling it doesn’t have anything to do with… with what happened though.  Like it’s something else.”

“And if it’s not something else and you’re not going to look at it, she might get away with murdering your friend.”

Anger burned in my chest.  I took a deep breath, tried to slow my breathing.  Push the fury deep down.  Clear my mind.

“Seriously, Chris, I didn’t get the feeling this was about that.”

He veered onto the off ramp, slowing to a stop at the light.  His blinker ticked, his eyes on the road.  “You never thought she’d kill him either though, right?”

It felt like a rock scraped my throat.  Swallowing it back, I watched rain splat in multi width dots on the windshield before the wipers swept it away with a loud staccato.  I thought of John, his goofy stories about trying to hunt or scuba.  How accident prone he was, how easily he laughed at himself and in other moments, how his presence was one of quiet, positive perseverance.  He saw life as it was, full of possibility and love while acknowledging its hardships.

The way she’d snuffed him out like his light didn’t belong in this world…

I felt my face crumple and hid it behind my hand, my eyes burning with tears.  Looked out the window and let the night blur.

“I have an old laptop we can use that’s worth nothing,” Chris said, his voice softer.  “We can ditch it if we have to.”

**

As I pulled through the neighborhood after work, I forced myself to focus straight ahead.  To not glance at the house on the corner with Melissa’s grey SUV still in the driveway.  Fatigue weighed on my bones, but I patted my cargo pocket and felt the tiny shape of the memory stick I’d grabbed two days prior.

So stupid.

Stopping at the stop sign, I clicked the button on the rearview to open to the garage as I eased forward. Then did a double take.

My front door was open.

I stood on the brakes, feet from the lip of the driveway.  The garage door opened all the way.

Hoses from the shelving unit were thrown into my parking spot, the box of car cleaning supplies toppled over and spilled onto the ground.  Even the flimsy AC filter was pulled from the unit, sliced and thrown on the lawnmower.

The fucking memory stick.

Fatigue ripped from my eyes.  I threw the shifter into reverse and tore back from the house.  Straightening the car, I hit the gas and jerked through the curves of the neighborhood, glancing in the rearview every second.

I should call the cops.

Something deep inside me immediately rejected the thought.  I didn’t know what I had, who might want it, or what they’d do to me if they knew exactly who and where I was.

Stopping at the stop sign at the mouth of the neighborhood, I took a long look in the rearview at the empty road.  Tried to slow my ragged breath even as I grabbed my purse from the passenger seat.  Felt around for my air pods, opened the box, and wedged them into my ears.  The tiny tone sounded that they were connected.

The sound calmed me, something normal.  Something in my control.

“Siri.  Call Chris.”  I took my foot off the brake and eased onto the gas, feeling more awake than I’d been in years.

“Calling Chris,” Siri said.

Ring.  Ri—

“Hey, what’s up?” Chris answered, his voice light.

“I… someone was in my house.”  Voice shaking, I gripped the wheel tighter.

“What?”

“Someone was in my house.”

“Someone was in your house?”

“Yes.”

“Did you call the cops?  Where are you now?”

“No.  I’m about to turn onto Duval, but I don’t know where to go.”

“Okay.  Jen?”  His voice was eerily calm and measured, a first for him.  “You know how I feel about them, but I’m telling you to call the cops.”

“What if they’re after the memory stick?”

“Give it to ‘em.  It ain’t got nothing to do with you.”

I felt heat at my eyes.  The poison of grief.  “What if it has something about John?  Something bad?  Or what if whoever this is, has an ‘in’ with the cops and they think I know something I don’t?  Then I’m fucked.”

He was quiet for a moment.  “You have a point.”

I California-stopped at another stop sign.  My body felt like it was vibrating, control far away.

“Listen, I’m out of town,” Chris said.  “Let me hook you up with a friend of mine, Micah.  He’s a good guy, but he’s not exactly… always legal?”

Jesus.  My thoughts scattered, but I couldn't see another way.

“Jen?”

“I’m here.”  I ran a stop sign.

“Okay.  I’ll text you his info.”

“Chris… don’t fuck with me.”

I could almost see him nodding.  “You’ll be safe with him.  And he’ll open that fucking memory stick and see what the fuck is actually on it.”

***

I’d have never picked this place to meet him.

Everything in the woods freaked me out, but especially at night.  Bears. The Florida panther.  Alligators, snakes, spiders.  Roaches.  People.

I crept along the dark, winding road almost to the cut-off before I saw a big white truck parked alone in the string of spaces.  A silver emblem was embedded right next to the front rear well, exactly where Chris had said it’d be.

Micah.

I nosed my SUV into a spot two spaces away and threw it into park.  Twisted the dial to dim the headlights and exhaled, scouring the area.

