Page 88 of Eighteen (18)

“Don’t fucking Shannon me. In what world did you think I was OK with this?” He says nothing. “I’m so fucking out of here.” I walk to the door and pull it open, but the cops are just pulling up, flashing their red and blue lights. “Jesus Christ.”

Danny slams the door and points to the kitchen. “Let’s go out this way. We can cut through the back.” He grabs my arm and drags me down the hall. All the while Dana is screaming at us, still trying to get up from the couch where she fell.

He throws the door open and drags me down the back steps. The party is raging now. There are kegs and music is thumping so loud, no one even notices the police cars in the front yet.

Danny weaves us through the crowd of drunk and dancing people, and then Rocky yells for him just as the music stops.

“Fuck,” he says, standing on his tiptoes, trying to see over a tall guy in front of us. The call comes again, and he whirls around, looking back at Phil’s house. “Keep going,” he tells me. “On the left side of the garage is a gate that leads out to the next street. Meet me there.”

I look at the crowd of people I have to get through. “Shit, Danny.” But when I look back, he’s gone. I swallow hard, holding Olivia tightly to my chest. She’s still asleep, even with all this noise. Something is definitely wrong with her.

I start pushing people out of my way and end up crashing into a short girl about my height. She spins around, beer spilling out of her red cup, and I say, “Sorry.”

It’s that girl I insulted back on the first day of the semester in front of the PE field.

“Oh, look who it is,” she says, slurring her words. “Pinche puta. You’re not fucking Mexican, huh? Then why do you live in my hood, bitch?”

I push past her, my eye on the prize. The back gate. But she grabs my arm, and when I turn around, there’s a lot more of them now.

“Put the baby down, bitch,” one girl says. She’s a lot taller than me. And a lot meaner-looking too. “Or we’ll kick your ass while you hold it.”

“It?” I see red. “Touch me, and I’ll cut your tits off and feed them to my dog, cunt. But if you do decide to mess with me, you better take your best shot, and you better make it good. Because you won’t get a second chance.” I am fluent in street venom. I can spew threats with the best of them. It works in my favor, because it stops the whole group of them for a moment.

And that moment is all I need, because someone yells, “Cops!”

Everyone starts screaming, and the girls turn. I bolt to the back of the property, slip alongside of the garage where Danny told me to go. And find a six foot tall chain-link gate.

Locked.

I turn around, panicked, and find the girls have followed me.

“Looks like a good spot to kick some ass,” one says.

“I bet it’ll take those pigs five minutes at least to make their way back here.”

“That’s more time than we need.”

I let out a long breath and resign myself to a fight. I don’t fight much. I’m not even that good at it. I depend on my mouth to talk my way out of things ninety-nine percent of the time. But these girls are not fucking around. They are gonna kick my ass. They come at me and the first one takes a swing at my face, but I duck, clutching Olivia to my chest.

Then the gate rattles and I whirl around and see Danny there with the key. “Get the fuck off, Maria,” he snaps. “Get the fuck off her, or I swear, I will beat your ass myself.” He opens the gate and lets me through as the girls try to follow, calling out insults. But Danny closes it back up and clamps the padlock together.

They scream at him. But he takes my hand and we run towards my street.

A car cuts us off and two officers get out with their guns drawn. “Down on the ground, Alexander!” they yell.

Holy fuck, I might have a heart attack.

Danny puts his hands up and looks at me. “I’m fine, don’t worry. Whatever they’re here for, it’s not me.” He kneels and then they come and push him face first into the grass, stepping on his back as they cuff him with those plastic zip tie things.

“Shannon!”

I spin around again and find Mateo climbing over the back gate where we just came out of.

“LA, huh?” Danny says up to me, still under the shoe of one of the officers.

I just stare down at him. And feel very, very sad. He was right. Why else is Mateo here?

Chapter Thirty-Four