A groan. Momma. “I smell gas. We need to get out.”
“Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay.”
A door opening.
The scrape of metal on metal.
“Eddie?”
“Yeah?”
“The other SUV. They’re coming.”
“Get Jack out.”
My eyes opened on the hallway of my apartment building.
The buzzing of the fluorescent bulb above me.
I was on the floor, my back up against the wall.
My dirty clothes from the diner, piled in my lap.
Mr. Triano, the building superintendent, hovering over me. “You been drinking, kid?” Beside him stood a second Mr. Triano, this one blurry.
I looked up at him, tried to summon words. My mouth empty, tasting of dirty cotton.
“Your aunt’s in a bad way. You got no business being out partying.”
I reached for my head, my hand finding the tender spot where the woman had hit me with the rifle butt. It hurt like hell.
The Triano on the right reached for me with a calloused hand. “Stand up, before someone else sees you.”
I took his hand and let him haul me to my feet.
The world spun a little, tilted, then found center.
I drew in a deep breath. Both Trianos became one Triano.
“How long have I been here?” I managed to say. I expected to find blood on my fingertips, but they came away from my head clean.
“How the hell would I know? I ain’t your babysitter. You can’t sleep it off in the hallway, though. Get in your place. Chug a tall glass of ice water with some aspirin and find a comfortable spot on the couch. That usually works for me. Oranges are good, too, if you have one. Don’t ask me why.”
I looked up and down the hallway. “Did you see them bring me in here?”
Triano glanced toward the stairs at the end of the hallway. “Salvatore in 108 said someone in a white truck dropped you off outside. You managed to drag yourself up here. He bet me one dollar you’d find your apartment within thirty minutes. He said, ‘Even the drunkest of drunks can find their way home.’ Said, ‘Teenagers have a special kind of stamina.’ You assed out in the hallway, though, only a few feet from the finish line. He owes me a buck. Come on, I’ll help ya.”
Triano wrapped an arm around me and helped me cross the hall to my door. I felt like I was walking on stilts, someone else’s legs, not my own.
My door was unlocked. I twisted the knob, and we went inside.
Auntie Jo was sound asleep in her chair, snoring loud enough to vibrate the window.
I dropped my filthy clothes inside the doorway. Triano helped me to the couch and fetched a glass of water from the kitchen.
I drank all of it, and he set the glass down on the coffee table.
“Get some sleep, kid, tomorrow’s another day.”
