Next to the tall man, a shorter dude in boots lifted a bottle to his lips, tipped it, then said, “Don’t let us stop you. Y’all look downright adorable.”

The trio advanced a few steps, side by side. I scanned the walls surrounding us. A fire escape zigzagged down the one brick building, but the ladder was twelve feet off the ground. The only way out was through them. Rosie growled and Khajee said, “Easy girl,” and her voice showed no sign of concern. She unstrapped her leash from that pipe, looped the handle around her wrist.

As they came closer, I saw they were all middle-aged. “Keep that mutt under control,” the tall guy said. “Or we’ll do it for you.”

Rosie barked now, bearing her teeth. The third guy, with a ball cap tucked down low on his forehead, slurred out, “Same thing goes for her.” He aimed a shaky finger at Khajee. “She’s a cute little ninja, isn’t she? Feisty. I like me a feisty gal.”

I stepped toward them, shielding Khajee with my body. No way did I actually expect to talk my way out of it, but still I raised my hands and said, “We were having a little impromptu lesson. Just heading out.”

The three of them stood shoulder to shoulder, making a wall, and the short one in boots said, “Lessons? Where do we sign up?”

My eyes flashed across their faces to see if any were close to making the first move. I said, “Look. You’re all drunk, and there’s no need for this to turn nasty. You’re about to get hurt if you don’t drag your sorry butts back to the bar you crawled out of. Or even better, home to your ugly wives.”

“Funny man,” the tall one said. He drained the last of his beer and gripped the empty bottle by the neck. His buddy with the ball cap pulled something from his back pocket. It was too dark to be sure, but I saw a glint of something metal and figured it for a knife. We all could feel it, the tension about to pop. Rosie was snapping like wild now, straining against her leash, and I turned my head sideways, keeping one eye on the crew. I told Khajee, “I’ll keep these jokers busy. You two make a break for it.”

But Khajee bent down, patted Rosie on the head, and said loudly, “The answer is about seven inches.”

“Come again now?” the tallest drunk said, head cocked. I had no idea what Khajee was talking about. The whole charged atmosphere had shifted.

She stood and stepped around my protective arms. At my side with Rosie ahead of us, she said, “The needles they use. To treat rabies.”

The three guys traded confused expressions.

Khajee set a hand on her belly. “It’s actually a series of injections. Deep into the abdomen. Usually four to six over a period of weeks. Very painful from what I’ve been told.”

Rosie tugged on her leash, her front legs pawing at the air. The guy with the ball cap backed up but the tall leader set a hand on his shoulder. “She’s full of it. That mutt ain’t got rabies.”

“Probably not,” Khajee said. “But this dog was raised in a fighting pit, where her owners used to beat her. From the look of her, I’m guessing they smelled a lot like you.” Rosie’s jaw snapped madly at the air, and even in the alley’s half-light her teeth glistened. Khajee went down on one knee, let her hand trail the leash to where it attached to Rosie’s collar. She fingered the clasp. “She just needs to break the skin.”

“Forget this,” the shortest one said as he backed away, still facing us.

The leader said, “Come on Pete, don’t let this little —”

Khajee lifted her hand and Rosie launched forward, bounding toward the men, barking ferociously. They practically fell over each other as they turned and ran. Rosie was right at their heels when they reached the street, and Khajee shouted, “Yùt!” Rosie came to a sudden stop. She trotted back to Khajee, licked her outstretched hand, and allowed Khajee to reattach her leash.

It all happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to react. I said, “We should get out of here before they come back.”

Khajee gave me a look. “Those cowards? They’re not coming back. But yeah, I need to check on Uncle.”

We passed by a small huddle of patrons outside the bar and followed the cracked sidewalks through the neighborhood. Khajee was oddly quiet, given what just happened, and I said, “That was crazy back there. Where’d you come up with such a story?”

“I don’t know,” she said, walking just in front of me. “Guess I’m a good liar.”

“I’ll say,” I told her. “You practically had me convinced. But, you know, I had things under control.”

She stopped and faced me. “No,” she said. “No you didn’t. There were three of them and they were drunk. There’s no way to have that situation under control. Anything could have happened.”

Her expression was flat, her tone objective.

“Come on,” I said. “I would’ve mopped the alley with those jerks. I could’ve taken them without breaking a sweat and that’s not even —”

Khajee spun on one heel and marched away from me, pulling a reluctant Rosie. When I caught up to her, she didn’t look my way. “I can take care of myself,” she said. “This isn’t a fairy tale and I’m no damsel in distress.”

“I didn’t say that you were,” I said, trying to defend myself. “What did you want me to do? Let them beat us?”

