CHAPTER 2

KYOLINE retreated into the darkness on the opposite side of the road as she watched a man, a heavily built man in a wife beater, converse with the officers. MIA. His eyes were sweeping, looking for someone. For her.

Okay, Kyoline. You can do this. Just need to figure out a new way of delivering the goods.

There was no waiting for the police to leave. They lingered around after questioning people, especially if it was something involving dirty people like MIA.

She brushed her hair back. It's going to be alright. It's gotta be alright. Because if she got caught, nobody'd be there to care for the kids. And then Child Protective Services would step in and take them away, and the life she'd worked so diligently to establish for them would disappear quicker than the flash of her emerald-colored eyes.

And that is not going down. Not today. Screwing this easy gig wasn't an option. She already could hear the ocean of whispers if she had to sneak back to TENZ JER'SEY with the guns still clutched in her hands. Unreliable. Just like her father. Worthless. Useless.

The words hurt even in her head. She bit her nails into her palms. She was worth more than her father's daughter. And she was not going to let herself lose.

She stared at the address again. It was a generic row house. There must be a way to get around this. Think, Kyoline. It was obvious they didn't have a warrant, or they'd already be in his home and searching it.

If she could get in, grab the money, and leave the guns behind, she'd be free. It'd be simple if it weren't so damn risky.

She screwed up her eyes as she pictured all the moves in her head, deconstructing the situation as if she were a chessboard. All the potential moves and ultimate locations. Thinking about how she could stay in control of this game. Because that was the only way she could protect herself in this filthy world…

And there it was. How she was going to get in. There was a back alley. That would involve crawling across the thin space between the houses. But she'd do whatever if it meant that she could get the job accomplished.

She stepped out of the darkness and into bodies going up and down the sidewalk. She caught the attention of MIA as she walked down the opposite side of the street. He nodded his chin slightly before squinting his beady eyes in the direction of the officers.

Her toe tapped at the crosswalk, waiting for the hand to switch to the walking man. Three… Two… One…

She stayed in line with the other bodies crossing the road. There was no more suspicious than to try and race across the street when the rest of them were merely strolling by.

Approaching MIA's house, she drew in sharply as she squeezed into the gap between the houses. It was such a close fit. Her hoodie got caught. She pushed the bag against her chest and shimmy through the alleyway, staying still to listen.

Nothing.

Her lips were pressed together. She tasted sweat on her upper lip. Then she listened to one of the officers make one big step forward, and another.

She pressed herself against the wall.

"Where are you off to, pig?" MIA's scornful voice drifted over in her direction.

She waited for a moment or two, not even breathing, before she dared to look around the corner. The back of the cop was turned to her now, walking towards where MIA stood with her hands on her hips.

She swallowed down the scalding bile in her throat and stepped out into the alley behind, careful not to make any sound at all. She slowly opened the gate, being careful to lift the squeaky latch a centimeter at a time and cringing at every little creak it made.

The back door creaked as it opened, giving her a glimpse of the run-down interior. The planter box she needed was in sight.

Hurrying on, she jammed the bag into the box, seized the envelope of money taped to the top, dashed out the door, and leaped back over the fence into the alley.

All done! Thank God it's over.

She pulled the hoodie off her figure and tied it around her waist. By the time she turned onto the main street, the hold on her chest relaxed a bit. She slumped her shoulders and walked in the opposite direction of where she initially came from. She just needed to make some room between herself and that mess behind her.

Fishing out her phone from her pocket, she sent a thumbs up to TENZ JER'SEY. He replied with another thumbs up and an offer to meet him back at his office. And the fear of making it on through the night on the streets vanished.

For a month, at least.

The tension of the last few days was finally getting up to her.

She knew that what she was doing was wrong. Very wrong.

Her life was a disaster. 

But she did not know how to make everything all right again.

The next day, Kyoline was bartending at MANCHESTER LED and getting ready to go on duty. She had recently graduated from high school a few weeks prior, and now she tried to work as many shifts here as she could. Everything in her life seemed like a dream. Up until last month, she had continued going to school and doing homework and working for the casino. Yeah, it was really dreamlike.

She was happy to bid school farewell. If only it were so easy to shake off the last few years…

LYDIA, another bartender, exhaled as she wiped down a glass, a crease of worry distorting her face.

"Everything all right, Lydia?"

She flashed Kyoline a fleeting smile. "Yeah."

"LOTS problems?" LOTS was her loser ex-husband.

"It's that obvious?" she grumbled. "He was supposed to have the children this weekend, but now he says he can't because his new girlfriend doesn't get on with children. I'm working on Saturday and I've asked everyone, but no one can cover for me."

"Don't SOPAI owe you as you switched a lot with her lately?"

"Sure, she owes me for sure." She furrowed her brow. "But she told me she has a mani-pedi that she can't possibly cancel, and then she's working the rest of Saturday getting her cat Botox or something like that."

Christ, SOPAI was awful. She took advantage of Lydia's niceness, but always managed to wriggle out of paying her back in full. And Kyoline fervently prayed that she wasn't actually poisoning her cat with Botox. I mean, what the hell? "I can swap with you," said Kyoline to Lydia.

"I can't allow that," she said quickly. "You already dealt with me this week, and you haven't had a Saturday off in years."

It's fine. I don't have anything on anyway." Kyoline crossed her fingers behind her back. She had something on for Saturday, and she felt a little sad because she was so looking forward to it, but Lydia was a single mother, and her own mom was not able to help her out at the moment as she was recovering from a heart attack. She restrained herself. "Are you certain?"

"Of course," said Kyoline, squeezing her hand.

It was chaotic there, and Kyoline started sorting through more glasses while Lydia went away to fetch new bottles of liquor from the storeroom. She returned after a minute with a tray of new bottles and called out to Kyoline as she came back. "Kyoline, there's a call for you. It's your mom. She needs to speak with you."

All eyes were upon Kyoline, and she could feel her words fall flat in her hollow chest.

"Does your mother need help on giving a double blowjob?" CAT M'NOO cackled with her notoriously nasal laugh.

Sympathy was offered by Lydia as the titters reverberated all through the room.

CAT M'NOO was the leader of the catty girls' clique that hung around the casino, trying to catch herself a rich mafia husband and wasting her time bothering Kyoline's life. She went out of her way to belittle her almost the whole school she went to with her and it looked like she was determined to do the same thing now.