The Lure

by Lynne Ewing

“He’ll want his son back,” Satch chuckled grimly.

  “Don’t call him.”

  “Why not? I’m never going to make it out of here. You know I’m not. So why try? I’m not going to lie to myself anymore. The neighborhood won. It always wins. I’m a gangster. That’s it.”

  “Don’t even think about calling him. You can’t.”

  “What’s the alternative?” he asked in a harsh voice. “Do you think I can live like Dante, existing only to do Trek’s bidding? I won’t.”

  “I’m not suggesting that,” I said. “I’ll come up with a plan.”

  “A plan,” he scoffed, turning away—then suddenly he turned back and clasped me against him, his lips on my forehead, breathing me in, the way Rico had done.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  He opened his eyes and released me, then playfully nudged me up the school steps. “Hurry or we’re going to be late for class. You don’t want detention, do you? You’ll have to sit with all those bad kids.”

  “Don’t do anything,” I warned.

  “I’m not going to do a thing,” he promised, his alacrity increasing my anxiety. “I’ll wait for your plan.”

  We entered the hallway, where students shoved against each other, hiding drug deals, texting on cell phones, throwing gang signs and fists, while within the crowd, couples kissed and fondled each other, carried along to their classes in the stream of close bodies.

  The 3Ts leaned against the wall near the staircase, their faces grim, eyes red and swollen like mine. Ariel had a wild look of disbelief and rage. Tanya said something to her and Ariel launched herself toward me, shouting my name.

  Students stumbled and shifted to get out of her path; even so, she slugged her way toward me.

  “Where’s Rico?” she choked when she reached me.

  “Why?” I hadn’t been prepared for that question from anyone. My mind spun through all the ways she might have heard about his death. One name shot into my thoughts: Trek. Had he told the 3Ts what he had done? Then I saw Kaylee, standing by herself, her eyes swollen. Maybe she had been watching Trek’s house late last night and had overheard him bragging to Omar about shooting Rico?

  “I heard he was killed,” Ariel said, her words quieting the students who stood near us. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Who told you?” Satch asked, admitting the truth.

  Ariel fell against him, gulping in air between her sobs.

  Whispers spread through the crowd the way circles ripple out when a stone drops into deep water. Words like dead, killed, Rico, gang spilled from mouths that remained open in horror. Sorrow dampened the noise in the hallway and wreathed around us, not just for Rico, but for all of us; that we had to die so young and know funerals the way other kids knew proms. I felt sick and started toward the exit, no longer able to put up a false front.

  As I rushed outside, the ringtone on my cell phone went off and Trek’s number scrolled across the screen.

  I lifted the phone to my ear. “What do you want?” I asked, my throat so tightened with anger, it hurt when I spoke.

  “Hey, Blaise,” Trek said, unaffected by my rage. “I don’t believe in second chances, but if you and Satch give me what I want, then everything will be cool between us. I think you’ve learned your lesson.”

  My heart picked up a faster beat, detecting Trek’s lie. He was never going to give us a second chance.

  “This is the way I like you, not talking back,” Trek said when I didn’t speak. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  He hung up.

  I tried to think calmly. Trek expected to see Satch and me after school so he could tell us how he wanted us to deal with Tony. If we refused to shoot her, he would kill Satch. I had no doubt that he would. And even if we did shoot Tony and Trek did give us a second chance, everyone would eventually find out that Trek had killed Rico, our best friend, and that we had done nothing. Respect. Honor. Reputation. We would lose all three and, without those, we were nothing.

  The ground swayed as frightening ideas continued to stir inside me. I didn’t want to give my grandmother more pain. She’d be destroyed if I were arrested for murder, but sometimes the right choice caused suffering for the people we loved. And that was never a good reason to back down from doing what was morally right.

  Morally right? A shudder raced through me. How could murder ever be right?

  The wind stopped and the stillness that followed seemed unnatural, oppressive even and, in that instant, I knew that the irresistible forces of fate had been pulling me forward to this moment, in which I had to decide the impossible.

