For a very long time all Jamal could see were T-Bay’s bright eyes: they had locked on to his the moment the bullet had slid into his neck. Jamal had fumbled blindly with the handle of the truck’s door, unable to look away from his dying teammate, and then a bullet had shattered the cab’s back window and Jamal had thrown himself in the dirt and run.
“Let me talk to them,” KT had said.
“She said for us to wait,” T-Bay had said.
“They’ll never listen to her,” KT had said.
After a long silence, Whiskey had said, “Are you sure?”
Oh, these guys had listened alright. KT was dead, T-Bay was dead and now Jamal was crouched behind a black camper, Whiskey Brazos shaking and puking on his shoes beside him. Jamal stared at the black horizon and saw T-Bay’s wide white eyes staring back at him.
When Jamal returned to himself—how long had his mind left him? A second? A year?—he heard metal screeching inside the black camper against which he and Whiskey were sheltered. He realized that he and Whiskey were holding hands. The portly boy was mumbling something: “It feeds help it feeds help.”
Jamal smacked Whiskey and pressed his hand to the boy’s mouth. “There’s someone in there,” Jamal whispered, nodding his head at the black camper.
But Whiskey wasn’t listening to him. The pale boy had gone paler. A moment later and Jamal heard it too. To their left, footsteps were coming rapidly around the back of the bloody truck. Coming their way.