Amber lamps saturated the treetops, light scattering between the leaves and onto the ground, shattering the darkness.  Micah’s truck door remained shut, no outline of a person through the tinted glass.

I straightened and looked in all my mirrors.  No one was on the side of the road.  Or in the pavilion in front of me.  No one in the woods that I could see.

Digging in my purse, I felt the rectangular form of my phone and pulled it out.  Pointed it at my face and glanced to unlock it, and then looked back into the forest around me before tapping out a message to Micah.  “Where’re you?”

A burst of wind shook my car.  I dropped the phone into my lap and gripped the steering wheel.

Minutes ticked by.

My fingers loosened on the wheel.  A moth fluttered into my headlights, turning neon yellow in the dim glow.

If I had anywhere to go, I’d have been gone.

A crack split the air at the same time as I saw a blink of flame.

Gun.

Ducking, I threw the car in reverse and peeled out before hearing a laugh deep in the darkness.  I saw the glint of a smile first, then a body outlined in red from the side of my taillight when I braked.

Dark skin, bald.  Wide shoulders, defined upper body but baggier pants.  Relaxed.  Smiling. 

Fucking insane.  Everyone’s fucking insane.

“He’s not exactly always legal,” Chris had said.

Hand on the gear shift, I hesitated.

“All right, all right,” he called, showing his hands.  “I’m Micah.”

I cracked the passenger window.  “The fuck is wrong with you?”

“Oh, homegirl.  A lot.  Good reflexes though, that was good.  You’re not as stupid as you looked, rolling into a dark park after closing and parking here right next to my truck with all your lights on, staring at your phone.”

“I was texting you and not about to cut off my engine.”

“But if someone was lookin' for you, you gave them a beacon of light to make it easy.”

“Okay.  I’m a dumbass and you’re an asshole.”

“Yeah, but we ain’t here to call the sky blue, is we?”  He sauntered up to the window.  Eyes on mine, still smiling.  I propped my elbow on the steering wheel and turned toward him meeting his stare.  He laughed again.  “Unlock the door.  Let’s go somewhere you feel safe.”

“Chris said you said this was safe.”

“My girl, Chris ain’t one for explanations.  You know him, you know that.”  We watched each other for a moment and he shook his head.  The smile dropped.  “I told him the first public place I thought of that would still be more private.  I wanted to see how you’d act, what type of person you are, without you reacting to me specifically.  I think I gotcha now.  And we need to talk.  But not here.  You ain’t comfortable here.”

Teeth gritted, I pressed the button to unlock the door.

Micah opened it and got in.  His black T-shirt hugged his muscled chest, bulging biceps and delts.  Dark cargo pants clung to his tapered waist.

“If you don’ know where to go, ride up to Waffle house, off the side street from Walmart,” he said.

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me?”  He laughed, stretching his left arm across the passenger’s seat, his body twisting to face me head on.  “You wanna be a badass white girl, don’t ya?”

“Nah, motherfucker.  Just not treated like someone’s goddamn bitch.”

The smile dropped.  He searched my eyes and something changed in his.  Softened.  Deepened.  Like he’d really seen me for the first time.  Rubbing his head with a palm, he turned toward the road.

“Respect,” he murmured.  “But drive.”

****

I yanked open the glass door.  A shrill bell chimed over my head and I froze mid-step, making me stumble inside.  The door shut behind me and I stood ramrod straight, scanning the building.

Motherfucker bitched at me for having my car lights on in a dark park and then sent me in here into all the lights, with big ass windows surrounding the place.  Jesus Christ.

I shifted, suddenly aware of my light blue scrubs.  The last time I’d worn them to pick up food after work, it was at the end of Covid, and every last person in the building had stared at me.

No one did now.

Waffle House smelled like grease and butter with a hint of exhaust.  Yellowed tiles lined the walls, stained relics from smoking days.  A couple of overweight truckers were on bar stools at the counter, a group of gawky teens in the back booth playing a card game.

The three workers in faded, sagging blue collared shirts manned the kitchen, order window, and phone and looked like they hadn’t had a day off since 2005.  The girl on the phone hung up, tossed a slip of paper into the chef’s window and looked at me as if I was one of a hundred customers a night without a soul.

“Sit wherever, be with you in a minute,” she said, her voice deep and throaty, before snagging a customer’s cup from the counter and turned around to refill it with soda.

I slipped into a booth furthest from everyone else, facing the door.  The cracked red vinyl cushion at my back was unforgiving.

Folding my hands in my lap, I forced myself not to look out the window at the parking lot.  My gaze fell to a minuscule piece of pancake stuck on the silver handle of a syrup container, and my focus glazed.