She shook her head and increased her pace to put distance between us. I didn’t want to jog to keep up and make a scene, so I trailed her for a block. Traffic was heavy at a red light and she had to wait, and when I came alongside her she finally gave me an answer. “You saw absolutely no other alternative? Either they beat us or you beat them? You were practically egging them on, and you know it. Not every problem needs to be fixed with your fists, Mac.”

The light turned green and the little walking man appeared on the street sign, but Khajee didn’t move. “I don’t know what it is with you guys,” she said. “Maybe violence is just in your blood or something.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Come on,” she snapped. “What you said before, about fighting your father? You can’t even tell the difference between justice and revenge.”

She looked at me then, waiting for some response. I couldn’t tell Khajee then that for years on the mat, when I was bludgeoning some wrestler, I imagined it was my father I was hurting. It was his arm I was cranking, his cheek I was forcing into the mat. So I stayed silent. And when she turned and crossed the street, I just stood where I was. Others passed me by, and soon the flow of people tugged me along.

Fists in my pockets, I roamed by an all-night convenience store with a shoeless guy begging for change out front, and I walked past a couple leaving a fancy restaurant arguing about who forgot to make the reservation. There were young skateboarders practicing tricks in the cones of parking lot lights, a pack of evening joggers wearing neon-yellow safety vests. An ambulance screamed along the street, sirens wailing. All these things I took in, but mostly I was wrestling with Khajee’s words.

Deep down in my blood, I knew I’d find my father’s DNA. Khajee hadn’t meant it quite so literally, but it made me wonder if I had any choice in who I was. If some genetic code had decided that my hair would be black, my eyes crystal blue, then how was this any different than other parts of me — my instincts, my temper? Maybe that’s why it’s so easy for me to steal a glimpse of the future sometimes, because all of it is already predetermined.

My path back to the apartment was hardly a straight one. I took my time, wandering in that general direction as I tried to think things through. I had no answers for Khajee, but I’d decided that at least, as a start, I should apologize.

But when I turned onto the street of her building, there was an ambulance out front, lights silently strobing red/white/red, backed up to Khajee’s place with the rear doors open. I charged into her apartment to find two paramedics kneeling over Than, lying on a stretcher on the living room floor. His eyes were closed. Khajee stood above them, crying, and the TV was on, playing the World Series of Poker.

The paramedics positioned themselves front and back and lifted Than. I heard him groan low, but at least this was a sign of life. From the bedroom, Rosie barked wildly. “What happened?” I asked in the confusion.

No one answered me and the paramedics carried Than through the door. Khajee grabbed her backpack and followed them, but paused long enough to get out, “When I got home, he was just on the floor.” Her green eyes were shiny with tears. She looked at the rug. “They said something about respiratory failure but can’t be sure. They’re taking him to the ER.”

At the open doorway, she paused and looked back at me. Beyond her, I could see inside the bright ambulance, where the paramedics were leaning over Than. Khajee rubbed her hands together and glanced side to side, like she was trying to find something she’d lost. Then she took a half step into me and asked, “Mac, could you come?”

Hours later, we were sitting next to each other in the emergency room waiting area at Harrisburg Hospital. I’ve long had a phobia when it comes to hospitals, and I felt like I was holding my breath, diving deep underwater. But Khajee needed me, and I sucked it up. She sat next to me in the waiting room. In front of her was the full cup of coffee, cold and untouched, that I’d gotten earlier from the cafeteria.

The wounded and sick wandered around us. A young dad paced with a wailing baby, a tubby businessman yelled into his cell phone right beneath a sign that forbid all cell phone use. A Latina woman sat calmly reading the newspaper with her swollen leg propped up on a table. The TV hanging in the corner was playing one of those shows where a panel of second-rate celebrities judge everyday people trying to break into showbiz. There was a guy juggling flaming rings while riding a unicycle, a team of three female magicians who changed themselves into men, and a Nebraska farm boy complete with overalls who broke into a rap about country life. He was a big hit.

I caught Khajee smiling at him and said, “Think he could be a winner?”

She shrugged. “He already won, if you ask me.” Restless, she pulled out her cell phone and glanced at the screen. Earlier, a nurse had explained that Than was out of immediate danger for now but was being admitted. They’d get us when we could see him. Right away Khajee texted somebody. I didn’t ask who, but I could tell she hadn’t heard back. She shoved her phone back in her pocket and stood. “What the hell’s taking so long? I’m going to go ask.”

I set a hand gently on her arm. “There’s no point. Harassing them won’t get us an answer. All we can do now is wait.”

She looked down at me, more upset than angry. I was dwelling on the same thing I figured she was, the meaning behind a phrase like out of immediate danger for now.

As she settled in next to me, another singer took the stage. I knew it was a touchy subject but figured a distraction was worth it, so I said, “Tell me about this jerk Wertzman.”

