Hellbent

“I’ll give you twenty-four hours to decide. I’ll come back. I’ll ask again. And either you’ll let him leave. Or you will all die.”

Some of the men laughed, but Freeway just stared at Evan.

“What are you planning to do?” he asked.

“I’ll figure something out.”

A rumbling stirred in the ranks.

“Kill this bitch now, Freeway!” a man called from behind Evan.

Freeway reached to the small of his back, came out with a straight razor. “What stops me from gutting you right here?”

“Nothing,” Evan said. “But I assume you don’t take orders from your underlings.”

Freeway pulled the razor open a few inches, let it snick shut. “Why don’t we handle this now?”

“It’s inconvenient for me,” Evan said.

“Inconvenient.”

“Yes. I have other business to handle.”

“You are an interesting man.”

“Twenty-four hours. I’ll come back. You give me your decision then.” Evan stepped forward, and he heard movement behind him, guns clearing leather, slides being jacked.

Freeway held up a hand, and the gang members silenced.

Evan said, “Assuming you’re not afraid to face me again.”

The black orbs, sunk in Freeway’s face, fixed on Evan.

“I like this game,” Freeway said. “Twenty-four hours. I will look forward to this.”

When Evan turned, he sensed Xavier somewhere in the back of the crowd. As Evan walked out, the men spread to let him through and then filled the space behind him, moving like a single living organism.

64 Steady as a Metronome

Joey had left the Uber car back at the vintage merry-go-round and asked directions to the old zoo from a group of high-school kids decked out in varsity jackets. She felt like she was inside a CW show. Everything outside was beautiful and night-lit. But inside she was a jumble of raw emotion.

Connor, the skateboarder she and Evan had bumped into outside the safe house, had said that he hung here most nights with friends. She wasn’t sure why she’d thought to come here. She just wanted to be out.

To feel like she was normal.

She made her way up the hill, leaving the lights of Griffith Park behind. The farther she got upslope, the sketchier the surroundings. Homeless men rustled in bushes, and tweakers swapped crumpled bills for tinfoil squares. At last she reached the brink of the abandoned zoo.

An empty bear exhibit shoved up from the ground, a rise of Disneyesque stone slabs covered with spray-painted gang tags and fronted by a handful of splintering picnic benches. It looked haunted. She wound her way into the heart of the place, passing rows of cages, the bars vined with ivy. Stone steps led to fenced-off dead ends. A groundskeeper’s shack had been turned into a squat house, laughter echoing off the walls, a campfire stretching dancing figures up the walls. She peeked inside but saw only druggies. She kept on, peering through the darkness. Syringes and used condoms littered the narrow path between the cages.

And then she heard the drawl of his voice.

He was inside one of the cages with his friend, the one who’d fallen off the longboard. A few skinny girls around their age were in there, too, their eyes glazed.

Connor looked up through the bars and saw Joey. “Hey.”

Her smile felt forced. “Hey.”

“Hold this, Scotty.” Connor handed off the water bong to his friend and pointed to the back of the enclosure. “Go around. There’s a hatch back here.”

She circled in the darkness and ducked to squeeze through the narrow opening. As she entered the enclosure, Connor and Scotty held out their fists, and she bumped them.

“This is Alicia,” Connor said. “Tammy and Priya.”

Joey held up her fist, but the first girl just stared at it. Her lipstick was smeared. “Who’s the little girl?” she drawled.

Her friends didn’t laugh, but they shook their shoulders as if they were, the effect creepy and detached.

“Forget Alicia,” Connor said. “She’s fucking wasted.” He gestured at Scotty. “Give her the bong. She needs a hit.”

“I’m good,” Joey said.

Connor smiled, his man bun nodding at the back of his head. Though he was clearly several years older than her, his handsome face was still padded with baby fat. His cheeks looked smooth and white, like he barely needed to shave. The smell of bud and Axe body spray wafted off his untucked shirt. “Okay. Give her a beer.”

Scotty passed Joey a beer, and she cracked it and took a sip. It tasted skunky, but she didn’t make a face.

“S’good,” she said.

“Then tell your face,” Alicia said.

Joey wondered what was wrong with her expression. She was too aware of it now, wearing it like a mask. The bottle suddenly felt large and silly in her hand, a prop. The girls seemed so much older, their frail frames and drugged high lending them an otherworldly aura, as if their feet were floating an inch above the dirt. Joey felt clumsy and common by comparison, a flightless bird.

Scotty enabled the light on his iPhone and rested it on a concrete ledge by a pile of rusted beer cans. Graffiti covered the walls and ceiling, the bubble letters and vulgar sketches made menacing in the severe light.