“I said I’m gonna go get Petry!” John Elvis says—more petulant than pissed. Like he’s tired of being emasculated. “Don’t make a move without us.” Then his voice gets cold and quiet and he points an accusing finger: “Don’t.”

He storms off, leaving the two girls alone.

Skank paces, never taking her eyes off Atlanta, like a predatory cat watching a little kid from behind the zoo glass. Crows caw. Cicadas buzz. On the other side of the Morton building the crowd roars. A dog yelps, and the crowd gets louder—booing, cheering, jeering, hooting. The fight’s on. Is it Jasmine or Tuco? Champ or cur?

Time is ticking down. Atlanta feels the candlewick burning and the flame guttering—and with it, any hope of coming out on top. Orly’s not here. Atlanta doesn’t have her phone—and, even if she did, it has the cell signal of a broken toaster. The plan, so simple, so elegant, so rock solid, is now just sand in her hand sliding between the gaps in her fingers. All she needed was to place the call to Holger. Get her to show up with some cops and shut this place down. And lock up all the monsters big and small.

Now? That won’t happen. Can’t happen.

Worst of all, these people are going to hurt her.

She has to get away. The only weapon she has is the baton, waiting in her baggy pocket. If Skank looks away . . .

“You and me, we’re not so different,” Skank says. Burning stare. Faint smile.

“If you say so,” Atlanta says.

“You really did it, huh.” A statement, not a question. “Blew your stepdaddy’s yam bag off?”

A weak nod. Atlanta clarifies in a throaty mumble: “Wasn’t my stepdaddy, though. Everybody thinks that, but he wasn’t.”

“Just a boyfriend, then. Whatever. Bet he got to you a bunch of times before it pushed you that far, right? Yeah. Me too.” She lights a cigarette. “I had an uncle. Married in, not blood. Uncle Lincoln.” She laughs and snarls at the same time. “Lincoln, Lincoln, I been thinkin’, what the hell have you been drinking? Whiskey, that’s what. Cheap-ass hot-piss whiskey. He raped me three times and like they say, three times is the charm because the next time he came at me I stabbed him in the thigh—three times, actually, go fuckin’ figure—with a steak knife. Hit an artery. He bled out, almost died. The stains never really washed off the porch—that’s where he liked to do it, outside on the porch before my parents got home from work. In front of God and everybody.” She shrugs. “I should’ve taken a lesson from you and cut his nuts. Like an apple from a tree. Monkey steals the plums.”

“Sorry to hear all that.”