[PREVIEW: CI S1E6, ”WHERE THERE’S SMOKE”]

[0: GO TO THE DEEP END]

TISHA JONES IS FIVE SECONDS away from breaking up with her fool ass boyfriend.

She knows damned well why he’s brought her out here to Federal Hill Park at this time of night. The same reason every car around them is rocking and swaying; the same reason he’s put that bump and grind music on, like his narrow ass is being subtle. Like the nice dinner and the movie weren’t just setup for this. Like she doesn’t notice the condoms in the cup holder, the lube on the dash.

She may barely be out of high school, but she ain’t stupid.

Trae sits in the driver’s seat, thumping his thumbs against the steering wheel in tune with Usher’s tired ass. Usher. In this year of our goddamn lord, and not even the new shit with him trying to be relevant again. Slow Jam. Trae’s playing Slow Jam, and actually thinks Tisha’s gonna let him hit it to that golden oldie.

She’d even stolen some of her Momma’s rosewater perfume for this date.

Usher.

She folds her arms over her chest, looking out the window, glaring at the fogged-up windows of the Subaru parked next to them. “Take me home.”

Trae sighs, flashing her one of those charming smiles. He always gets her with those smiles, made even more devastating with those light redbone eyes against that pretty dark skin. That’s the problem with Trae. He know he fine, and he think it’ll get him everything.

She never should have dated a player.

“Tish. Baby, why you mad? I just want to be with you.”

“You mean you wanting to get it wet.” She snorts. She’s not falling for it this time. “I told you I ain’t ready. Hell, my grandma would kill me, she knew I was here with you.”

“We don’t have to do anything.” His hand falls to her thigh. He got them long fingers, them fingers that make girls think things even when they don’t want to. “We don’t have to do anything, for real. I just wanna kiss a little.”

“Nobody comes to Federal Hill to kiss a little.”

“Aw, but—”

“Take me home,” she says firmly. “Or I’m dumping your garbage ass right here.”

Trae groans, leaning forward and thunking his forehead against the steering wheel. Passing headlights flash off the diamond stud in his ear, highlight the smooth shading of his fade. “I swear I ain’t trying to pull anything.”

“Then take me home.”

“I am. We going, okay? We going.”

He sits upright and gives her a long look, almost hurt, but she’s not falling for it. Not tonight. And after a long silence, there’s the sound of the gear shift grinding, and the old Mercedes—the one he only drives ‘cause his no-good daddy don’t want it no more—jolts to life around them. Maybe, if he takes her home right away, she’ll forgive him one day, but she’s gonna make him suffer for it first.

Boys like Trae think they playas, but every playa gotta learn his place.

He leans over and turns the music off, as they ease onto the highway. There’s silence between them, thick and heavy, until he murmurs, “You know I love you, yeah?”

“Boy if you think you gonna play that as your get outta jail free card—”

“I’m not!” He smacks the heel of his palm against the steering wheel. “Look, I’m tryna say something here.”

“Then say it.”

“I’m sorry.” He glances at her, and his eyes are all gold, like a cat’s. He got what Tisha’s Momma call them witch-eyes. “That’s all I’m tryna say. I’m sorry.”

He means it. She can tell he means it, but she’s not ready to let go of being angry just yet. She mumbles something under her breath, sinking down in the Mercedes’ bucket seat, and folds her arms over her chest.

But when he reaches over to rest his hand against the back of the seat, fingers playing against the little baby hairs at the nape of her neck and making her shiver, she doesn’t push him away.

They’re on that dark lightless lonely stretch of highway halfway back to her house, though, when the Mercedes coughs and sputters. Tisha don’t like that. That that long line of road where they always say don’t let the cops catch you, ‘cause if you browner than a paper bag you gonna disappear into the tall grass, and they find you in a ditch somewhere six months later, no idea how you got there. Her skin prickles and chills, as the car starts to slow.

“Trae, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know.” He’s stomping the gas pedal, yanking at the gear shift, but the car ain’t going and the engine’s getting quieter and quieter. Trae swears, cussing up a storm as he takes the wheel and nudges the Mercedes toward the shoulder.

They make it to the other side of the white line, off the road, before the Mercedes coasts to a halt. Still throwing out every fuck and damn on the planet, Trae tries the key in the ignition, yanks the gear shift, tries again, but all he gets is a cough and a wheeze. Tisha hunches down in the seat, biting her lip.

“We stuck out here? You forget gas?”

“It ain’t the gas, baby, we got a full tank.” He sighs, slumping back in the driver’s seat. “Damn old thing just gave up, maybe. Let me go take a look.”

“Nuh-uh.” She shakes her head and reaches for him. “You don’t go out there in this dark-ass place and leave me in here. Somebody gonna see you on the side of the road and shoot you. Let’s just call for help.”

“What, so the cops can come shoot me instead?” He snorts and envelops her hand in his, warm and reassuring. “Lemme look at the car and see if I can get it going again, baby. Call your Momma and let her know she might have to come pick us up.”

Tisha winces. “…Momma don’t know I’m with you tonight.”

