Page 2 of Crusher's Illusion

He nods. “Dead sure. They’re the Syndicate boys. That’s why I ran.”

Fuck. The Syndicate doesn’t just deal. They make people disappear. Girls don’t make it out unless someone dies in their place.

Now I’m looking at a kid with blood on his face, a target on his back, and the shelter’s not gonna cut it. Not with theSyndicate. Not with the kind of heat they bring down on you when you mess with their pipeline.

“You should go to the cops,” I say, even though we both know it’s a joke.

Jordan grins, teeth red. “You think they’d listen to me? I’ve been in juvie twice. I’m a runaway. No one gives a shit about what I say.”

I don’t argue because he has a point. The system is so messed up that even a kid who wants to stay on the straight and narrow will always be haunted by his past decisions.

I hand him the leftover sandwich from my bag and tell him to stay in the break room. I’ll talk to Marlene. Figure something out. I don't know what yet, but I will.

By the time I return fifteen minutes later with a clean shirt and a plan to call a friend who owes me a favor, Jordan is already gone.

Sirens wail in the distance,cutting through the wet night like a promise that won’t come soon enough.

I lean over Jordan, my body shielding his like it’s gonna stop the rain or the pain or the way he’s fading by the second. His lips move like he’s trying to say something, but all I hear is a wet rattle in his chest.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, even though it isn’t. “They’re coming. Just hold on, all right? Stay with me.”

My knees are numb from the concrete. My hands are slick with his blood, pressing into the wound beneath his ribs, but it’s not stopping. It keeps leaking through my fingers, warm and pulsing and alive until it isn’t.

The sirens grow louder, closer now. But still not here.

I feel his last breath against my wrist.

I don’t even realize I’m yelling his name until the flashing lights turn the alley red, white, and blue, like a fucked-up fireworks show for a kid who never got to see eighteen.

A paramedic touches my shoulder. “Hey, let us take over, son.”

I don’t move. He gently pulls me back, peels me off Jordan like I’m part of the scene. Like I’m not just a body trying to hold another one together that was already breaking.

I sit back on my heels, shaking. I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel my hands. All I feel is the part of me that just broke wide open and won’t ever heal right.

I sit in the back of my mom’s beat-up Corolla, soaked to the bone, my hoodie stiff with dried blood. The heater rattles weakly through the vents, but it doesn’t reach the cold inside me.

The cop who interviewed me said it wasn’t my fault. The shelter director called me a hero, but none of them knew Jordan.

None of them heard him laugh when he won a game of Spades or saw him stand up, even when it was smarter to stay down. None of them felt his blood slow beneath their hands or watched the light go out in his eyes while the world kept spinning.

That’s the night I learned something school couldn’t teach, the shelter couldn’t preach, and even my mother couldn’t prepare me for. Good intentions don’t mean shit when someone dies with your hands on them.

If I ever help again, it won’t be loud. It won’t be public. It won’t have a name, a press release, or a pat on the back.

It’ll be done in the dark. Quiet. Clean.

Because once the world knows who you are?

You’re not a helper. You’re a target.

ONE

THE BYLINE

NEVAEH

They only asked for eight hundred words and a smile. Nothing controversial. Just a feel-good fluff piece about donors who helped raise a million for the Mt. Pleasant Youth Restoration Fund. Highlight a few key players, sprinkle in some hope, and move on. I could’ve written it in my sleep.