“Pretty sure it’s not. Because we found it at his house.”

Henry pointed, and the scruffy man whirled on me. He narrowed his eyes for a long moment, and then said, “Contreras.”

The air left my lungs. “W-what?”

“You’re Contreras’ kid. You look just like him. Where’s your daddy, boy?” He moved close enough that I could smell his breath, a sour combination of cheap apple e-cig flavoring and tooth decay.

“He’s gone,” I replied shakily. “He left Mars two annums ago.”

“Don’t answer him!” Henry interjected.

I turned to respond, but Emil beat me to it, snapping, “Keep out of this, Paki!”

Henry moved faster than my eyes could keep up. One second he was standing on my left, the next he’d charged forward and his fist was sailing briskly toward the man’s jaw. Emil must have expected this reaction, though, because he ducked with practiced skill. He had good reflexes for someone who appeared to be in his seventies.

I grabbed onto Henry and attempted to drag him off the man, but it was difficult to keep my grip on him. Even though I was taller, I was also pretty skinny. Henry, on the other hand, was built like a tank—sturdy and strong.

“Henry, you can’t beat up an old guy in the train station!” I shouted, pulling him back. “Do you want to get arrested?”

Henry replied by yelling something in Hindi at the top of his lungs. Mrs. Sandhu had definitely not taught me that phrase, but its meaning was pretty easy to figure out. The throngs of commuters had all turned their eyes on us, and a couple of men in business suits came rushing over, trying to help me break up the fight. Between the three of us, we managed to separate Henry and the factory worker.

“Take it back, you racist bastard,” Henry snarled.

“I will not. You need to keep your nose where it belongs. My business is with the Contreras kid.” Thrusting his jaw toward me, Emil hissed, “That coin of yours is stolen, boy. It belongs to me, and I want it back. And I want the key, too.”

One of the business suit guys looked up from straightening his cravat. “Look, buddy, if you’ve got a problem with these kids, you need to take it up with ADOT security. You can’t go picking fights with teenagers on a train platform.”

As they argued, I heard the telltale clacking of the train on its way down the tracks. “Come on,” I said to Henry, and we hurried to the platform’s edge. The train coasted to a stop and we rushed through the sliding doors. I could hear the business suit guys calling after us, saying that security was on its way, but I didn’t want anything to do with that. All I wanted was to get the heck out of there.