Still that night

I cut away everything that hurts. Everything.

Memories of my family eating dinner at the table every night — gone. The father helping that middle school boy build a robot that could peel potatoes. Never happened.

The lunches my mom made for me with the little notes in them. I tore the memory apart.

I did the right thing and now everything is over.

I close my eyes and try not to think of what will happen next.

And I try even harder not to care.

Suddenly the door to the small interrogation room opens and another cop stands in the slice of light from the bright hallway. He comes forward silently and unlocks my handcuffs from the table.

“What’s happening? I demand a lawyer.” I’ve seen enough law shows on TV, I aced Civics Class, I know I have some rights.

But the cop just smiles at me. “You don’t need one.”

“Yes, I do,” I say. Feeling better since I have something to do, which is demand a lawyer. “And a lawyer is my right. My —”

“You got something better than a lawyer,” he says.

Has someone come forward? I imagine some former foster kid who is now an upstanding pillar of society stepping forward and telling everyone what conditions are like at St. Jude’s. I imagine someone like my mom from legal aid, getting wind of what happened tonight. I imagine the ripple effect across the shattered foster system. I imagine massive overhauls and inquiries.

“Justice?” I ask, not realizing how stupid I sound until after the word is out of my mouth.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “You got the devil on your side.”

He opens another door into a bigger interrogation room and there is Carissa, still covered in blood. And a few minutes later, they bring in Tommy who looks terrible.

“Has he been to the hospital?” I ask the officer who doesn’t answer, only locks Tommy to a chair and leaves.

“What’s going on?” I ask Carissa who shrugs. The dried blood on her pink pajamas cracks with her movement.

Beside me, Tommy’s breathing stutters and pauses.

“Tommy,” I yell and he stirs just slightly. Not dead, only dying.

“Tommy!” I shout again. “Beth needs you!”

That gets to him and he opens the one eye that isn’t swollen shut.

“Oh, thank God,” I breathe.

His gaze is riveted to Carissa’s pajamas. “Is he dead?”

“We shouldn’t talk about it,” I say, looking at that big wall full of one-way glass. “They’re probably listening.”

“He’s dead,” Carissa confirms, expressionless and still.

“Did you kill him?” Tommy asks.

Carissa opens her mouth.

“Don’t!” I bark, not just preserving myself since I was the guy holding the knife. But all of us. All of us need to be smart. “Don’t answer that. For the love of God, don’t…say another word.”

It is legit legal advice, not that I expect either of these death-wish teenagers to listen to it. But to my surprise, Carissa shuts her mouth and turns again to look out the small window of the door. The bright rectangle of yellow light.

“Listen,” I say, dropping my voice like it might matter. “I don’t know why they have us all together here. But it’s fucking serious. So no one talks. Not to anyone who comes in that door.”

“You gonna…be…our lawyer?” Tommy pants, smiling just enough that his lip split again.

“We’re in serious fucking trouble, Tommy.”

The door opens, suddenly, and one man stands there, tall and thin and blond. He looks like a serious lawyer in a serious suit. He says something to someone behind him then he walks in and shuts the door behind him.

The silence in the room pounds. Cold sweat runs down my whole body.

“Are you a cop?” I ask, sitting up straight. The other two are letting me talk for us and I am going to take the responsibility seriously.

The man pulls out the chair next to Carissa, unbuttoning his jacket as he sits. “I am not a cop,” he says in a low voice. He glances at all of us but does a kind of funny double take when he sees Tommy. He has eerie-as-fuck, pale gray eyes and they narrow like someone is going to be in trouble.

“Have you had medical care?” he asks.

“What does it look like?” I snap. “This is police brutality and we demand a lawyer.”

The stranger smirks at me.

“I’m fine,” Tommy wheezes.

“Clearly,” the stranger says. He stands and goes to open the door. A cop follows him in.

“I think the cuffs can be done away with,” the stranger says.

“You’re joking, right?” the cop asks, scowling at us like we’d shit on the floor. “You know what these kids did?”

“I do. And I don’t think them killing the man who abused them means they are about to go on a killing spree,” he says.

Abuse. Oh God. This man knows. I am allergic to hope, I am, but it is suddenly there. A thin trickle of it.

“It’s your fucking funeral,” the cop says and, one by one, he unlocks our handcuffs. I immediately stand, put my back to the corner, and rub my chafed wrists. My shoulders ache. My glasses are cloudy at the bottom because my body is putting out so much heat.

