She’s about to whip out the baton and give him a good whack in the kidneys just to shut him up. But then a sound cuts through the woods—a half-growl, half-scream, all-panic animal cry. In the tree cover above, a pair of startled turtledoves takes flight.

“Yo, those frickin’ things are loud,” Bird says, waving her on.

“Those things.”

“Yeah, like, one time my frickin’ aunt decided to take one in as a pet and stuff? I was five or something, and I was just, y’know, doin’ my thing and playing with my Tonka truck and stuff, and then here comes the coon, and he’s all frickin’ fired up about something and scratches the hell out of my arms and legs. Stupid coon.”

They come into a clearing that’s paved with concrete.

She knows it from her research. It’s a training ground for fighting dogs.

Tractor tires. Heavy chains. Two big cages dangling from a pair of chestnut trees, both cages empty. Atlanta spies a rusty washtub. A small shelf with soaps and sponges. A car battery and cables.

The concrete is spattered brown in places. Maybe blood. Maybe animal waste. Probably both and definitely like that spot in the Shakespeare play: never to wash out.

Out, out, dang dogsblood.

Bodie’s the only one standing here, and he looks like an older, better-put-together version of Bird. He’s taller than his brother by a good six inches. Handsomer, too, though given how Bird looks a little like the son of two close cousins, that’s not saying much. Bodie’s hair is cropped short, though just as blond.

A metal pole sticks up out of the concrete, and from an eyebolt hangs a long, lean chain. A skinny raccoon is attached to the chain via a collar. All around the pole in a circle are little footprints, wet and red.

A dog sits off to the side. Not a pit bull, by the looks of it. All white. Flat black nose—comical, like a Snoopy nose, like it was put there by a blob of paint. The ears are cropped, and they don’t just stick up—the tips of the ears each turn inward, like the points of Batman’s mask.

“Fuckin’ dog,” Bodie says. He turns toward them. Atlanta sees he’s got a lockback knife in his hand. Like her own. The blade greasy with blood. Coon’s blood, she figures.

“Bodie,” Bird says. “This chick was totally lookin’ for you, bro.”

Bodie’s disgruntled face brightens. A mean smile spreads across it like a puddle of gasoline just before someone lights it on fire. His blue eyes—little sapphires—seem to flash and catch the light. “What’s up?”

She thinks to haul off and hit him right now. Baton out, crack him across that asshole smile. Teeth broken.

Instead, she says, “What’re y’all doin’?”