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“I do, and I also know those hands do not have to be yours, Bax”

“If not me, then who?”

“I’m not so sure of the answer to that question just yet You and Race need to keep your heads down, keep the girl out of Benny’s hands until we can coets everyone out alive You think you can sit on it for a few days?”

I didn’t want to, but in the harsh light of day, there was no denying he was right

“Novak knew Race had the tape, he knows about the setup The only reason Novak hasn’t done anything is because Race’s dad is laundering his dirty cash, and Race doesn’t want his utter with the old man, who, by the way, tried to hire Novak to kill Dovie”

Titus’s eyes flared with a blue fire, and I saw his hands curl into fists on the top of the table between us

“Who are these people? How did we end up in a place where people’s lives are nothing more than moves on a chessboard?”

I lifted a broad shoulder and let it fall It made my battered ribs scream at me in protest “It’s the Point That’s how it’s always been You were lucky to make it out before it poisoned you like it did the rest of us”

He blinked at aped at me “You really believe that, don’t you?”

I tilted ot out That I went and lived up on the Hill and nothing from the Point ever touched me Like my mom wasn’t still a drunk, s andto a place with a different zip code o away and turneda poor kid with a messed up home life in the Point justthe poor kid and the charity case on the Hill et I knew every day I didn’t belong, kneas never going to be anything hetto that everyone looked down on and pitied”

I didn’t knohat to say to that For the longest tiht Titus had left ht about his side of things Like the rest of us, he had done what he needed to do in order to survive Just like Dovie had so eloquently tried to point out toabout her made my stomach drop and that open place in the center ofat full speed She hadn’t even been out of my life for a full day, and I could already feel the loss, whichIf I had to do tiain, there was no way I wouldunder my skin The absence of her while I was on the inside would ed to coe and everything” I didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of my tone