There is, too, the extra voice. The lone gunman with his rifle cocked: For now.

“Steve?” Will’s voice is small. “We got arrested.”

ZEKE

We are smoky. We are shell-shocked. We are grateful we parked my car ten blocks away, just in case. It’s barely far enough. The community has heard the news. People pour out into the streets, curious, angry.

I grip the steering wheel tight, tight. Try not to look at anything but the road in front of us. We take the long way, because we don’t want to be stopped. If we see a cop … I no longer know if I have it in me not to strike.

I have studied these phenomena, in school. The history of so-called riots. Watts. LA. Chicago. Ferguson. Baltimore. I have wondered, time and again, what stupid, reckless forces drive people out of their homes, into the night, to wreak havoc on their own neighborhood. The buildings they pass every day on the way to work, to school. The businesses they trust. Their very homes.

I know now. Nothing is simple.

The presence of tanks is confusing. Enraging. The powers that be are ready to wage war to keep us in our place. The imbalance, the injustice, is enough to make me want to light a bottle on fire. Sure enough.

I don’t have a bottle. I don’t have one. I don’t have one, or I might.

“Let’s go inside,” Kimberly says.

We’re parked in front of my building. We’ve been sitting in the car for a while, I guess. I don’t know how long. She lays her hand over mine and gently peels my fingers from the wheel.

We climb to my apartment, wash up. When we sit on the couch, it is ostensibly to snuggle, but we are too wound up to find comfort. I put my arm around her. My knuckles stroke her upper arm. She leans against my chest.

“Your heart is racing,” she observes.

Don’t I know it.

“Did we wimp out?” I whisper. “Did we walk away from a fight?”

“No,” she says.

But we did. We did. We did, and I don’t know why we did. Or how.

I unwrap my arm from her and lean forward, resting my head on my knuckles, still clenched. “I didn’t think it would really happen. That we’d lose control.”

“It’s been happening,” she says.

“I thought we could keep it peaceful.” My fists sit like rocks on my knees. “I should have been able to stop it.”

“Okay, Superman,” Kimberly says. “Tell me another one.”

The burst of my laughter is unexpected and strange. I clamp a fist to my lips. Hmm. I still can’t unclench my fingers.

“It’s Sloan’s fault,” Kimberly insists. “No justice, no peace?”

Great. She’s gonna throw that back in my face right now? I glare at her. “They’re just words.”

“How can anything be just words?” She closes her eyes. “Most of the time words are all we have.”