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I’d seen him coming outside as I was pulling away, and Tahari knew that Camry. Even if he hadn’t gotten a perfect look at my face, he knew enough to put that shit together. Which meant he was probably looking for me by now. I stood and walked toward the window, pulling the curtain back just enough to see the parking lot below. A few cars were scattered beneath the lights, none of them familiar, but I still studied each one before letting the curtain fall back into place.

Money wasn’t my problem. I had enough cash in that duffle to leave Miami and keep moving for a while. What I didn’t have was a destination, and putting miles between myself and the city wouldn’t fix everything waiting behind me. Ryan still wanted answers I couldn’t give him. Tahari knew I had been at that complex. And somewhere out there was a news story that could tell me whether the person I’d wanted dead was actually gone. I wished I hadn’t thrown that fucking phone away. Not because I wanted to call anybody. I just hated not knowing.

I walked back toward the bed and sat down, resting my forearms against my knees. When I checked in, the person at the front desk told me that the televisions were down. So, I didn’t even have that to get me a little update. I sat still in the room as everything just played in my head. If you asked me two years ago if I would be where I currently was, I would have thought that you were crazy. My mother’s face came to mind, but I pushed the image away before I could sit with it for too long. I had already left her with enough to deal with. Going back wasn’t an option, and reaching out to her would only drag her farther into something she had nothing to do with. For now, I was on my own. The problem was, I still didn’t have a fucking clue what my next move was.

MJ

Once Uncle Ty showed up at the hospital, I made my exit. Pops had asked me to do one thing, and honestly, anything that he asked me right now, I was jumping up and getting it done. Maylee was still at her friend’s house, and she needed to be picked up. By the time I got Maylee home, the sugar from the ice cream had done exactly what I needed it to do. She had questions when I first picked her up from her friend’s house. A lot of them. She wanted to know why I came instead of Mama, where Daddy was, why Maliah hadn’t answered her earlier, and why everybody seemed to be doing something without her.

I wasn’t prepared to answer any of that. Before I left the hospital, Daddy had made it clear that Mama would be the one to explain everything to Maylee. He hadn’t said much because talking still took more energy than he had, but he’d said enough. Let your mama handle Maylee. He looked me dead in the eyes with his order, and I was fine with it. I wasn’t trying to be the one to tell my little sister that somebody had shot our father three times. So, when she started asking questions before we were even out of her friend’s neighborhood, I asked if she wanted ice cream. That shut down the interrogation quicker than anything else I could’ve said.

By the time we pulled away from the ice cream shop, Maylee was more concerned with keeping melted chocolate from dripping onto her shirt than figuring out where everybody was. She hadn’t forgotten completely, though.

“Where’s Maliah?”

I kept my eyes on the road.

“With Tahari.”

“Oh.”

That answer seemed good enough for her. She took another bite before looking out the window, and I hoped like hell we could make it home without her asking anything else. We almost did.

“Where’s Mommy and Daddy?”

My hands tightened slightly around the steering wheel.

“They are together.”

“Where?”

I glanced over at her.

“Maylee.”

“What?” She looked at me with those big brown eyes.

“You got ice cream all over your hand.”

She immediately looked down.

“Oh my God.”

I laughed when she started reaching around for a napkin, and just like that, the conversation moved somewhere else. I felt bad about distracting her, but I didn’t know what else to do. Maylee was going to find out soon enough. She didn’t need to find out from me. Once we got home, she disappeared into her room with her overnight bag while I made sure the doors were locked. I checked the alarm twice before walking through the downstairs area. I was looking out the windows without really meaning to.

Everything felt different. This was home. I had grown up in this house, and I’d never had to think about whether somebody would bring street shit to our front door because Pops had always made sure whatever he had going on stayed far away from us. Now somebody had shot him. That changed shit. I headed upstairs and stopped outside of Maylee’s room. Her door was open, and she was sitting in the middle of her bed with her phone propped against a pillow while she pulled stuff out of her bag.

“You good?”

She looked over at me.

“Yeah.”

“You need anything?” I asked.

“No.”

“Aight. I’m in my room.”