Cross Country

understand?”
    I tried to raise my head and he fired a shot into the ground right next to my temple. “You understand?”
    I stopped straining and lay back. I couldn’t hear in one ear.
Was I deaf in an ear now too?
It was the pistol that kept me where I was. More than anything, I was seething mad.
    “Go ahead,” the lead punk said. I saw the silhouette of a long blade in somebody’s hand.
A machete,
I thought.
    Jesus, no!
    Houston Rockets leaned in close again, rubbing his pistol up and down my temple. “You move, you die, Captain America. You stay still,
most
of you goin’ home.”

Chapter 59
    “THIS GONNA HURT real
bad
. You gonna scream like baby girl. Starting now!”
    They pulled my arm out straighter and held it tight so I couldn’t move. Either they were getting stronger, or I was starting to lose it. I had never been closer to panic in my life.
    “At the joint, Azi. Less bone,” said Rocketman in the coolest, calmest tone.
    The blade touched the crook of my arm softly once. Then the machete was raised high. They boy called Azi grinned down at me, enjoying this like the psychopath that he was.
    No way. No way. Not going to happen,
I told myself.
    I wrenched my arm free and rolled hard to one side. The machete whiffed and the pistol fired, ringing sharply.
    But at least I wasn’t hit. Not yet, anyway.
    I wasn’t done. Or even started. I entwined my arm with the shooter’s and snapped his wrist. I heard it break, and the gun fell from his hand.
    The first one to get to it was me!
    Everything was shadows and noisy chaos after that. The punks were all over me again, which was lucky in a way. I think it kept the machete blade away long enough for me to get off a warning shot.
    Then I scrambled up, my back to the door.
“Get over there!”
I shouted, motioning with the gun. I had them covered, but it was dark, and the layout of the building was a complete mystery to me. They would figure that out soon.
    Sure enough, Rockets barked an order.
    “Go!
Outside!
”
    Two of the gang whipped away in opposite directions. One of them vaulted out an empty window frame. I didn’t see where the other one went.
    “What you gonna do, man?” Rockets said with a shrug. “Can’t kill us all.”
    “I can kill you,” I told him.
    The others were doubling around behind me, I knew. I was either going to have to start shooting these boys — or run like hell.
    I ran!

Chapter 60
    I HAD ENOUGH of a head start and enough cover from the darkness to get out of sight fast. Suddenly I could smell a combination of things —
burning
,
rotting
, and
growing
— all at the same time. I flew down a couple of dirt streets and around a corner and eventually saw the light of a fire in a vacant lot.
    Moses?
I was in the vicinity of where he’d said he’d be.
    I threw myself down in a stand of high weeds and waited for the thugs to run past. They shouted as they went, one small group to another, splitting up and looking for their prey — me. It was difficult to accept that boys this young could be hardened killers, but they were.
    I’d seen it in their eyes, especially Rockets’s. That boy had definitely killed before.
    I waited several minutes. Then, keeping low, I cut around behind the fire until I was close enough to call out quietly.
    Thank God Moses was there! He and his friends were eating crumbly rice and homemade peanut butter. He was tentative at first, until he saw who it was skulking in the tall brush.
    “Come with me, sah,” he told me in hushed tones. “It’s not safe for you to be here now. Boys lookin’ for you. Bad boys everywhere.”
    “Tell me about it.” I wiped a stream of blood from my face with the back of my arm, forgetting how much it was going to hurt it. “
Shit!
”
    “It’s not much, ya’ll be okay,” said Moses.
    “Easy for you to say.” I forced a grin.
    I followed him through the back of the lot and up the next road to a narrow side street. We were in a shabby tenement neighborhood, one long row of mud-brick hovels. Several huts had people in front, cooking and tending fires, socializing at this late hour.
    “In here, sah. This way, please. Hurry.”
    I kept my head down and followed Moses through an open doorway into one of the huts. He lit a kerosene lamp and asked me to sit down.
    “My home,” he said.
    The place was just one room with a single window cut into the back wall. There was a thin mattress on the floor, and a jumble of cookware, some clothing, and caved-in