How long did it take to sweep for locators?  Or bugs?  Or whatever gadgets could possibly be on my car.

And did it really even matter?  Couldn’t they, whoever they was, just hack my phone and listen in or get my location or bank account number or social security or whatever the fuck they wanted?

“How would they know to look at me, of all people?” I whispered to myself.

Memory sticks weren’t traceable or someone would’ve found it before I did.  Melissa and John didn’t have a doorbell camera, and none in the neighborhood faced their house.  No one could know to look at me.

Unless someone told them.

The pit of my stomach sank.

Fucking Melissa.

“Jesus fuck,” I muttered through my teeth, disgust pouring into my veins.  Elbows propped on the table, I pushed my face in my hands.  Sighed and pressed my fingers on the bridge of my nose.  A faint pulse threaded through them.

You fucking psycho.  You have all the fucking choices and you just keep making the wrong fucking ones.

I dragged my fingers down my face, rested my palm over my mouth and stared at the stained ceiling.  “Who’d she fucking tell.”

The bell at the door jingled.  I sat back and saw Micah stride in.

Away from the camouflage of night, he almost looked normal.  Nodded at the workers and some of the patrons as he walked in, though his face held no expression.  Nothing about him would stick out, if they thought back.  No facial piercings or tats peeking out from his black T-shirt.  No jewelry.  Simple clothes that looked like they could be from any Walmart, like anyone else here.  Joe America.

His eyes found mine, held my gaze for the two strides it took to reach the booth.

How had I not noticed the exotic shape of his eyes?  Or his complexion, so smooth it looked like he’d been airbrushed.  An actual perfect male specimen.

“It’s clean.  They’re ballsy but not thorough,” he said, sliding in across from me.

“Great,” I said, monotone.

His upper lip twisted into something not a snarl but not a smile.

Before could reply, two laminated menus splatted on the table with a sigh from the waitress.  “Hey guys, I’m Dani.  What can I get you?”

Black makeup shaded her dark eyes, her lips pencil-thin.  She was probably younger than me, but something about her seemed old.  Worn.

“Coffee,” Micah said, without taking his eyes off me.

I winced at his behavior, forced an apologetic smile at her.  “Me too, please.  Um, with milk and sugar. And a water?”

“You got it, and there’s sugar next to the salt.”  She shot me a smile that vanished when she turned to Micah.  She waited, but he still didn’t look up.  “You ordering food tonight or just taking up my table?”

He smiled and stretched his arms out to either side of the small plastic booth.  Raising a brow, he made a rolling motion with his hand for me to answer her.

I looked down at the menu, overhead lights creating a glare.  Tried to read quickly, while none of it sounded like food.  Then all I could do was count my breaths, coming every three seconds.  “Uh, I… I don’t know.”

“Okay sweetie, I’ll be back.”  With that she was gone, leaving me with Micah, the crushing lows of Waffle House at midnight, and my sudden inability to make decisions.  Or, lately, at least, no good ones.

“You call out of work tomorrow?” he asked.

“I wasn’t supposed to work.”

“Nice schedule.”

“Oh, yeah.  Super cool.  Best job ever.  Twelve hours a day with super sick patients, always understaffed and on-and-off drug and fluid shortages.  Everyone has an attitude, some borderline psycho, and you’d think, you’d think, after all the crazy people I’ve seen, I’d see a psycho in my real fucking life.”

A smile crawled up his face, crinkling his eyes.  Not joyful, not taunting.  Genuine warmth, intelligence, empathy.  He nodded.

I swallowed.  Tried to rein in my crazy.

“I get it.  I do.”  His tone was calm, low.  “Okay.  So, tell me, in your words, what happened.  Why are you afraid?  Who are you afraid of?  How are you, an educated, sane, attractive white woman, involved in something… untoward?”

“Untoward?  What is this, 1910?”

He laughed and spread his hands.  “I did call you an educated and attractive white woman, didn’t I?  I cain’t be lookin’ like a fool in front of you.”

“Right.”  Fighting a smile, I shook my head.  Inhaled and switched gears, getting my thoughts together.  I leaned forward, forearms on the cold table.  “So yeah.  My… I was friends with someone who went batshit and murdered her husband.  I visited her in jail and she told me to get this thumb drive from their house.  She said something about how someone would go after the kids if I didn’t.  God.  Just saying this entire story aloud is fucking insane.”

“You told her you’d get it?”

“I don’t… know.  I think I just stared at her.  Maybe I said okay, or maybe… I can’t remember.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. “It’s just…insane.  All of it.”

“Okay, so you got it.  Anyone see you?”

“Not that I saw.  No cameras around either.  She must’ve told someone though, or else why would they have torn up my house?”

