Cole slammed a fist onto the desk. “Bullshit! You don’t know where I’m coming from. I’m coming from a house that sits on three cinder blocks and a spare tire. I’m coming from a drunk mother who whores herself out to anyone who might help pay the rent and a father who skipped town a year ago with a bottle of gin and every dime we had. You want to hear more about where I’m coming from?

“In seven months I’ll be a high school graduate with a C average and a criminal record. Because some motherfucker with a mask cut off two of my fingers, I can forget about the college scholarship I’ve been working toward for the past four years. You really wanna know where I’m coming from, Coach? I’m coming from a place where sixty minutes on a scoreboard clock is the only thing I’ve got to give a shit about and you’re telling me I can’t have it. So you know what? Fuck the game, fuck this team, and fuck you!”

His arm swept the desktop, clearing it in a flutter of flying papers. He stormed out the door.

Cole was halfway across the parking lot by the time Savannah made it out of the building. She ran after him, calling him, but he didn’t stop.

A few cars were still scattered across the lot. At the north end, a group of students clad in Jackrabbits sweatshirts and ball caps stood around a battered pickup, smoking and laughing. One of them spotted Cole, reached into the bed of the truck, and came up with a football.

“Hey, Logan!” he yelled. “Kick Stanton’s ass tonight, ya hear!” He tossed the ball to Cole, then held out his hands for a return pass.

Cole just looked at him. Then he turned his back on the man, cocked the ball over his shoulder, and let it fly. It sailed some sixty yards before slamming into the windshield of a Volkswagen parked clear across the lot. The glass shattered with a splintering crack.

Savannah couldn’t believe what she’d just witnessed. When her eyes returned to Cole, he was already dropping his weight onto the kick start of his bike. He was out of the lot seconds later.

CHAPTER 10

BOOKER had just bludgeoned a toddler with a bicycle chain and was about to shoot a crack whore in the face with an assault rifle when the phone rang.

He hit Pause on the video game controller and picked up the receiver.

“Yeah?”

“Are you sitting down, bro?”

“Manny, where the hell are you? You were supposed to be here two hours ago.”

“I told you I’d be over later.”

“Well, get your ass over here now!”

“Booker, who is it?” called a voice from down the hall.