Atlanta ducks behind a donut stack of tractor tires, hunkering down in the weeds. A tick crawls on her leg. She flings it away and bites her lip.

Don’t see me don’t come over here don’t see me shit shit shit.

She waits. And waits.

Hears footsteps approaching.

Her hand moves toward her pants, toward the baton stashed there.

Maisey Bott pokes her head around. “Atlanta?”

Wince.

“Hey, Maisey.”

Maisey shows herself fully, stands there, bright-eyed and beaming. “Hey! What are you doing here?”

“Same thing you are,” Atlanta says, instantly regretting that. The words just came out—she didn’t think before she said ’em, and now there they are.

Maisey laughs—guffaws, really, she’s got a goofy kind of gulp-snort donkey laugh—and starts to unwrap the foil around a stick of spearmint gum. “Cool, man. There’s good money to be made here. This is fun, isn’t it?”

All Atlanta says is, “Yeah. Yep. Great money.”

“You want a piece?” Maisey asks around the wad of gum. Oo wanna piesh? She waggles the Doublemint pack.

“I’m good.” Atlanta clenches her eyes shut. “Hey, is anybody coming over here?”

“Huh?”

“Behind me. From the Morton building. Anybody heading this direction?”

Maisey peeks her head out. “Don’t think so. Ooh. Someone you’re hiding from?”

“Old boyfriend,” she lies. “Don’t want him to see me here. You know.”

Another donkey laugh. “Yeah, I hear that. Boys get so jealous. I think you’re good. I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. Lemme ask you something.” And Atlanta knows the question is coming, because anytime she gets into close contact with someone from school and they have just enough rope with which to hang the conversation, they always ask. “Did you really . . . you know?”

“Shoot my mother’s boyfriend.”

“In the—” And suddenly Maisey lowers her voice and squats down next to Atlanta. “In the beans and franks?”

“Yeah.”

“Was he . . . touching you?”

“He wasn’t a good person.”

She neglects to say: He came to my room three times. He told me to do things for him or he’d tell my mother that I was hitting on him. Or he’d leave her. Or he’d hit her. He made me do things for him, all kinds of things that left bruises and made my jaw hurt real bad and then the next time he came to me I didn’t want to do it anymore or ever again and so I was ready and waiting and I shot him and the birdshot tore his scrotum clean off. Or maybe not so clean.

She adds: “So I did what I had to do.”

“Cool.”

Atlanta has to clench her whole body not to give Maisey Bott a hard flick to the eye. Instead she just nods. “Yeah. Real cool.”

“Hey, why you heading toward the murder building?”