I move, on faith. Straight back into the crowd, dragging Tatum with me. The cops are shouting, but the crowd enfolds us.

The stone-cold ache of the crescent is with us, all the way to my car. Out of sight, out of mind, my ass. We shuffle Tatum into the backseat. His listlessness is no comfort. “Shae, baby. Daddy’s here. You’re okay, baby.”

Noodle starts to hop in the front seat.

“No, sit with him.”

“Man,” he complains. “He’s all spread out. What you want me to do back there?”

“Fuckin’ Christ,” I shout. “Just sit with him.”

“Shae, baby,” Tatum moans.

The paramedic didn’t give him enough. Black pain is deeper than Western medicine.

In the car on the way home, even through the sedative, he keeps repeating, “My baby. My baby.”

EVA

Daddy comes home late, and he’s not alone. When the garage door starts creaking, I run to hug him like usual. Our routine is for me to hang up his coat while he takes off his uniform shoes.

I wait by the door. Mommy said Daddy had a problem at work today, and I am to be well behaved and not cause any trouble.

“We’ve already had dinner,” I tell him. “We covered your plate.”

The other men with Daddy are also in uniform, and looking Very Serious. The cold air comes in on their clothes.

“Come in,” Mommy says. “I’ll take your coats.”

I get a bad feeling in my tummy. Everything is wrong.

Daddy kneels in front of me, which is not from our routine. His cheeks are bright red with cold. I lay my hands on his stubble. “What’s wrong, Daddy?”

His whole face folds up. “Eva, baby.”

Daddy never cries.

OFFICER YOUNG

We holster our weapons. Crisis averted. Still, nothing is calm. The dark sea of worried, angry faces still looms behind the barricade. They shout. They hiss. They hold up their phones, filming us.

“You blocked our shot, idiot,” snaps the officer to my left. O’Donnell.

Chip Mendez caps his syringe. “Gonna shoot a grieving father on national TV? Really?”

O’Donnell sniffs.

“If that was the plan, then I saved your ass, O’Donnell.”

“Shut up, Mendez.” O’Donnell sneers. “Get back in your rig.”

My eyes comb the crowd. That’s the job, after all. The father is gone. We’ve just come face-to-face with the leader of the 8-5 Kings. And his lieutenant. They’re easy to recognize. We got their faces up on a wall in our precinct.

O’Donnell might’ve been set to shoot, but I doubt it was at the father.

Every glint of silver is a double take. Weapon? Phone. Weapon? Phone. No one wants to screw up tonight. But here we stand, in the open. A thousand eyes on us. A thousand unseen hands out there. All angry.

“No respect for authority.” O’Donnell curses. “We need to shut this down.”