Page 63 of Queen of Nothing

A whole other kind of shield.

And he let me go.

I look at the watch in my hand.

Sal is tugging it, agitated, held still for too long.

The rise of his whining into tears is just background noise to me, blended with Serena’s warble. She rattles off her anxiety, our next move, formulates our plan out loud, and it’s only now I realise that Sofía isn’t on the phone anymore.

Frowning, I sit up straighter and push Sal onto his car seat. He’s hitting me now, kicking and swatting, demanding his smart tablet.

I wrestle him into the straps, then buckle him in.

I ask, “Where’s his tablet?”

I lean over the backseat for the boot space. The station wagon is roomier than the old hatchback.

Better for us since we move around a lot.

Besides, we can’t go driving the same old car for years. That’s one way to get caught.

“It’s at the apartment,” Serena says, and her voice is almost shrill with the panic.

I grab at the bags in the back, tugging them closer, rummaging through them at random, all with the seat digging into my middle.

“Didn’t you get it?” Then, like she’s just now realising I don’t have anything with me but her son, silence strikes her. “Why don’t you have anything from the apartment?” Panic hitches her voice. “What took you so long to get to the car?”

“My father was there—at the apartment. Mr Younge was at the parade. Dray was at the car show. I don’t know where your father was.”

But he must have been around somewhere, now that I think about it.

Desmond, too, her brother.

“The bags…” Serena’s whisper is guttural. “The bags! Oh gods, all of our money—”

“I know.” The words heave out of me, from the defeat and the seat pushing into my gut.

I snatch the blue backpack from under the duffel bag, then haul it onto my lap.

I thud down on the seat with a grunt.

Sal is screaming now.

Screaming from a purple face, that kind of shrieking that clangs my bones and surges rage through me.

I dig through the kid’s backpack.

I bite down on the insides of my cheeks.

Sal reaches out of his seat—and starts scratching me, pulling my hair, kicking.

I promised him the tablet.

But all I can find in his go-bag is an old game console that he is too young to understand.

“Fuck,” I mutter, then pull out my phone.

I switch through the apps, then click on the slithering snake game that sort of hypnotises him, and shove it into his hands.