“You can tell her it’s my fault. I ain’t gonna get you in trouble.” He kisses her knuckles, his full, soft lips so sweet, and flashes that smile that gets her every time. “You just sit tight, baby girl. I’ll be right back.”

She wants to tell him not to go. She wants to tell him to stay.

But he gets out with one last smile and slams the door shut, making the Mercedes bounce on its tires. She watches him in the ghost-light of the headlights as he circles the front of the car. Then the hood pops up, and she can’t see him anymore, and with the heater off the car is cold and the October moon is orange and strange, and she feels suddenly and awfully alone.

There’s not one damn car out here, either. Nobody coming or going on the highway. No street lights. Just the dark, and the Mercedes’ headlights cutting two holes in it. All she can see is the hood of the car, and to her right, a deep ditch and a stretch of land with tall, yellowing grass waving in the evening breeze. Trae ain’t making no noise, and she doesn’t like that. Biting her lip, she fumbles her phone from inside her jacket and pulls up her Momma’s number, thumb hovering over the call button.

“Trae…?” she calls softly, but there’s only silence. She don’t even know if Trae still on the other side of that upraised champagne-colored hood where they used to sit on the metal in the summers as kids and soak up the heat like they were baking, back when they didn’t know nothing about kissing and Trae would chase her around with squashed love bugs on his fingers. “C’mon, Trae. This ain’t funny.”

Trae ain’t saying a damn thing, and one thing Tish knows is she’s not getting out of this car. She’s seen the horror movies. And them damn urban legends. This is how that one with the man with the hook hand starts. The boyfriend tries to pull some make-out trick, and then the car dies for real. The fool-ass boy gets out to check the engine, and don’t come back, and the girl hears these scraping sounds, and then the thumps. So she gets out, and that’s when she finds her gutted boyfriend hanging upside down over the car, his feet thumping against the roof, and there’s a bloody hook hanging from the door.

See, they never say it, but you know the girl in that story dies. ‘Cause her damn fool self had to go and get out of the car. Tish ain’t gonna be that fool. Her heart is full of scared electric prickles and she feels sick to her stomach, and she’s sweating even though she’s frozen, the chill seeping into her bones. She ain’t moving. Nobody with a hook hand, no Stand Your Ground assholes in a car, no trigger-happy cops gonna get her tonight. She ain’t going nowhere until her Momma comes to take her somewhere.

She hits the Call button and listens to it ring. When the line picks up, she can already tell Momma mad, but maybe Momma got a right to be mad when Tisha got into this by sneaking out.

“Girl, where the hell are you?” Momma demands.

Tish winces. “I’m almost home, but Trae’s car died. Can you come get m—”

A sharp thump shakes the car, slamming against the roof, and she screams. Her heart nearly rabbits out of her chest. The phone falls from numb fingers. She’s not gonna open that door, she’s not, she’s not gonna look outside and see Trae cut open by some freak with a hook. She scrabbles for the door locks, slams them down. Her mother’s voice is rising from the floor, but she’s staring out the window, looking for Trae.

“Trae…?” she whispers, shaking, hunching down, trying to make herself small, invisible. “Trae?”

A shape passes in front of the headlamps, cutting the light in flickers.

She doesn’t think that’s Trae.

Whimpering, breathing in sharp shallow gasps, she twists around, peering out through the windows, but she can’t see anyone. The shape is gone, and maybe she imagined it, maybe she freaked out, but she didn’t imagine that thump.

“Tisha?” her Momma screams through the phone. “Tish, baby, you all right?”

“Trae?” she whispers again.

Before the window smashes open behind her, glass shattering inward and protective film ripping. She screams, flinching away, glass falling all over her. She feels the cuts, the sharp edges, small little hot slices all over her, like she’s fallen into a pool of razors. The pain is awful but the fear is worse, ramping her pulse up into a scream that matches a shrill sound that she realizes is her own voice, ringing over and over again in her ears. She scrambles away from the broken window, tasting her own blood as a cut oozes into her mouth, and fear tastes like copper and iron and hot human flesh.

Something snares in her hair from behind, dragging her back. She fights, twisting, sobbing, kicking, her body confined in the front seat and banging up against the steering wheel, dash, glove box. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to escape, as she’s pulled toward the open window.

Then she feels it again. That hot slice, that molten wet feeling of flesh parting and spilling out all the red stuff in her veins, smooth like butter across her neck.

She dully catches the flash of the knife afterward, stained and bright, and somehow everything seems far away. That last wet slick cut has separated her from herself, in some way she can’t explain. She knows, deep down, that she’s dying. That someone has cut her throat open, that she is bleeding out, that the same person still has her by the hair. She knows that she is still screaming and struggling, too, but her voice is now only a wet gurgle that slips out through her new smile before it can ever make it to her mouth. She doesn’t think she’s moving herself, really, not when the thread stitching her to her body has come unraveled.

She doesn’t understand why this is happening. She is the smart girl, the one who didn’t leave the car, who didn’t chase the things that go bump in the night.

Her Momma is screaming for her, crying out, sobbing, her voice a tiny thing in the phone.

I’m sorry, Momma. It’s the last thought she knows, as the night becomes everything, as the dark becomes complete. I’m sorry.