“Exactly.”  His gaze was level, unflinching.  “So you didn’t tell anyone.”

“No.  Just Chris.  He’s my best friend.”  I shrugged.

“Just a friend?”

I sat back in the booth, felt my brows furrow.  “Yeah.”

“Why don’ you trust cops?”

“It’s not a cop thing.  I just…”  I set my palms on the edge of the table.  Splayed my fingers and examined my short nails, finding a tiny nick on a white tip.  I started picking at it and shook my head, trying to find the words to answer him.  “How do you know you can trust anyone?  Your best friend, your neighbor, your spouse?”

I glanced up.  Micah was still.  Fingers folded on the table, eyes locked on mine.

My stomach tightened.  I folded my hands too.  “I’m supposed to trust a shit ton of wild cards who live and breathe in a world of grey areas?  At least I know you’re not the one breaking into my house in broad daylight.”

“You don’ know that.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Ai’ght, but maybe a shit ton of wild cards could give you a better pool than one damn man.”

“Maybe.”  Nodding, I met his eyes again.  “But Chris trusted you with my life.”

Micah’s stone face held for a moment longer, then his face broke out in a smile.  “Yeah.  That motherfucker.”

*****

By the time I changed into Chris’s old sweats and sat down to eat Waffle House takeout, Micah was plugging the memory stick into the old laptop on the coffee table.  I shoveled food in my mouth and spaced out as he clicked, typed, opened, whatever he was doing.

Then we were looking at a black and white video of suburbia.  Soundless, it showed the tops of parked cars in a driveway.  People coming and going.

Micah glanced at me.  “Glad you’re not chatty.”

“You too.  Your voice is annoying.”

He chuckled.

Smiling, I closed the lid on my food, set it on the coffee table next to the laptop, and sat back to watch.

Eventually, Micah made the video go faster, then would back up when another person entered the frame.  But no one looked familiar to me.

Micah was still, quiet.  Even his breathing was inaudible.  He barely blinked.  Just watched.

After what felt like half an hour my eyes were burning, body heavy.  I stretched my legs behind Micah, snuggling my head into a couch pillow.  My straining eyes closed and beat open, seeming to miss nothing, over and over.  Then I thought I’d keep my sore eyes closed for a minute.  Just a minute.

I awoke to the creak of the bad floorboard in the hallway.  Fought off the last tendrils of loosening sleep, shaking more awake with every creak.

Pacing, I realized.

My body felt leaden but I forced my eyes open.  Blinked until the room came into focus.  A couch with a wall of shelves, clusters of books and sailing knickknacks.  To-go plasticware on the coffee table, the hint of maple syrup at my nostrils.  A soft blue and white blanket over my body.  The laptop was closed.

The pacing stopped.

A floorboard creaked closer.  “You awake.  You should sleep.  But you prolly ‘bout to ask did I see sumthin’ so I might as well tell you.”

Micah’s tone was tense, accent more pronounced.

I turned over on my back, facing his voice.

He was covered in shadow, his tall form lit from behind by a hint of amber light from the kitchen.  I sat up, pulled the blanket around me and vaguely realized he must’ve covered me with it when I fell asleep.

“You don’ need to know my whole backstory, but I was a cop.  Eight years.  Job can eat you up and shit you out, ya know?  Leave you less of a man.  I felt that comin’ for me, so I quit.  Maybe I got a few new bad habits but fuck it, right?  Least I got out.  Who’s perfect?”  His accent, his grammar, came and went, as if showing the wavering line he walked.

Not always legal, Chris had said.

“What’re you trying to tell me, Micah?”

“Anyway, it’s why I know some things.”  Rubbing his bald head, he walked further into the timid light.  “Guy that run that house, they call ‘im Shadow.  Everyone know who he is and what he do but you cain’t nail nothin’ on him or even find that motherfucka.  No one talks.  This video though… it show him with a white piece of ass lookin’ like yo’ friend, whateva, okay.”

Micah sat on the other side of the couch, elbows on his knees.  Hands steepled forward between his legs.  “It also show him with other people.  Ones everybody know about.  And some they don’t.”

Pulling my feet under me, I sat back against the pillow and laced my fingers together in my lap.  Stared at my shadowy chipped polish and let the words settle like sediment in my body.

“Cops?”

“Some.”  He chuckled.

I nodded.

No one would allow a witness.

Staring into the corner of the room as it spooled into a swirl of nothing, that meme crossed my mind.  The sad stick figure, head in hands, with the caption of “No One Cares.”  And the next image a stick figure with a beaming smile, both hands punching the air, “No One Cares!”

What was so great about my life anyway?  My best friend was rightfully going to prison, my dad had dementia, my job didn’t give a fuck about me.  I couldn’t remember the last time I made a decision that actually made me lighter, happier.

