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One

My heart hadn’t slowed down since the gun went off

My ears rang with the echo, and even when I closed my eyes to block out the world around me, I could still see him Flint, his eyes wide, face drained of color, his ravel of an alley I’d had no business being in

Breathe, Cora Just breathe It’s over It’s done

I’d been repeating those words on a loop inon a world that suddenly tipped and tilted underoff into space

Let it go Stop thinking about it

But I couldn’t just get over it, could I? Hoas that possible when I could still feel Flint’s hands on me, when I could still see the expression on Kace’s face when he’d looked the grungy, grizzled man in the eyes and murdered him?

Why wasn’t I retful about that? Why wasn’t I sorry he was dead?

What did that say about me?

In, out In, out

I sucked in a raspy breath as I sat on a chair in an abandoned old office building the boys had driven us to The electricity had been turned off in the building, and it was drafty and cold Orange streetlights flickered low outside the dusty s, and noises from the world outside infiltrated the space—sirens in the distance, car engines ru, the occasional shout or raised voice This part of Baltimore was run down and sparsely populated, and few people were out at this tie anyway