Tommy stays slumped in the chair and Carissa, too, stays seated, her hands spread wide over the table.

“Where’s Beth?” Tommy asks when the cop leaves.

“The hospital,” the stranger says. “Her mother is there.”

Carissa, Tommy and I all share a brief look at that. Beth talked briefly about her mother when she first moved in, but we all sort of believed she’d made it up. People with mothers don’t usually end up in a place like St. Joke’s.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“My name is Bates,” the stranger says.

“Is that supposed to mean something to us?” I ask.

“To you?” Bates looks at me in one long sweep of a glance. “No. But I work for a man named Lazarus.”

“Oh shit. What does Lazarus want with us?” Tommy asks.

Lazarus means nothing to me. But Tommy perked right up at the name. And his fear makes me scared. I think of the implications of a man who can get a cop to take our handcuffs off. Who can get us put in a room together. Who can walk in and out of here like he owns the place.

And he isn’t a lawyer.

I remembered what the cop had said when he put me in this room. That we had the devil on our side.

This guy is our devil.

And I don’t know how to feel about that.

“Lazarus wants nothing to do with you,” Bates says. “I’m here on my own business.”

“I know who you are,” says Carissa. She is fucking chilling, sitting there wearing all that blood. “Who you really are.”

“Are you hurt?” he asks her in a quiet voice, like he’s attempting to be compassionate but it’s not working. His face doesn’t make the right expression. He’s curious instead of worried.

Carissa leans forward and says through her teeth. “It’s not my blood.”

Fucking badass, our Carissa.

“We demand a lawyer.” My voice cracks and my glasses slip down my nose and I push them back up with my wrist.

“A lawyer isn’t going to help you.” Bates crosses his legs at the knee and pulls a piece of lint from his pants.

“Then why are you here?” I ask.

“As you can imagine, you three are in a great deal of trouble. The thin ice you were on as court-placed minors is broken. The prosecutors would like to try you all as adults for first-degree murder.”

“It was me,” Tommy says, gasping. “All me. They didn’t do shit. Look at him.” He tilts his head toward me. “He’s going to be a fucking accountant. And she…” His head rolls listlessly toward Carissa. This is a last-ditch effort if I’ve ever seen one. “Tried to stop me.”

“Just…shut up, Tommy,” Carissa says.

“I’m afraid the wife of the man you killed has told everyone who will listen that the three of you acted together. That you planned it. You also planned to kill her and rob them and the church.”

“That’s not true!” I cry.

Bates shrugs. “That is something you are welcome to prove in court. However, I am here to present you another alternative.”

“What’s the alternative?” I ask, grasping at all the straws coming my way.

“You can walk out that door. Free—”

“Why? How?” I demand answers and Bates holds up his hand to silence me.

My mouth shuts so fast my teeth click together. This guy walks with such serious power, it is scary and intimidating and…electric.

“With the understanding that you owe me a debt. And when I come calling for payment on that debt, you’ll do as I ask or you will find yourself right back in this room. Only there will be no escape. And you will go to jail.”

“But the statute of limitations—”

“I don’t think you understand the nature of my power,” Bates says, looking angry for the first time. Next to him, Carissa stiffens, her face creasing in a quick taut, panic. “I can free you from this room. From the very serious charges against you. I can wipe away the crime you’ve committed. The crime with witnesses and murder weapons found in your bloody hands. I can make that all go away. Do you honestly think for one moment I can’t also settle upon your shoulders another crime, equally violent, equally disturbing, that you had nothing to do with?”

I want to argue, but there is no point. I believe every word he says.

“What will we have to do for you?” I ask. “In the future.”

“Whatever I ask.”

“Will it be illegal?”

Bates smiles like a shark. “Probably.”

I swallow, light-headed. This doesn’t have that bright, hot feeling of doing the right thing. This feels like a chain around my foot, dragging me slowly…slowly down.

“What about the wife?” Carissa asks, pulling Bates attention from us.

“I can handle her.” Bates’s voice sends chills down my spine.

“There is another girl,” I say.

“Rosa.” Bates nods. And it isn’t even weird that he knows her name. I mean, it is, but this guy is like God coming down and promising shit that doesn’t even make sense. Of course he’d know about Rosa.

“She might get in trouble—”

“I’m trying to find her,” Bates says.

Rosa is good at disappearing, but I am still surprised he is trying. My brain jumps from now, this moment, to what is next. I’m not borrowing trouble; I’m mapping out the obstacle course we are in.

