Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 154882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
My chest squeezed. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“Don’t say that. Digger had everyone fooled. You didn’t see what he was till it was too late.”
“Yeah, and I could play that sympathy card if it wasn’t the millionth fucking time I let some douchebag manipulate me.” I pressed my face against the bars, tears slicking the metal. “Again. The first one took my job and reputation. The second took our home. Now the third wants everything else.”
“He’s not going to get it.” Sienna made me face her. “We’ll get it all back, Kenzie. Trust me.” She tapped her forehead, smiling. “I’ve seen it. Soon, everything’s going to turn around for us. Won’t be long now.”
I just shook my head, trudging past.
“You are ten layers of skepticism sprinkled with cynicism.” She curled around my arm, laying her head on my bony shoulder. “Life’s given you reason to be, but the day’s coming that you’ll believe in love and people again. I’ve seen that too.”
“Is that before or after I die tragically?”
She whacked me on the backside, nearly pulling a laugh out of me. Nearly.
We continued on in silence, though it wasn’t a contented one. Restaurant after restaurant we passed, inhaling fried chicken, Hunan beef, fish tacos, and artisan bread—taunting our aching stomachs.
I stopped as Sienna did—slowing down to a flirting couple sharing a plate of calamari.
“What are we going to do for food?”
I hated that question. Hated it more than “How much for a blow job?” and “What do you think you’re doing in here?”
Hated it because unlike the other two, I didn’t have an answer.
“We can’t go back to the park,” Sienna continued. “Digger’s guys are going to stake the place out from here on.”
“I know.” I forced myself to turn from the window, carrying on. “We’ll go to the Forty-Second Street shelter.”
“That’s in Waterford. We don’t have money for a bus or cab.”
“I know that too. Look, any shelter around here could be watched by Digger’s guys. Two homeless girls showing up at a homeless shelter is something even his dumb ass could put together. Nowhere around here is safe,” I said. “It’s a five-hour walk, but we’ll get there in time for dinner. River says they’ve got good food and they’re not shy about second helpings.”
The wince at five-hour walk washed away at second helpings. Our feet would be a mess of blisters we couldn’t treat, but at least our bellies would be full.
“Why don’t we pack up and move to Waterford? Or any other borough?” she asked. “We could...”
The look on my face silenced her.
“Of course, I’m sorry,” she said, rubbing my arm. “We’re not going anywhere. Not until all of us can go together.”
“We are getting out of here together.” We set off for a long walk. “Out of North Quay. Out of Cinco. And we’ll be dragging Digger’s battered body tied to the bumper the whole way.”
“Hmm. I see that getting us pulled over. Let’s strap him to the bottom of the car and gag him so no one hears his screams.”
I smiled—for the first time in months.
“Even better.”
WE LEFT THE SHELTER early the next morning. The director didn’t just allow us second helpings. She also offered two empty beds so we wouldn’t have to walk the streets late at night.
“It’s not as dangerous as it used to be, but this is still Cinco,” she said.
She didn’t have to repeat herself.
Sienna and I spent the five-hour walk going back and forth on what we were going to do.
“I’ll try again to look for work,” I said. “Someone somewhere is bound to have a busboy or stock-taking job they can throw my way.”
“You’ll find something.” Despite her doom and gloom predictions, Sienna was definitely the optimistic sister. “Until then... I think we have to go to River.”
“We can’t,” I said before she finished the sentence. “Why do you bring him up when you know that?”
“Because we were just chased out of a park by six gun-toting, knifed-up thugs. Because we’re walking five hours to get food. Because the temperature is dropping and a summer breeze rips through our tents like tissue paper. Make that tent since mine was trampled.”
Shame bit deeper with every word.
“River’s got food, beds, a roof, and jobs if we want them—”
“At a cost,” I sliced in. “First rule, Sienna. First rule. We don’t owe debts and we don’t make enemies. To get that food, bed, roof, and job, we have to join River’s crew. We do what he says, when he says till our debt is square, and if we don’t, we’ll have an enemy whose reach stretches into every borough.”
Sienna gazed back at me with eyes older than her twenty years. “I know the rules, Kenzie. I also know when it’s time to break them.”
She drew ahead of me, running through the crosswalk as the flashing man counted down. I stopped at the red light, watching Sienna turn the final corner to the North Quay to Leighbridge overpass.