“Sorry, man,” he says. “Something wasn’t sitting right.”
“We’ve heard,” Santiago says pointedly.
So quickly I wonder if I imagined it, I feel Tristan’s arm move down from my shoulder and deposit something into my backpack. Then he stands up like a bottle rocket, and pulls me up by the arm too. “Well, thanks for the hospitality, man. Appreciate it.”
“Anytime, amigo,” Santiago says. “I was just getting to know your girl. One more before you hit the road?”
“Sure, man,” Tristan says without hesitation. To my total surprise, Tristan and the man do another long line of coke. As if we are only here as party guests. This one, unlike the first, seems completely unmotivated by pressure. He wants to snort more coke. He isn’t being forced. My anger turns to outrage. Has he been coming here and doing drugs for the last few weeks, and I just didn’t know about it? How else are these two so friendly he knows where the money might be? I decide I’ve had enough. I came as a decoy. There is no way I am sticking around here and watching him get high.
“I’m going to go unlock the bikes,” I tell Tristan as he remains hovered over the table. “Okay?”
“See you in a sec,” he says without looking up. I’m pretty sure he does a second line of coke but I don’t stay long enough to find out. I walk straight for the front door and open it.
I am half expecting someone to follow me and chase me out the door, but when I turn around, no one is looking my way at all. Someone has even started a joint. Could he really be getting away with such an abysmal endeavor? Is he going to stay and smoke with them? I know in that moment that Tristan was right: Drug addiction is a prison with no room for visitors. There’s no space for others. And that includes me.
Whatever. At least I made it out of that house in one piece. I practically run across the street, past the barking dogs and the caved-in porch and whoever is left out there smoking, if there’s anyone at all. The cold winter air has never felt so good on my skin, after what I experienced inside. That level of illegality is a step way too far for me to take. Skirting the rules a little is one thing; but now we are flirting with actual felonies and prison time. Even if I didn’t do the drug dealing or the stealing, I could easily be considered an accessory. What if the guy took my picture when I wasn’t looking? What if there are cameras? Had Tristan even considered that? How did I let myself get so sucked into this bubble? I need to be as far away from this place as possible. Even if it means leaving Tristan in there alone, and abandoning his bike without a lock. If a stolen bike is the worst thing that happens to him today, he should count himself lucky.
My hands are shaking so hard it takes me four tries to get the bike lock off, and Tristan is still not out. I get on August’s bike anyway; I decide I will wait one more minute. The dogs are going nuts, and even though the men are off the front porch, I know they’re still close by. It’s quiet outside, but that doesn’t fool me. It’s a tense sort of quiet, not one of calm. The coke has nearly left my system already, and I am pure adrenaline now. I need to get on this bike and move. Right as I’m about to start pedaling, Tristan starts running toward me at full speed, followed by an angry dog nipping at his heels and then the thin man, who is holding a gun. The gun goes off before I have time to even think to duck. A bullet whizzes past both of us and hits the tree across the street. Lights start to go on around the house in windows that were previously dark. I know I should start moving but now I’m totally frozen with fear. I just stare at Tristan and don’t move. It takes Tristan pushing my backpack to get me to notice. I still don’t move, and he keeps pressing me. Finally I start pedaling, to put a stop to the pushing, but almost fall off the bike because my legs are so wobbly. They feel filled with water instead of muscle.
“Anastasia,” he whispers. “You’ll have time to be scared later. Right now, we gotta get the fuck out of here.”
The man shoots at us again, the bullet landing in a different tree. “Don’t you fucking show your face in this town again or I’ll really kill you!”
“I didn’t do anything, man!” cries Tristan.
“José saw you, man,” the guy says. “Fucking dumbass junkie.”
I look at Tristan, a question in my eyes. “He didn’t see shit, don’t worry. Just that I went into the room.”
The guy is still out there, and is getting angrier by the second. But he’s also barefoot and coatless and doesn’t want to walk through the piles of snow that now separates us. He points the gun at his dog, and says, “Get him, Michael Jordan!”
The dog reaches us in a second and starts growling and barking in circles by our feet. Tristan kicks it, but this only makes the dog angrier. I see the dog’s mouth latch onto his ankle.
“Anastasia, go!” Tristan says, trying to shake off the dog. Something about the dog breaks the spell I’m under, and I am no longer frozen in place. I start pedaling again, with more success this time. I don’t look back even once, I just bike. I bike faster than I’ve ever biked before and probably ever will again. I don’t notice the cold gushing against my ears because I’ve somehow misplaced my hat in all this mess. I don’t notice my frozen toes, which are soaked from the snow and slush. I don’t notice that Tristan isn’t behind me. I barely notice the tears rolling down my face. I don’t stop to notice anything, not until I reach Riverwest. Then I slow down. Then I look around. Then I stop. I drop my bike on the corner of Center and Pierce, and sit down on the freezing earth, so out of breath I start hyperventilating. I lie down on the wet ground, trying to catch my breath. I am totally spent, but I am also so relieved I could laugh. I even do start laughing, but because I am lacking in oxygen it only turns into a cough. It is in this state, lying prostrate on the ground in someone’s front yard, when I notice a man standing over me like an angel. His dark hair is surrounded by the yellow glow of a streetlamp, and he smells like sweat. He smells familiar, actually. It isn’t till he pulls me up by the arm that I realize who it is. Not Tristan, coming after me. Not his drug dealing friends.
Liam.
ANNA
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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Anna?” Liam asks, a Camel Light hanging out of his mouth and a forty in his hand. Once I am standing again, he looks at me curiously. “What the hell happened?”
When I don’t immediately respond, he walks me and my bike half a block over to the back of his house where there is currently a show going on. He sets the bike down in the yard, and by then my heart has slowed down enough to realize what nearly just happened to me. “Holy shit, girl,” he says. He reaches around me for a hug. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”
I’m still too in shock to speak. I’m about to take my backpack off my shoulders to look for cigarettes, when I realize I don’t have my backpack. Either I dropped it in the scuffle, or… or Tristan took it from me as I biked away. I guess I can add that to the things I am furious at him about. Whatever, I say to myself. I’m done with him and this entire thing. He can have it. As soon as I regain the feeling in my legs and lungs and heart, I’m getting out of here and never looking back. First, I swallow some air and try to find my voice. Liam takes out two cigarettes from his pocket, one for each of us, and even lights mine. Without asking, I take a sip of his beer. When he doesn’t protest, I drink the entire thing. It’s more out of intense dehydration than anything. I generally detest beer. But my water is in the backpack that’s no longer on my back, like so many other things.