It felt like the air crackled.  A grin spread across my face, tiny razorblades pirouetting my pores from my scalp to my toes.

“Really bad fucking people, Jen.  It’ll never end,” Micah said.

“Not never.  Just unlikely.”  Meeting his eyes, I felt unhinged, alive, blood vibrating through my body.  “So fuck it.”

“Fuck it?”

“Either I go into hiding, keep the video.  Or I fucking expose them.”

“And they kill you.”

I shrugged.  “Drown in murky water or clear, you’re still gone.  Might as well choose my adventure.”

“Crazy bitch,” he murmured.  “Which way we going?”

We.

“Exposure.”

Micah’s smile buoyed the corners of his face.  Light touched the pillow of his mouth, a shadow underscoring his full lower lip.  Part of me begged me not to trust him or those pinched, entrancing eyes that saw absolutely everything.

Fuck it.  Fuck all of it.

Shedding my blanket, I propped up on all fours, the couch dipping under me as I crawled toward him.

His brows flickered.  Grin fading, his gaze glued to mine as I got closer.  Inches from his face, I lifted my hand.  Hesitated for a second, then pressed it to his smooth, sculpted cheek.

He didn’t move, but his eyes held a warning.  “Girl… don’t be playin’ with me.”

“Who’s playing?” Air heavy as water, I heard my breath stagger as I focused on his mouth.

“You know you ain’ owe me shit, Jen.  I ain’ like that.”

“Okay.”  I lowered, stacking the backs of my thighs on my calves, the length of my leg against the plane of his.  I thumbed the razor edge of his lower lip.  “So what’re you like?”

A crazed, dangerous look flashed across his face that made me nervous, somewhere in the back of my mind.  Like I was flipping a switch I should never have touched.  We were strangers, after all.

Micah was a wild card.  In my face, honest.  He made no apology, no acts.  He was exactly who he was, from the very first second.

If we were headed to doom, I knew what I wanted first.

“You ever been with a black man?” he asked.

“No.  Have you?”

“Bitch…” His laugh was deep and husky, full on man.  I felt his fingers dance at my knee, light and tender.  “You think you know what you’re doing?”

I smiled.  “Nope.  You?”

His hand flattened on my thigh, a flaming match head to my hips, my ass, my pussy.  Raising on my knees, I swung a leg to the other side of his hips to straddle him and sank down.  His palms covered either side of my ass as I ground against his hardening cock.

“Everything’s going to hell.  Kiss me, motherfucker,” I murmured.

A faint smile played on Micah’s lips.  I watched the gap between them as he moved closer and as soon as I lost sight of it, I shut my eyes and they caught my mine in their pull.  His hands coaxed my body up and down his shaft until I felt their sudden absence.  Then his fingers brushed my stomach as he gripped the hem of my T-shirt and ripped it over my head.

I broke for breath as he did.  He cupped my tit and squeezed hard, the other firm on my hip as I rocked against him.  Hips shifting, he ground his cock against my pussy and in that second, nothing else mattered.

He pushed me back, thrusting my nipples toward his lips.  Clamped his mouth around one as he kneaded the other, free hand bracing my back.  Rough and hard and careless, owning my body the way I needed.

“Fuck.  Micah,” I whispered, lust grating my voice as I cradled his bald head.

His answering groan rumbled his chest against my stomach and he flicked his tongue at my nipple like it was my clit.

A kind of raw, feminine, animalistic sound escaped my throat.  I ducked out of his arms, his teeth scraping my nipple, and fell to my knees onto the wood floor.

He reached forward to catch me, as if I’d fallen on accident, and I pushed him back.  Followed to take over the space between us, kissing his mouth as my fingers found his fly.

“The windows, girl,” his murmuring lips moved against mine.

“Fuck ‘em.”  I scraped his hips, trying to wiggle down his pants until he lifted up to make it easier and his cock sprang free.

Even in the blueish light from the TV I could see its dark stature.  Long, thick, hard.  I looked up at his face, all fierce lines and intensity.  His hand fisted his shaft, eyes on me as he stroked it slowly.

“Need to warm it up for me?” I murmured.

Micah scoffed and let go, running a hand over my head and down my hair, then clenched at the underside roots to force me to look up at him.  I raised on my knees, pushing my head toward his cock, against his grasp.

He released his hold just enough to allow my tongue to slide down the bulbous tip, the muscled length, followed by the ring of my lips.

He sucked a breath between his teeth, gathered my hair in a loose grip at the top of my head.

Power surged through my blood, pumping through the big muscles of my quads and shooting through my toes, crackling at my scalp.  The need to explore, to own.  To push him past control, away from anything society could touch.  To the dirty.  The primal.