  If I killed Trek—Please, God, strike me dead, first—Omar or Dante would kill me before I could get away. If I didn’t kill Trek, then he would kill Satch tonight, and his death, which would be my fault because I had not killed Trek, would leave me so deadened that I would welcome the bullets when Trek killed me, his last witness. Either way, my life ended, but with the first choice, though I died, Satch lived.

  Maybe my destiny had always been to sacrifice myself so Satch could live and thrive and escape the neighborhood. That was noble, heroic even, to give up everything for a friend. Most people were willing to die to save someone they loved, but how many were willing to kill so their loved one could live free?

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  32

  My father had purchased the six-inch-barrel Smith & Wesson .357 magnum revolver because it could endure long periods of neglect and still function. At the time, the reasoning behind his choice had seemed odd. Now I wondered if he had had an inkling of premonition that I would one day need a gun. Had he felt a tremor of uneasiness, as I did now, when he’d touched the trigger? Maybe, at times, the future did send enough energy back to influence our decisions in the present.

  I slid the gun into the back of my waistband, then adjusted my T-shirt and brushed my hand over the bulge. It didn’t feel too noticeable. Still, any gangster would know I was armed, but I was counting on everyone being inside because of the heat.

  Before I left, I looked in on my grandmother, curled under her covers, the oscillating fan blasting artificial wind about her room. I stepped over to her bed and kneeled beside her.

  She stirred as I started to kiss her good-bye.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” she asked drowsily, more asleep than awake.

  “Nothing,” I said, my voice thin with the need to cry.

  She petted my face, her fingers cold. I took her hand, the swollen knuckles protruding against my palm, and whispered, “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she said, her eyes closing.

  I kissed her forehead, then tucked her hand beneath the covers and left.

  Outside, no one sat on their stoops, and even little kids had deserted their plastic wading pools for the cooler air inside. I passed the park, the hot sunlight wilting the newly seeded grass, and ducked behind a hedge to stake out Trek’s house and see what I had to go up against.

  Across the street, without any comfort of shade, Omar lazed on a lawn chair, drinking beer, a pyramid of crushed cans in front of him. Because the weather had not driven him inside, I assumed he was on guard while Trek slept in his bedroom.

  I studied the house, mentally planning my escape. I had never been on the second floor, but if Omar blocked my getaway down the stairs, then I could climb out the front upstairs windows, cross the porch roof, and jump to the ground. Satisfied, I snuck back the way I had come and headed for the alley, fear slithering into my belly.

  Trek depended on Bonnie and Pixie to guard the back entrance, but neither dog growled when I pushed through the gate. They stayed in the shade of a bay tree, near their water bowl. Bonnie rolled over and offered me her belly as if in apology for not bouncing on her feet to greet me. Pixie, languishing in the heat, only blinked.

  I tested the doorknob and left an imprint fr
om my clammy skin. I had hoped to find the door unlocked. Now I had to locate the key. Kaylee knew its hiding place and, though she hadn’t told me where, the ragged doormat triggered a memory.

  In eighth grade, I had been impressed with Kaylee’s cleverness when she’d cut a pocket into the back of her doormat to hide her key. Now, I wondered if the idea had been hers. I lifted Trek’s mat, the wiry fibers prickling my fingers, and found a slit on the backside that was scaled with dirt. I wiggled my finger inside, pinched out a key, and used it to let myself onto the porch.

  My confidence unraveled when I stepped into the kitchen and found the door to the dining room closed. Trek only shut it when important business was going on in another part of the house. Maybe a congregation of gangsters sat in the living room, and Omar was watching the street as a lookout in case police cars sped around the corner.

  I listened, my legs trembling, and tried to determine who might be in the next room. The silence told me nothing. I squeezed the doorknob, turning it until the latch clicked, then waited.

  When no one came to investigate, I stole into the dining room and, after carefully closing the door behind me, took out my gun. Its heavy weight emboldened me.

