“Now you grieve. Then you listen for my call. I’m handling club business until you’re steady.” Damron soundedlike he was trying to talk a jumper off a ledge. “We already got some info. It’s messy. Might be the cartel moving through with Sultan muscle. Might be a fuckup. But it’s gonna get bloody, so you need to be ready for that.”
I wanted to scream at him, tell him he didn’t know what it was like to lose the last goddamn person you loved in a world of liars and hired guns. But the rage just burned me up from the inside, left nothing but a thin layer of ash and the certainty that this would never, ever feel less sharp.
Sergeant started to whine again, louder. I reached over and let her rest her chin on my thigh, and we just sat like that, two animals in a heat-locked car, breathing the same sour air.
I made myself say it. “Okay. Call me when you have a target.”
There was a pause, then the click of a lighter on the other end. “Take the time you need, Medina. I’ll cover your ass.”
The line went dead.
I sat in the silence, watching my knuckles turn white against the steering wheel. The world outside was unchanged—sun bright, sky hard as glass, the strip mall across the street empty as always. My chest hurt, a pressure like someone had knifed me just under the sternum and was twisting for effect.
I could still hear my mother’s voice in my head, bright and brittle as old crystal: Don’t get in trouble, Dean. Don’t make it worse. All she ever wanted was for me to get out, make something of myself that didn’t end in jail or a funeral.
Now she was the one with the obituary, and I was still here, in a car that smelled like burning dust, clutching a set of dog tags and a leash for a dog who would never meet her.
I let myself break for a minute. Not a loud thing—no yelling, no fists through the dashboard, just a long, keening sound that started in the throat and came out through my teeth. Sergeant licked my hand, her tongue warm and urgent, and I gripped her collar so tight she yelped.
I loosened my grip, stroked her neck, and made myself breathe.
Eventually, the shaking stopped. I looked at the time, at the empty passenger seat, at the sky turning a deeper blue overhead, and I knew the next steps: call the coroner, pick up Ma’s things, make the calls. The ritual of loss, practiced enough times to be almost routine.
But this was not routine.
This was the sun, merciless and undiminished, burning everything in sight until it was white-hot and brittle, ready to shatter.
I started the engine, checked the mirror, and pulled out of the lot. Sergeant braced herself, watching me with something that looked like fear and maybe a little bit of hope, too. I let her, because one of us had to.
The road unspooled ahead, every familiar turn and pothole suddenly strange, like I was driving through a town built by someone who only knew my nightmares.
I gripped the wheel and kept going, because that was all there was left.
***
The drive to the shelter was a blank. I must have stopped at every red light, obeyed every speed limit, because when I pulled into the Humane Society lot, the sun was barely lower in the sky. The place was already closed—the inside windows banded with stripes of artificial darkness. I sat in the car with the engine ticking cool, the seatbelt’s cross-crease still pressed into my chest, and for a moment I thought about turning around and taking the dog somewhere out in the woods. Just letting her go. I couldn’t imagine bringing anything home, not when home was a crime scene, and the only voices left would be the ones in my head.
Sergeant whined once, urgently, and pawed at the window. Her eyes fixed on the door, as if she knew the way inside was the only route back to normal. I opened the door, my hands steadier than before, though I couldn’t feel them. I led her out with the leash, but she needed none, stuck to my leg like a shadow, her body language saying, Just tell me what to do, boss. Just make this better.
The side entrance was locked, but the moment I knocked—soft, not wanting to break anything more than necessary—Emily’s face appeared on the other side. She was out of uniform, hair loose, and the neckline of her t-shirt showed the faintest sunburn. For a second, she didn’t recognize me. Then she did, and she moved fast, unbolting the door and waving me in.
She didn’t say “you’re back already” or “you okay?” or any of the lines people rehearse for tragedy. Just, “Come in. It’s cooler inside.”
I went in. Sergeant came too, pausing in the threshold to look up at Emily, who bent to scratch behind her ears with an economy of motion that said she understood what animals needed, and what people sometimes needed even more.
The overheads were off, the only light coming in milky through a side window. Emily led us through the hall tothe little visitation room, where the linoleum was clean, and the air wasn’t vibrating with barking or panic.
She shut the door behind us. “You want water?” she asked. “For the dog, or yourself.”
“I’m good.” My voice sounded like it had been sanded down to the grain.
Emily nodded. She turned a chair around, sat with her arms folded along the top, and just waited. It was the same pose she’d used with Sergeant that morning, letting the space fill itself until the animal decided what to do next.
I tried to explain myself. “I shouldn’t have brought her here. This was a mistake.”
Sergeant started pacing the room, her nails ticking on the tile. Emily watched her, then me, then the floor, all in the same measured sequence. “Mistake for who?” she asked, her voice soft but unyielding.
I could hear the words in my head—she needs a stable home, I’m not the right person, I can’t even keep myself together—but what came out was, “My mother’s dead. She got shot this morning at the bank on Trinity.”
