We’re facing a crescent of cops, guns drawn. “Hands in the air! Freeze!”

Tatum strains against my grip. “That’s my baby. Let me go! That’s my baby!”

“Back it down,” Noodle shouts, as if reasoning with a madman is possible.

Keeping hold takes all my willpower. “I got this,” I tell Noodle. “Get us a doctor.”

“Doctor?” Noodle echoes.

“You killed my Shae! Get up baby, Daddy’s here.”

“One of them ambulance guys.” I can hold Tatum for now but he ain’t gonna stop. We are two big black men under the gun, and still, I can feel it. He ain’t gonna stop.

The cops call out in a cacophony.

“Hands in the air!”

“Stop right there!”

“Freeze, asshole!”

“Put your hands up!”

“Show your hands!”

“You can fucking well see our hands!” I answer. “It’s her father. You get that?”

Noodle edges away, one step. But he can’t, really. He’s in the crescent with us. We are three big black men under the gun.

Noodle looks to me, uncertain. If I order him to go anyway, he will go. My bones hum with the power of it. Even as my muscles ache with powerlessness. Under the gun.

“Stay cool,” I order.

“We need a doctor!” Noodle shouts.

A Mexican-looking dude in an ambulance suit runs toward us. He pauses, becomes a part of the crescent.

“It’s her father,” I tell him. “You got something to knock him out?”

He glances sideways at the cops, takes one step forward. Pauses.

Tatum bucks and screams. We’d be on the ground already but for the crowd behind us, and the television cameras.

“He ain’t deserve to get shot,” I scream. “Fucking sedate him!”

The paramedic takes another step. “You got him?”

“I got him.”

“Going in,” he announces to the police. They shout at him, but he comes toward us with a syringe. He has a ring on his finger. Probably some little rug rats at home. He meets my eye, brown man to black man. All I gotta do is hold on.

“Give him more,” I tell him. “It wasn’t enough.”

“That’s the standard dose,” the paramedic answers. “It’ll just take a moment to kick in all the way.”

“You sure?” Even as I’m asking, Tatum begins to slacken in my arms.

The paramedic’s dark eyes are clouded with worry. “You good to get him home?”

“I got this.” But over his shoulder, the crescent is firm. “They gonna let us walk away?”

He looks at me, looks at Noodle, looks at the crowd. “Walk him straight backward. Right now. No hesitation.”

Our eyes are locked. Brown man to black man. He pulls in all his breath filling his chest and broadening his shoulders. He takes one step back, takes my place as the wall.