“What happened?”
“He killed a nigga.” Zoo said it flat. Matter of fact. Like he was telling me the weather. “A nigga named Tre who had been bullying him for years. Prentice caught him after school and beat him to death with a padlock. Crushed his whole skull. Right there in the schoolyard.”
My stomach flipped. “What?”
“Did eight years. Came home a whole different nigga. All that fat gone. Stutter gone. Fear gone.” Zoo dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. “That soft lil bitch turned into whatever the fuck he is now.”
I didn’t say nothing. Just stood there trying to make it make sense.
“So think about it, B.” Zoo stepped closer to me. “You got a grown man who killed his bully when he was a kid. Now he’s playing stepdaddy to a lil nigga who’s getting punked the same exact way he was. You don’t think he maybe saw himself in that boy? Maybe put a battery pack in Yusef’s back? Told him to stop being a victim? Showed him how to handle his business?”
“Zoo…” I shook my head. “Yusef is twelve. He’s a baby. Prentice wouldn’t be crazy enough to give him a gun.”
“And Prentice was thirteen when he caught his body.” Zoo shrugged. “Age don’t mean shit when somebody push you far enough.”
“Nah.” I kept shaking my head. “Nah, you wrong about this. Yusef ain’t got it in him. That boy is soft. He play piano and do chess club and all that bougie shit. He ain’t no killer.”
“Then why couldn’t he look me in my eyes?” Zoo’s voice got hard. “Why he damn near choke when I asked him some simplequestions? Why that nigga Prentice stepped in front of him like he was protecting a witness?”
I didn’t have answers.
Zoo started walking back toward the front of the church. “I’ma find out, B. One way or another. Believe that.”
I stayed where I was for a minute. Leaning against that brick wall. Watching people leave in their black dresses and dark suits, crying over my baby like they actually gave a fuck.
And I thought about Yusef. That skinny, quiet, scared little boy.
The way he froze at the casket. The way his whole body was shaking. The way Prentice kept his hand on his shoulder like he was holding him together.
Or holding him back.
Nah. It couldn’t be.
…Right?
13
ZAINAB
December in DC ain’t no joke. The wind coming off the Potomac had teeth, biting through every layer like it had a personal vendetta against anybody stupid enough to be outside past sundown. But here we were—me and Prime—bundled up on his balcony like two fools who ain’t have sense enough to stay inside where it was warm.
But I needed the air. Needed the sky. Needed to breathe something that wasn’t recycled penthouse oxygen and the lingering funeral smell that I swore was still stuck in my nostrils even though I’d showered.
Prime had set up the space heater, that fancy outdoor one that looked like a lamp, that restaurants and bars use. We were wrapped in electric blankets—his idea, and honestly a game changer—with glasses of Banks Reserve cognac on the little table between our chairs. The liquor burned going down, but it was the good kind of burn. It warmed you from the inside out and made the cold feel almost manageable.
Yusef had been asleep for hours. Knocked out the moment his head hit the pillow, which was a blessing. That boy needed rest more than any of us.
Prime pulled a small bag from his pocket and started rolling a joint on the armrest of his chair. His fingers moved slow and precise, the same way they did everything—deliberate, controlled, like every motion had been thought through three steps ahead.
He finished rolling, sparked the lighter, and took a long pull. The tip glowed orange in the dark. He held the smoke, then exhaled slow, the cloud curling up and disappearing into the night.
He passed it to me.
I took it and inhaled. Coughed immediately. Prime chuckled and I cut my eyes at him.
“Shut up.”
“I ain’t say nothing.”