The pure.

I rammed his cockhead into the back of my throat, twisting my tongue around his shaft like I was on fire.  Over and over, taking his dick.  Taking over him and whoring for him at the very same time.

Mine.

He moaned, thrusting his cock into my throat.  Faster.  Deeper.

Mine.

“Jen.”  A corroded whisper as I ignored him.  Every time I’d back away my hand followed my lips.  When I surged down, my mouth followed my hand.  Salty tang finally hit the back of my tongue, robbing his control of his cum.

Yes.

As soon as I realized it, Micah had yanked my hair back, pulling me off him as I gasped for breath.  His lips thinned, his muscled chest heaving, and he let my hair go.  Brought his hands under my shoulders and stood me up with him, dwarfing me.

“We’re going to the bedroom,” he said, but he didn’t let go.  I felt the nudge of his hands, moving me sideways between the couch and coffee table.

I smiled, pushed my hair away with a spit-slimed hand, but let him keep nudging.

“Girl.”  He smiled back and continued the game, corralling me down the hallway, past the kitchen and tiny bathroom, and into Chris’s bedroom.

He gripped under my arms, lifting me off my feet, and flung me backward onto the bed.  Before I could think, he was following, knees dipping the mattress under my ass.  Seizing my ankles, he threw my legs in the air, propped them against his chest in the same second he snatched my pants and underwear from my ass and tossed them on the floor.

Standing, he ripped his shirt over his head and kicked his pants off.  He smiled, surveying my body.  I reached between my legs to touch my clit and his gaze followed.

“Now who told you you’re allowed to do that?” he asked, voice light.

“I need you,” I whispered, my clit throbbing and cunt soaked and empty.  “Fill me.  Fill me with your cock.”

His gaze could’ve leveled buildings.  He climbed on top of me, hands on either side of my head.  I sucked in a shaky breath but his seemed calmer than ever.  He glanced between my legs.  Traced two fingers down my puffy slit, making me whimper.  He looked back at me and touched my labia, pushing deeper until he was just inside my pussy.

I whimpered.

As soon as I tried to push down on his finger, he took it back.  Popped it into his mouth and pulled it out clean.  Then traced my lower lip, the smell of my pussy potent.

“Where you want my nut?” he murmured.

Images filled my mind of his dick exploding, dripping down my lips.  Then maybe splashing and dripping off my tits, my ass.  The cream pie at my pussy.  “Fuck… everywhere.”

I reached for his cock but he seized my wrists and jerked them up over my head, my breasts jiggling with the violence of the movement.  His long body brushed against my tits, my hips, my mound.

“We gonna fuck or you gonna catch some feelings?  I ain’t no boyfriend.”  His eyes drilled into mine.

“Good.”  My voice sounded high, immature.

The glint of streetlight from the window glinted light and shadow over his chiseled form and for a moment we were suspended in the dark, between the maybes and definitives.  The before and afters.  My body in his arms.  White and black.

A hand freed mine, but his gaze locked me down.  I felt his cockhead against my pussy.  Hot, hard, and impossibly thick.

Gasping, I clutched his ribs with my free hand as he entered me.  Stretching me until I squirmed and he pulled back, leaving me on the brink of cock before pushing in deeper.

“So tight.  I don’t know if I want to watch my cock open that pussy or watch your expression as I give you every fucking inch.”

“Been a minute for me.”

He smiled.  “I can tell.  Trying to be a good, responsible person all the time?”

“Not that it got me anywhere.” I whimpered, wriggling my hips.

“Usually doesn’t.  But it got you here.”  With that, he filled every inch of me, stretching my cunt until his balls packed against my asshole and the tip of his cock stabbed my cervix.  I cried out, back arcing with the intrusion.

Such pain, and then he was gone.

I gasped, saw his mouth open.  His chest heaving.  Grabbing my free hand, he pushed it above my head and pinned it next to the other.

Searching my face, he slammed into me again.

“Fuck!” I whimpered, hitching my legs at his waist.

Another ram deep into my core, then another, the rhythm building faster.  Bodies smacking together, each violent thrust painful and beautiful at the same time.

“Fuck,” I muttered.  A feral, deep moan escaped me.  Then another, punctuated on each thrust.  I pushed against his hands and he let go, dragged my hips from the bed and slammed into me harder and harder.  I grabbed for anything to hold, fumbling on sheets, my body, his body, as he pummeled my pussy, my knees closing at his hips.

“That’s it, baby, lose it.”

Clenching my throat, I fought the words, “How close are you?”

“What’d you say?”  His thrusts slowed.

I felt my breasts thrust up at him but I tightened around his cock, refusing to give in, to lose it all.  Not alone.  Raising my head, I met his gaze.  “Unravel with me.”