“What now?” she asked.

“Wertzman who thinks you can’t sing.”

A frustrated grin cracked her stony expression. “Sterling Wertzman. He directs the plays at our school, thinks he’s God’s gift to the Harrisburg theater scene.”

“You’re an actress?”

“Last spring, I nailed my audition for Cinderella. I mean, objectively, I owned that song. It was mine.”

“And what, this guy didn’t give you a part?”

“Mouse #3,” Khajee said. “Not even a damn wicked stepsister. Cinderella went to Jenny Haskel, who can’t sing worth a damn but happens to be very tall, and very blonde, very beautiful in all the best ways — like all the leads. That’s just the way it is, right?”

What Khajee had said back in the woods, when we were talking about Hollywood heroes, made more sense to me now. She went on. “This … friend of mine, she said we should quit in protest, so we did. Me and Mouse #2. Not that it made a difference — they found other mice and the world kept right on spinning. This year, I didn’t even bother trying out. Neither did she, and she can really dance.”

“Their loss,” I said. “I meant what I said before. You’re a great singer.”

“Everybody sounds good in the shower,” she said, stretching that grin. After a few seconds, she added, “But hey, thanks for saying it.”

It was a weird moment, one that felt close but odd too, like back in the alley. Once again though, we were interrupted. A male nurse came striding up to us. “Can you follow me please?” he asked.

Together, we stood, and I was surprised to find Khajee reach for my hand. He led us down a hallway and we took an elevator to the second floor, then down another hallway. Every step I was aware of her fingers in mine. With nothing but the unknown ahead, I was an anchor for her. It felt good to return the favor.

Finally the nurse turned into a room and we saw Than resting in a bent bed, eyes closed, skin pale. A plastic mask connected to a green tank covered his mouth and nose. Khajee collapsed onto him, sobbing, and the male nurse said, “Dr. Ngoyo will be in as soon as he can.”

I nodded and the nurse left us. Rain splattered the window. Beside Than, a clear bag of something hung, dripping liquid into a tube that curved down and into the crease of Than’s elbow. Khajee scraped a chair across the linoleum and sat at his side, holding his wrist. She whispered to him in Thai.

The doctor, who was thin and brown-skinned, strode in a while later. He greeted us, checked on a monitor with green numbers, then turned to Khajee. She said, “What happened to my uncle?”

“We’re dealing here with a bacteria called pneumococcus. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon in diabetics, though there is a vaccine. I suppose your uncle never had it.”

I thought this was a cruddy thing to tell her. What was the point? The doctor went on. “This has led to pneumonia, something we’ll try to address with breathing treatments, and a condition called sepsis, basically a body-wide infection. We have antibiotics that will clear that up, hopefully.”

“What do you mean ‘hopefully’? Will all this cure him or not?” Khajee shouted these questions, and the doctor looked at me for some sort of help. Khajee lowered her voice and asked, “Please. Is he going to die?”

Dr. Ngoyo said, “I don’t decide that. But his condition is very serious. He’ll be admitted, of course. You could be looking at a prolonged stay.”

“We have no insurance,” Khajee said, dropping her face.

The doctor tried to hide his frown. “Legally we can’t discharge him, regardless of your ability to pay. But I’ll be honest with you, his care isn’t going to be inexpensive. Even if he recovers, his kidneys might be damaged. If they fail, which is likely, then we’ll be looking at dialysis.”

A chime sounded in the doctor’s pocket and he pulled out a phone, glanced at the screen. Then he said, “When the time is right, someone can talk to you about payment plans, options for all that. For now, stay with him as long as you’d like.”

He tucked the phone back in his pocket and left us. I moved behind Khajee with my hands on the back of her chair. For a while we said nothing. We listened to his ragged breathing and the hum of the machine at his side. The rain stopped. Now and then an announcement drifted in on the hospital PA. There was a Code Armstrong on the fourth floor. Khajee squeezed his hand. If Than noticed, I couldn’t tell.

I leaned over and touched her right shoulder. “The money I have,” I told her, “it’s yours.”

She bent that arm and patted my hand, then held my fingers. “That won’t be enough. I know what these places cost. Dialysis. Can you imagine? We have no credit cards, don’t own a damn thing worth selling. I’ll quit school I guess, try to find a steady second income.”

I moved around to the side of her chair, still holding her hand, and bent a knee to the cold linoleum. Khajee’s face was streaked with tears. “Everything’s going to be okay,” I told her. “I can fix this.”

She shook her head, looked at me like I was naïve and foolish. “We covered this, Mac. It’s not your job to save me. I don’t need you to be my hero.”

I got to my feet. “I know that,” I said. “But I can be your friend.”