Robby, a skinny guy with glasses and wearing a pair of dark blue scrub pants and white t-shirt, shook his head. He put a concerned hand on Noah’s elbow, looking back up at the package,

Tristan came out of the house, phone still held against his head and a look of frustration twisting his face.

“Tristan, what’s the deal with the police?” I asked from the bottom step.

“They have me on hold. Can you fucking believe that? I’m not ordering takeout here. What the actual fuck.”

I winced. Not the answer I was expecting.

“What happened?” Tristan asked, looking into the box before spinning around. “Oh, hell no. Nope, nope. Not today, Satan. Not today.”

He came down the steps, Mason and Eric following him down, the box left on the top step like a bomb ready to detonate at any moment. Noah sat down on the floor, a hand on the back of his neck, his head shaking.

“Why?” he asked. “Who the hell would try and send that to me?”

“It seems like they wanted to send a message,” Mason said, holding himself as if he was going to collapse inward. “With the flag and the necklace.”

“Plus,” Eric said, “what else are roosters called?”

Noah rubbed at his face. I saw tears beginning to form, sliding down his cheeks. I crouched down to be on his level, putting an arm around his shoulder.

“Did you see anyone leaving when you were arriving?” I asked Mason, looking up into his frightened eyes, which were magnified by a pair of thick glasses, the lenses scratched. He was a tall guy with about a dozen different necklaces hanging over his long-sleeve black t-shirt, along with a couple of noticeable scars on his hands.

“No, no one,” he said. “The street was empty.

“Don’t you have a doorbell camera?” Tristan asked Noah, looking up at his home.

“I do.”

That got us all to perk up.

“But it hasn’t been working for weeks.”

He gave a shrug, arms wrapped tightly together. Noah stood up and rubbed at the side of his temples with his eyes shut as if he were trying to wake himself up from a bad dream. I may have just been work friends with Noah, but that was enough for me to know that he didn’t deserve any of this fucked-up shit. Especially not because of his sexuality. It made my blood boil. I could feel it bubbling in my veins, heated by the anger that sat in the center of my chest like fire in a forge.

“Cops are on their way,” Tristan said, slipping his phone back into his pocket with an eye roll. “Can’t believe I was on hold for that long.”

“Alright,” Eric said, walking down the steps after taking photos of the box. “No one touch it. Let’s wait. Noah, how ya feeling?”

“Not great, I’ll tell you that much.”