“Afraid of being alone?” He punctuated the sentence with a massive thrust.

I moaned, struggling to form words.  Struggling to focus on him.  “Maybe I’m just polite, you fucking asshole.”

He laughed.  Light and husky.  Leaned down and kissed me.  Sensual, careful.  “How’s it feel, Jenny?  Getting your tight, polite pussy stretched?  Hmm?”  He kissed me again, denying me time to answer.  His cock pressed deep, maxing out my cunt.

I grunted beneath him.

“I’mma get you out of your mind, baby, and then I’mma cum all over that sweet face.  You’ll get mine, when you give up yours.”

“Do it,” I whispered.

Pinning me with his gaze, he peeled back.  Picked up my legs and dragged them over his shoulders, then sank his hands into my hips and drove into me.

He was a battering ram, driving deep into my core with a smooth, wrecking impaling.  My mouth unhinged, gasping with an ache to be filled with either cock or breath.  My back arched and twisted, thrashing with the force of the storm firing through me.  I heard my voice, my moans, begging him not to stop.  I was untethered, existing in pure elation, a whore for him, for orgasm, for everything that made me a fucking woman.

“Fuck!” he screamed.  He pulled out but my body kept moving, riding the ghost wave of his cock as it burst up my body, spraying over my stomach, my tits, my face.

I opened my mouth, catching the rest and taking him down, my hand over his dark shaft as it jerked in my grasp, coating my tongue with hot cum.

He pressed deeper into my throat and I forced myself to breathe small breaths through my nose, holding it and swallowing as quickly as his cock kicked in my hand.

“Holy shit,” he murmured, his fingers brushing through my hair.  His gaze traveled down my body, lighting up nerves everywhere it landed.  His cum slid down my sternum and across my breasts, dripped down the sides of my torso.  He pulled out, his dick resting on my lips, and scanned my body.

Micah slid next to me in the bed and brushed my messy hair back.  “You okay?”

“I’m amazing.”  My body felt warm and glowing, overrun by peace.

“You are.”  He smiled back, soft and sweet.  Grabbed the throw and cleaned the cum off my body.

Two loud chirps sounded in the other room.

He flinched. Then stared at me, frozen.

“Micah?”

He sat up in bed, looked around the room.  Stood, and went to the window.  “Get up.”

“What?”

“Double text from my brother.  Someone looked up this address.”

Crawling to the floor, I grabbed my underwear from the pile.  Righted them and pulled them on.  “Why would… what…”

The answer occurred to me as he wiped his dick and balls on the other end of Chris’s blanket.  “They coming.”

“How could they know we’re here?”

“Same way my brother know.  One of ‘em’s a cop.  Dude jus’ didn’t know the address had been flagged to alert if anyone checked it.”

I yanked my shirt on and stood to pull up the sweatpants and looked up in time to see Micah bent over the dresser, snorting deep and then standing up.

“What was that?” I asked.

He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his head, then met my eyes.  “You know how to shoot a gun?”

“Micah.”

“Answer the fucking question, Jen.”

“Yes.  Your favorite suburban white chick is actually from the fucking south.”

Eyebrows raised, a glimmer of a smile flashed across his lips.  Then he handed me a Glock by the barrel.  “It’s Chris’s but he maintains them like he should.”

I took it.  Slipped out the clip to check the bullets and clicked it back in.  Made sure it was uncocked and dropped my arm to hang it at my leg, my index finger riding its now vertical line.

He smiled at my hand, then met my eyes.  Nodded loosely, then leaned down to brush a kiss across my forehead.  He nestled close to my ear.  “Really, really wish we had more time.”

“What else was on that stick?” I murmured, trying to forget the coke.

His eyes narrowed.  “Whatchu mean?”

“Don’t people come in and out of his place all the time?  Why would he care, especially when he can’t be found?  What else is on that stick?”

“You’re smarter than you look, white girl.”  He smiled, then licked his lips and pursed them.  “Ghost’s Lieutenant is on it, fucking Ghost’s son.”

“Oh shit.”

“He probably two minutes from running, his damn self.  My guess, it’s him coming.  Minimal others.  So we have a shot in hell.  But not inside.”

Micah turned and walked down the hallway.  I followed him through the kitchen and out the back door.

Weeds grabbed at my shoes, the brick at our backs snatching strands of my ponytail as we moved down the side of the house.  Micah turned around, put his finger to his lips and pointed to me, then to the shadowy tree in the corner of the property.

“Go.  Now.”  I could barely see his lips in the light of the moon.

His expression left no room for comment.