Because it is we. After months of pretending otherwise. This is all of us, or none of us. Tommy wouldn’t be taking this on by himself. Neither would I. Neither would Carissa.

“Will we have to go back into foster care?” I ask.

“That’s not my concern,” Bates says. “My deal only gets you out of these doors. After that, everything is up to you.”

“They have to find us first, right?” Carissa asks. “The parole officers and social workers?”

“That’s the view I would take,” Bates says in his calm, cool voice.

There are a thousand places in this city kids like us could hide. We’ll be smarter this time. We won’t get caught. I think of my books, of school — I can’t go back there.

I think of my things at St. Joke’s…the notebook of clippings. The snow globe.

I’ll never see it again.

And the grief is a little bit like losing a stuffed animal. A favorite blanket from childhood.

But it doesn’t matter, I tell myself through my childish grief. I have the articles memorized and I’ll start a new one. On a bulletin board like in the movies.

I’ll make a revenge wall and I’ll tear Simpson down.

Carissa gets to her feet, her chair screeching across the floor behind her. “I agree to your terms.”

“No!” Tommy shouts. “Don’t, Carissa!”

“This wasn’t your fault, Tommy. I’m doing this.”

And just like that Carissa walks out of the room. I hear her footsteps down the hallway and no one stops her. I imagine her walking out into the night. No cops. No foster homes. She will vanish just like Rosa.

I can’t pretend I don’t want that freedom. I want it so bad I can taste it.

But I’m not leaving Tommy in here with Bates.

The devil.

“So do I,” Tommy says. “I accept your terms. Leave Simon out of it.”

The idiot gets to his feet, but he is unsteady and I step to his side, helping him back to his seat.

“You need to get to the hospital,” I say.

“I’ll be fine.” Tommy is a terrible liar.

“What about you, Simon Malik?” Bates looks at me. He looks at me with his eyes narrowed, like he can’t quite figure me out. He looks at me like he’s wondering how — out of all the kids here — I was the one who managed to get a knife in The Pastor.

He looks at me like he can’t believe I am a killer.

Join the club.

“Do you agree?” he asks. “Because it has to be all of you or none of you.”

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, because none of the dots fully connect. And it matters. I need to know why.

Bates stands, buttoning his jacket, looking like the lawyer he says he isn’t.

He shakes his head. Whatever the answer to that question is, he isn’t telling a bunch of kids. “Do you agree to the terms or should I have the police come in and start the booking process? At this point, you would be the only defendant. And that will not look good for you.”

“Agree to the terms, Simon,” Tommy says.

“I agree to the terms,” I say, because there isn’t any other choice. And Tommy needs a hospital right fucking now.

“Smart. Boys, I’ll be in touch.”

Bates walks out, the door clicks shut behind him. It is weird…eerie how it feels like I dreamed him. How there’s just no way that happened.

“Simon,” Tommy says. “I’m so sorry.”

“Fuck off with that. We got bigger problems.” I creep to the door and look out the window. “No one’s coming.”

I help Tommy to his feet and we lurch our way out of the police station. Waiting, every step, for someone to stop us. My breath sits in my throat, not moving. I can’t inhale. I can’t exhale. I can only walk until the corners of my vision go silver and bright.

All those cops and not one of them stops us. They watch us walking and I feel their eyes on us every step. But they never stop us.

Jesus. Whoever he is, Bates is powerful. More powerful than the SFPD.

We push open the door and the sea-salt air of San Francisco and the roar of traffic in the outside world feel like a goddamned hug.

“Let’s get you to the hospital,” I say.

“You…you don’t have to come…with…me,” Tommy gasps.

“Yeah, because you can do it on your own?” I ask, joking but not really. And both of us know it.

And I feel, all at once, really shitty for locking this guy out for six months. We needed friends in that place and I rejected the friendship of a guy who just tried to go to jail for me. Tried to put himself in harms way for me.

I’ve never had a friend like that. Only family.

And all at once, that’s how he feels.

Tommy feels like family.

And I go with him to the hospital, where we get the care he needs and get out before the social workers come. And I take care of him until he can take care of himself.

Because it’s the right thing to do.

That kid I was…he slowly dies away and I become someone else. Something else. And I stop thinking about my parents and I stop worrying about whether or not they would be proud of me. I put those thoughts away and I don’t look at them. I don’t even think about them. And soon, I don’t even think about my parents anymore.

I just worry about justice.

Justice and revenge.

That’s it.