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Back Atlanta Burns Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication Page
  4. CONTENTS
  5. PART ONE: SHOTGUN GRAVY
  6. Sometimes she wakes…
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. PART TWO: BAIT DOG
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. PART THREE: THE FARM
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. PART FOUR: KISSING FIRE
  38. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  43. PART FIVE: BAIT GIRL
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  48. EPILOGUE: THE MESSAGE
  49. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  50. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Atlanta feels hot and cold at the same time, like she’s strapping into a roller coaster that, once it gets started, she won’t be able to escape. “You don’t know what you’re asking. Let the police handle it.”

“The police didn’t care when I called them before. They won’t care now.”

She’s right. They won’t. That’s another thing Atlanta learned when Googling all this horrible stuff. The cops don’t much care about dogfighting. Sure, it’s a felony in most states. But for the most part it goes underreported and poorly enforced. The laws are pretty clear: it’s only punishable when caught in the act. That means infiltrating the ring, and podunk departments like the one in these parts won’t bother trying.

“Jenny, I don’t know—”

“I’ll pay.”

“I . . .”

“Another thousand. On top of the first. And I’ll pay half up front.”

Two grand. That money. The foreclosure. Their house. Atlanta feels the roller coaster starting. The click of the wheels on the tracks. The breeze turning to wind, her hair starting to blow.

“Okay,” Atlanta says, the word coming unbidden. “I’ll help you.”

PART THREE: THE FARM

PART THREE: THE FARM

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It’s later that evening. Atlanta’s sitting on the couch with the TV on and the remote in her hand, but she’s not really watching TV—the news is on to her right, but it’s just a flashy blitzkrieg of meaningless light, color, and noise. All serving as background to her troubled thoughts. Thoughts of bad people.

Thoughts of making those bad people pay.

Too many bad people. So little time.

In her ear, Chris’s voice, soft and creepy-happy: What about me?

She shakes it off. Wonders suddenly where her mother is.

The woman’s been gone all day. No idea where or why, but Atlanta finds out soon enough: she hears the Olds outside with its busted muffler, and it isn’t long before Mama Arlene is coming through the side door and throwing her purse down on their little dining table, storming past with her hair a mess, her bosoms heaving. Atlanta catches a whiff of something—the smell of fryer grease. Suddenly she wants a hamburger real bad.

“They can’t do that to me,” Arlene says. She stands behind the couch with her arms crossed. She paces. Then stops. Then paces again. “They can’t treat me like that.”

“Mama, what are you going on about?”

Arlene thrusts a finger in her daughter’s face. “They wanted me to clean bathrooms.”

“Who? What?”

“Arby’s! The Arby’s. Down by the highway? Off the exit.” She must mistake Atlanta’s face for something else, because she continues to give directions: “You go down Broward, south out of town—it’s the damn Arby’s sitting there next to the Conoco gas, the one with the—”