I took off, running around clumps of dried leaves.  When I reached the tree and turned around he was gone.  Forming a ring with my mouth, I tried to dampen the sound of my heavy breathing and crouched, making myself as small as I could into the shadow, and held the gun down with both hands.

Wind shook the trees, small leaves raining down everywhere.

A moment passed.  I strained to see, to hear.

A male form jumped the short fence and ran to the side of the house.  He peered into the windows.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He stalked to the front door and I heard a faint grinding sound.  Then he let himself inside Chris’s apartment.

I shifted position, my knees feeling rusty, and a leaf crunched under me.

My body went cold.  I stopped breathing.

Seconds were like hours.  I exhaled, watching the dude through the windows going through the kitchen, the bedroom, the living room, the study.  Moments later, he came back out onto the front porch.

A figure peeled away from the shadows near the road and walked to him.

Where the fuck did he come from?

Males, murmuring, was all I heard.

“Jeffrey motherfucking Thomas.” The tone, the voice, was clear.

My heart dropped.

Micah walked up the driveway from the road.  “Cain’t say I’m surprised somebody flipped yo' ass, you piece of shit.”

What the fuck.

I gripped the gun harder, crushing my fingers into the handle’s beaded grooves.

“The fuck you doing here, Sanders?” the guy from the apartment said.

In a split second, the man from the shadows turned his head to the side, toward me.  Micah snapped his gun from his waistband.

But in the same moment, the apartment guy reached for his gun.

“No!” I shouted.

Shots cracked the air, flashes between them.  The other man turned toward me, arms out in shooting stance.  I dropped forward, rolling onto my shoulder, roots scraping my cheekbone.  A thud hit the tree behind me and more shots rang out.

Then dead silence.

I looked up, gripping the gun.

The neighbors’ outside lights clicked on. Three shadowy humps of men layered the ground next to the porch.

Micah.

I stood.  Gripped my gun in both hands and aimed forward as I walked toward them.  Blood pumped out of the shadow man’s neck, pooling at the base of his skull.  Turning, I pointed the gun at the guy from the house, but his eyes were fixed, dilated.  His stomach gushed.

Micah.

Lying on his side, he was still breathing.

Barely.

I crouched next to him, placed the gun on the concrete beside me, and felt for his pulse.  Thready.  His eyes opened, focused on me. Blood soaked his abdomen.

“You just had to be a hero?”

“You moved,” he whispered, half smiling.  “So yeah.”

Me?

Shadow guy had heard the leaves pop while the other one was inside.

Tears swelled in my eyes.  I collapsed onto my hands and knees, head hanging.  “Goddamn it.  Goddammit, Micah.  I’m so sorry."

“Nah, bitch.  I get to go out in a blaze of glory.”  The words were strangled, but a grin twisted on his lips.

“Jerk,” I murmured, forcing a smile.  Sniffling, I fought back tears.  To see him clearly.  Those beautiful exotic eyes, so aware and so cocky, humor never far away.  I reached for his hand.

He squeezed, so slight it was almost a twitch, and I squeezed back.

“For you, Jenny.  Worth it.”

"Micah. Micah!" I cupped the side of his face. Dropped his hand and rolled him on his back. Did a sternal rub. Started compressions.

The muted screech of sirens got closer, red and blue lights swirling around me.  Voices calling, demanding tones.

None of them mattered.  Nothing mattered.

Because Micah’s gaze dimmed.

*

I still talk to Chris sometimes, but I don’t live in that house anymore.  Or that town.  I never visited Melissa again, and the news said she died in jail while awaiting trial.  Ghost was probably still pissed at her.

She hadn't been on drugs.  Wasn’t abused.  Just went off her OCD meds because she couldn’t afford them or the doctor visit.  She’d had a psych degree.  She knew not to do that.  She knew what could happen.  But she did it anyway, like it couldn’t happen to her.  Like she couldn’t happen to John.

As for Micah?

I don’t hold guilt for his death.  That would be disrespectful to him.  In retrospect, and in conversations with his brother and with Chris, Micah was lost.  What he wanted, needed, was to prove himself as a man.  To himself, to his family, and to the public.  And he wasn’t afraid to die for it.

Chris thinks he was actually proud to go the way he did.  Even though it probably could’ve been handled a hundred other ways.

Men.

I’m not sure who I am anymore.  Maybe I’m a little bit like Micah sometimes, maybe I’m more like Chris or John.  Or maybe I’m just me.  Caring too much.  Laughing too little.  Antisocial.

But here, after hiking miles up a mountain through a pitch-black forest to the edge of a ridge, nothing matters.  Sound can’t reach me, or maybe there’s just less noise.  Here, on the unforgiving rock, above the clouds and warmed by the oranges and pinks of the morning sun, I’m lost.  I’m found.

I’m free.