I pulled into the East Highland parking lot during third period. First two periods were free, which meant most mornings I slept in or worked on beats. Today I did both.
The hallways had that first-week-of-school energy, loud and restless, everyone still performing their summer selves before the routine ground them down. I walked through it with my bag over one shoulder and my headphones around my neck.
Near the main corridor I spotted Rue and Jules walking together, shoulder to shoulder, Jules talking with her hands while Rue listened with that half-smile she wore when she was actually paying attention. A few steps behind them, Maddy led her crew: Kat, Cassie, and BB, the groupie. Maddy walked like the hallway was a runway and everyone else was just furniture.
I lifted my chin. They waved back. Rue gave me a look, the one that said, "I see you."
Technically, they were my friends too. Rue's twin brother gets an automatic pass into most social circles. But I was a loner, and I liked it that way. I moved through groups without sticking to any of them. Easier to observe. Easier to disappear when you needed to.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
My brother had this ability to be cool with literally everyone and close with almost no one. It wasn't that people didn't like him. They did. It's that Jordan operated on a frequency that only let in like two or three people at a time. And honestly, I wasn't always one of them.
* * *
My first class of the day was English. The teacher, Mr. Howard, was one of those guys who thought he was inspiring but mostly just assigned things and hoped for the best.
Today's assignment: write a short story. Any subject. Any style. Turn it in by the end of the period.
I stared at the blank page for a minute. Then I started writing.
The story was about a boy who gained everything he ever wanted. Not through magic or luck, but through sheer force of will. He climbed and climbed and took and took until there was nothing left to reach for. And then, standing at the top with the whole world at his feet, he realized the thing he'd been chasing wasn't a thing at all. It was a feeling. And the feeling was already gone.
King Midas, basically. But without the gold. Just the consequences.
I titled it "The Weight of Everything" and turned it in.
Probably too personal. Whatever.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
I never read any of Jordan's writing, but Gia told me he wrote a short story in English that made his teacher stop him after class. She said the teacher told him it was one of the best things a student had turned in. Jordan apparently just said, "Cool," and walked out.
Which is very on-brand.
* * *
After school, the house was quiet it usually is when everyone is off doing their own thing.
Rue was at her meeting. One of those NA sessions where people sit in a circle and introduce themselves as the worst version of who they've been. I didn't know the details. She didn't share them. But I knew she was going, and that was something.
Gia was in her room with a friend, the two of them giggling behind a closed door, the sound carrying down the hallway, proof that at least one person in this family was having a normal adolescence.
And I had a job.
* * *
Zen's text had come in during sixth period. Short and clean, the way they always were.
"Package. $500. Address incoming."
I drove home, changed into something plain, dark jeans, a black hoodie, nothing memorable, and went to the shop. The package was on the workbench. Heavier than usual. I didn't look inside. I never did. That was the arrangement, and the arrangement is what kept me clean on the legal side of things. Plausible deniability. Or something close to it.
I set the package in the passenger seat, buckled the seatbelt over it out of habit, and punched the address into my phone. Thirty minutes east. An apartment complex I'd never been to.
New address. New rules.
I opened the center console and pulled out the piece. A Glock 19 with a round in the chamber. I checked it, flicked the safety, and slid it into my waistband at the small of my back.
I didn't like carrying. Every time I touched it, something in my chest got tight, like my body was trying to remind me that this wasn't a game. And it wasn't. But I'd made a decision a while back: if it ever came down to my life or my freedom, I'd choose both. The gun was the insurance policy.
Hopefully I'd never have to file a claim.
Last, I pulled on my mask. A white bandana tied across the lower half of my face and a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses that sat heavy on the bridge of my nose. This was the rule for unknown addresses. Zen never said it explicitly, but the first time I'd gone bare-faced to a new spot, he'd looked at me like I'd lost my mind.
"You want them to know your face?" he'd said. That was enough.
* * *
The drive was thirty minutes of straight highway turning into side streets turning into a part of town where the buildings got shorter and the streetlights got fewer. The apartment complex sat at the end of a dead-end road, three stories of faded brown brick with iron railings and a parking lot that was half-empty.
I parked away from the entrance, killed the engine, and sat for a minute. Watched the windows. Counted the cars. Looked for anything that didn't fit.
Two cars near the stairwell. Curtains drawn on the second floor. No movement.
I grabbed the package, locked the car, and walked.
The stairwell smelled like concrete and cigarette smoke. Second floor. Unit 214. I knocked twice, paused, and knocked once more. That was the pattern Zen had texted.
The door opened about four inches. A chain still on. A pair of eyes looked me up and down, then dropped to the package.
"Zen sent me," I said.
The chain slid off. The door opened.
The man on the other side was older, maybe forty, with a shaved head and a calm expression that didn't match the tension in his shoulders. He took the package without a word. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded envelope.
I took it. Didn't count it in front of him. That would have been disrespectful, and disrespect at a stranger's door is how situations escalate.
"Tell Zen we're good," he said.
"Will do."
He closed the door. The chain slid back on. I was already walking.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
There's this thing about my brother that I've never been able to figure out. He's not reckless. He's not dumb. He makes good decisions like ninety percent of the time. But that other ten percent, the stuff he does when no one's watching, it's like he's playing a completely different game than the rest of us. One where the stakes are real and he's decided he's okay with that.
And I don't know if that makes him brave or just a different kind of fucked up.
* * *
Back in the car, I pulled off the bandana and sunglasses and tossed them in the console. I sat there for a second with the engine off, letting the quiet settle.
I opened the envelope. Ten hundreds, crisp and flat. I folded them into my wallet.
Five hundred dollars for thirty minutes and a little bit of fear. That's the math. That's always the math.
I started the car and headed home. The exhaust valve stayed closed. Quiet ride. Windows down. The night air coming in warm and heavy with the smell of cut grass and asphalt.
On the way, I texted Zen: Done. dropped in the spot. We're good.
He replied with a thumbs-up emoji. That was the whole debrief.
* * *
The house was dark when I got back. Gia's friend must have left. Her light was off. Rue wasn't home yet.
I put the gun back in the console, went upstairs and sat at the desk. The beat machine's screen glowed in the dark like it had been waiting for me.
I opened a new project file and started building. A hi-hat pattern first, crisp and tight, then a kick drum that hit low enough to feel in your chest. I layered a sample underneath, something chopped from a soul record, pitched down until the voice sounded like it was singing from the bottom of a well.
I worked on it for an hour. Maybe two.
When I finally pulled my headphones off, the house was still quiet. But Rue's light was on down the hall, a thin strip of yellow under her door.
She made it home. Good.
I saved the project, leaned back, and cracked my knuckles.
The beat wasn't done yet. But it was something.
* * *
RUE (V.O.)
That night, I came home from my meeting and the house was quiet. Jordan's light was on. He was making music. Gia was asleep. Mom was working late.
And for like five seconds, standing in the hallway between their doors, everything felt almost normal.
Almost.
Which, in this family, is about the best you can hope for.
END OF CHAPTER THREE