  I inched toward the living room, where weapons sat on the coffee table, next to an ashtray filled with cigarette butts, some still smoldering and weaving smoke into the humid air. How many gangsters were in there? I heard no voices, only muffled rumblings.

  Careful to lead with the gun, I peered around the corner. Dante sat alone, in a gaming chair with force feedback that vibrated when explosions flashed across the TV screen. Ash fell from the cigarette clenched between his teeth as his thumbs hit the control. On the TV screen, more blasts destroyed the video-game landscape, the volume so high, the booms leaked from his headphones. In the cyber-drama, Dante was playing the good guy, a hero rescuing hostages from gangsters like us.

  Though a gun rested between his bare feet, he wasn’t a threat. His breath reeked of alcohol, the rank smell saturating the room. If he tried to fire, he’d stumble and shoot the wall.

  My heart racing, I snuck behind him and started up the stairs. By the time I reached the fifth step, the wind chimes that dangled from the railing began swirling overhead, seashells lazily tinging against metal tubes, their movement setting other chimes pinging into motion. I froze, suddenly aware that this was another safeguard to protect Trek while he slept, the noise an alarm to awaken him if an intruder got past his bodyguards and prowled up the stairs. I listened for footsteps, the movement of someone going for a gun, but the only sounds came from the drowsy jingling above me.

  My eyes flicked down to the living room and back to the hallway above me, trying to cover every direction from which an ambush might come. At the same time, my thoughts jumped back to the door leading into the dining room. It should have been open. Closed, it prevented a draft from flowing through the house and starting the chimes if someone broke through the back door. Trek would have left it open while he slept, so maybe he wasn’t even home.

  I took the next step in slow motion, sweat trickling down my back, and decided that if Trek wasn’t in his bed, then I would wait for him there, curled against his pillows. I had almost reached the landing when the back door opened. I stood exposed and trapped, unable to run either way without rousing the wind chimes. I braced myself against the wall, prepared to fire, my wrists aching from the weight of the gun, as my heart trilled its beats.

  From the kitchen came the sound of the refrigerator opening. Bottles clanked and cans screaked over the metal racks. Then the refrigerator door closed, the footsteps retreated, and the person left the house.

  In the same moment, I knew Trek was home. Omar had closed the door to the dining room so he could come and go and get his cold beer without setting off the seashells and glass chimes and awakening Trek. By doing so, he had unwittingly left Trek vulnerable. I smiled at his stupidity.

  Drink up, I thought. The drunker he became, the better my chances of living, and I wanted to live, not just for my selfish self, but for my grandmother, who had already grieved enough.

  I reached the landing and faced three open doors that led off the hallway. After finding no one in the first two rooms, I crept to the front bedroom, where the windows were open, though no breeze stirred the hot air. Someone was sleeping on the bed, under the silken black sheet, a gun on the nightstand. I was tempted to shoot and run, but I couldn’t fire blindly. I had to lift the covers and see Trek’s face to know I had the right target.

  A yawn alerted me to movement on the bed. I tightened my grip on the gun, my fingers slippery with sweat, and eased against the wall. What I had thought had been the contour of one person underneath the covers split into two. Seconds later, Melissa lifted the sheet off her head and stood.

  I slipped into an open closet and, through the crack between the door and frame, caught a glimpse of more finger-grip bruises on her arm.

  The murmur of wind chimes rose and fell, following her down the hallway. A door closed and, shortly after, the sound of running water filled the stillness. I assumed she was taking a shower. That gave me minutes before she returned.

  I stepped out from my hiding place and stopped cold.

  Trek was sitting up in bed, staring at me, his pitch-black eyes revealing no surprise. “You look gorgeous when you’re terrified,” he said.

  Adrenaline buzzed through me, igniting my courage. I held the gun higher and circled around the bed for a better aim. The first shot had to hit him, because as soon as I fired, Trek would lunge for the gun on the nightstand.

