All Involved Read Online Free Page B

take a minute.
    I walk away with my fists clenched up tighter than double knots. Staring at the field lights till I blink blue copies onto the nearby garages doesn’t do much for me, but it’s something. When I look back to the asphalt and start walking it, I’m careful not to step on the tire marks that lead away from Ernesto like black railroad tracks. I understand the dragged thing now.
    He must’ve gone fifty, sixty feet on the asphalt after they beat him.
    Fuck that pinche shit! I understand too good.
    First, they beat him. They put their fists through his face, prolly the butts of their guns too, if they had ’em. They did this to a guy that never did nothing to them. They crossed a line when they didthat, and only one thing about it made sense. They were trying to get at us instead, at Lil Mosco’s stupid ass most obviously and most likely. This was them sending a message. They just didn’t think I’d be the first to get it.
    I’m so mad I’m shaking. All that anger I had for Ernesto, the same dude that raised me when mi padre died, that made sure I always ate up my chilaquiles and had a lunch for school every day, changes over.
    I actually feel the click. I feel that shit deep inside me, like a light switch flicking on. How all the anger I had for my brother walking home the wrong way just goes away, and how, at the exact same moment, it blazes up at the fools that did this. And I need to know who did it worse than I ever needed anything. Seeing his face like that—shit. Seeing his face like that.
    I know I can never go back to who I was before I saw.
    These cowards made a new me when they did what they did to my big brother, my Ernesto. I’m standing here all reborn and shit cuz of them. Right now, I’m like starving and thirsting and burning all rolled into one. I look at his face again, and I need to know who I need to do that to. I need to know whose hearts need holes to match the ones in mine. And I need that shit like five minutes ago.
    Out in public like this, Fate calls shots. I force my hands to unclench. I force myself to walk back to him.
    It don’t matter how much I’m feeling this. I can’t be running my mouth out here, can’t ever be undercutting machismo . It doesn’t work like that. I’m not even really a full foot soldier yet, just related to one. And besides, women got no say-so. I can cry about it or work with it. I do that latter shit.
    But Fate already knows what I want. It’s like he’s reading my mind.
    â€œIf you’re good to, Payasa, go talk at some people. And keep doing what you’re doing, Clever.” Fate nods at us both, then turns to the boy. “The fuck were you doing out here, lil homie?”
    I don’t hear his answer, don’t really care.
    I’m already ten steps closer to that nurse I seen before. She’s standing right in the alley like she’s expecting somebody to ask her questions.
4
    This nurse, she’s maybe five three, still in her hospital blues and whiter-than-white, chunky shoes. She’s got a scar on her chin, short hair like black nail polish shining under a streetlamp, and blood on her, all down her front. What I think is, she tried to save him, and my brother’s blood looks like purple on her smock, like not even real.
    â€œYou Sleepy’s sister? Gloria?”
    She nods. She knows I mean Sleepy Rubio, not Sleepy Argueta. There’s a big difference. Sixty pounds, give or take.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” Gloria says.
    I put on the calmest voice I can because she looks shaken up. It feels fake as fuck, but I got to. “Tell me what you know.”
    She hugs herself like she’s cold and points at the nearest garage, some box that looks navy in the dark. “I pulled in, was just going through my mail, you know. I don’t pick it up enough and . . .”
    Gloria sees my got-no-time glare and speeds up.
    â€œThis car, it