Eighteen: 18

Danny weaves us through the crowd of drunk and dancing people, and then Rocky yells for him just as the music stops.

“Fuck,” he says, standing on his tiptoes, trying to see over a tall guy in front of us. The call comes again, and he whirls around, looking back at Phil’s house. “Keep going,” he tells me. “On the left side of the garage is a gate that leads out to the next street. Meet me there.”

I look at the crowd of people I have to get through. “Shit, Danny.” But when I look back, he’s gone. I swallow hard, holding Olivia tightly to my chest. She’s still asleep, even with all this noise. Something is definitely wrong with her.

I start pushing people out of my way and end up crashing into a short girl about my height. She spins around, beer spilling out of her red cup, and I say, “Sorry.”

It’s that girl I insulted back on the first day of the semester in front of the PE field.

“Oh, look who it is,” she says, slurring her words. “Pinche puta. You’re not fucking Mexican, huh? Then why do you live in my hood, bitch?”

I push past her, my eye on the prize. The back gate. But she grabs my arm, and when I turn around, there’s a lot more of them now.

“Put the baby down, bitch,” one girl says. She’s a lot taller than me. And a lot meaner-looking too. “Or we’ll kick your ass while you hold it.”

“It?” I see red. “Touch me, and I’ll cut your tits off and feed them to my dog, cunt. But if you do decide to mess with me, you better take your best shot, and you better make it good. Because you won’t get a second chance.” I am fluent in street venom. I can spew threats with the best of them. It works in my favor, because it stops the whole group of them for a moment.

And that moment is all I need, because someone yells, “Cops!”

Everyone starts screaming, and the girls turn. I bolt to the back of the property, slip alongside of the garage where Danny told me to go. And find a six foot tall chain-link gate.

Locked.

I turn around, panicked, and find the girls have followed me.

“Looks like a good spot to kick some ass,” one says.

“I bet it’ll take those pigs five minutes at least to make their way back here.”

“That’s more time than we need.”

I let out a long breath and resign myself to a fight. I don’t fight much. I’m not even that good at it. I depend on my mouth to talk my way out of things ninety-nine percent of the time. But these girls are not fucking around. They are gonna kick my ass. They come at me and the first one takes a swing at my face, but I duck, clutching Olivia to my chest.

Then the gate rattles and I whirl around and see Danny there with the key. “Get the fuck off, Maria,” he snaps. “Get the fuck off her, or I swear, I will beat your ass myself.” He opens the gate and lets me through as the girls try to follow, calling out insults. But Danny closes it back up and clamps the padlock together.

They scream at him. But he takes my hand and we run towards my street.

A car cuts us off and two officers get out with their guns drawn. “Down on the ground, Alexander!” they yell.

Holy fuck, I might have a heart attack.

Danny puts his hands up and looks at me. “I’m fine, don’t worry. Whatever they’re here for, it’s not me.” He kneels and then they come and push him face first into the grass, stepping on his back as they cuff him with those plastic zip tie things.

“Shannon!”

I spin around again and find Mateo climbing over the back gate where we just came out of.

“LA, huh?” Danny says up to me, still under the shoe of one of the officers.

I just stare down at him. And feel very, very sad. He was right. Why else is Mateo here?

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Are you OK?” Mateo asks. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

I just stare at him. And then Olivia stirs in my arms and I remember. “Oh, my God. I think something’s wrong with my niece.” I say it to the cops, not Mateo. Not Danny. I really need help and these guys are not the knights I imagined them to be. “She’s not waking up right.”

“Did you give her anything?” one cop asks.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “She was in there.” I nod to Phil’s house. “My brother-in-law left her with his girlfriend and I was taking her home. But something’s wrong. I think she needs a doctor.”

“I’ll take them,” Mateo says.

And if I didn’t know it already, this is the clincher. Because one says, “OK, we got what we needed and all that’s left is to search the house, but we’re going to need to question her. So as soon as you take care of the kid, bring the girl down for a statement.”

Mateo grabs me by the arm and starts leading me across the street. One of his cars is parked there—not the Camaro or the Mustang, one we’ve never driven in before. I’ve seen it in the garage.

I don’t have a seat for Olivia and this makes me nervous, but her slow breathing and lack of response pushes that minor panic right out of my head.

I want to question Mateo. Ask him about so many things. But I can’t stop hugging Olivia. “Something is wrong with her, Mateo. Hurry.”

Mateo sticks a flashing light on the top of his car and speeds to the hospital where he pulls into the emergency drop-off. “Something’s wrong with her,” I tell the receptionist at the check-in desk. “She’s not waking up. She’s not breathing right.”

“Sit down,” Mateo says, pointing to a chair. “I’ll take care of it.”

“No,” I say, getting pissed off. “This is an emergency. She needs help.”

The receptionist picks up the phone and speaks to a nurse who must work in the back, and then she puts the phone down and says, “Have a seat.”

I take a deep breath. I remember how long it took me to be seen when I came here for my ear and there’s no way I’m going to sit quietly for an hour. “I’m not having a seat. I’ll stand here all fucking night if I have to. I’m not having a seat. Get someone now.”

“Ma’am,” another receptionist says. “You’re not the only emergency here.”

“Goddammit,” Mateo says to me. To me! “Go sit down and I’ll handle it.”

I don’t sit down, but I walk away and watch as Mateo flashes some kind of ID at the lady. She nods and then calls the nurse again. He walks over to me and says, “They’re coming right now.”

“You just didn’t want me to see that, right?” I seethe. “You didn’t want me to know that you work for the police, right?”

He just stares at me. “Later, Shannon. Not here. Not now.”

A nurse calls my name and I hurry over to the door where she’s waiting. “What’s the problem?” she asks, ushering me into the triage area and waving me into a room.

“I don’t know, but she’s sleeping and she won’t wake up.”

The nurse takes Olivia out of my hands and lays her down on the exam table. Olivia’s head rolls to the side and her arms and legs are slack and motionless. I’d think she was dead if I couldn’t see her chest rising and falling. But it’s very slow. Too slow. Even I know this.