  “You should have shot me while I was sleeping,” he said, his grin too confident. “Now you’ve got yourself in a dicey situation.”

  His gaze flitted behind me before settling back, his eyes gleaming with enjoyment. Was someone creeping up behind me? Melissa? Had the shower been a ruse? I didn’t dare look with Trek’s hand so close to the nightstand gun.

  I aimed at his chest, anticipating the blast, my arms and wrists ready for the recoil.

  “You can’t do it,” Trek said. “You’re just one of my herd. No guts. No brains. Nothing but a beautiful body.”

  I pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  The gun misfired. My heart surged, swelling my temples with the ferocity of its beats.

  Triumph flashed in Trek’s eyes. He lunged across the bed, grabbed the gun off the nightstand and swung around, his grin huge.

  Knowing that I was about to die, an eerie calm came over me. My father had told me that if I ever got a dud round, or a misfire, I needed to fire again to rotate the cylinder. With no time to take a stance and prepare myself, I squeezed the trigger as Trek raised his gun and aimed at me.

  My bullet discharged. The power from the blast ripped through my arms and, unable to control the strength of the recoil, my hands flew back, and the gun slammed into my forehead. Pain spun through my skull as the roar of the shot echoed about the room.

  Trek slumped over, blood pouring from his head onto the pillow.

  I blinked back tears, terrified by what I had done, and averted my eyes so I would not see death on Trek’s face.

  Inside the ringing in my ears came the sounds of Melissa screaming, the dogs barking, and Omar barging through the front door, starting the wind chimes into clattering motion.

  “Why the hell did you fire the gun?” he yelled at Dante, and though I couldn’t hear Dante’s reply, I heard Omar ask, “If you didn’t fire, then who did?”

  A moment later, Omar shouted, “Trek?”

  I staggered to the window and, using the gun like a hammer, knocked out the screen. The frame skittered across the porch roof and fell to the lawn. From this angle, the jump looked much higher than it had when I had studied it from below, and my body, still shaken, wrists and elbows weak from the recoil, wouldn’t be able to jump with my normal agility. I’d break an ankle, maybe both legs.

  Footsteps pounded up the stairs, the raucous noise from the wind chimes warning me t
hat I had only seconds before Omar stormed into the room. I hid in the closet, blood trickling into my eyes, and held the gun at my side. I refused to fire again, even in self-defense, and waited for the bullets to take me.

  Omar stomped into the room, his steps thunderous and huge. He stopped and sucked in air that he exhaled in curses. Dante’s bare feet padded in after him, the smoke from his cigarette engulfing the smells of Omar’s beer breath and sweat.

  “The shooter used the window!” Omar shouted. “Get the car. We can still catch him.”

  They charged from the room, the wind chimes jangling, as they stampeded down the stairs. Their beer-soaked minds hadn’t considered that the killer might still be inside.

  Moments later, the Pontiac started. The engine knocked and sputtered, but the car didn’t speed away as I had anticipated. The driver kept gunning the engine until exhaust seeped in through the window, a gray haze sagging into the hot room. The longer the car idled, the more convinced I became that Omar and Dante had realized their blunder and that one of them was coming back to search for the killer inside the house.

  I needed to leave, but first I had to find out what they were doing. I crept over to the window, the dull ache in my head intensifying when I peered out into the afternoon glare.

  Dante stood next to the Pontiac, looking nervous and squinting at Omar, who pointed back at the house. From the way Dante was nodding, I guessed that Omar was giving him instructions.

  I glanced down the hallway. Melissa’s crying had subsided into soft weeping. Eventually she was going to come out, discover Trek, and call for help. Omar had most likely realized this, too, and was giving Dante the task of hiding the guns. They couldn’t risk having the coroner and the police come into the house with so many weapons brazenly displayed in the living room.

  The moment Dante started toward the front door, I left the room, without once glancing at Trek, and loped down the hallway.

  From behind the bathroom door, Melissa whimpered, “I didn’t do it. You have to believe me.”