Eight hours ago, my brother told me to stay at the motel and wait for him there. Since then, I had taken a trip to the nearest mall and managed to swipe a new pair of jeans and two bras.

I hated wearing a bra, but my body had decided that eleven was the right age to start growing breasts, and now that I was twelve, that alien growth on my chest still gave me the creeps.

I wasn't particularly tall, but I felt like my chest was enough to confuse people about my age. I could pass for fourteen. Maybe even fifteen.

Those few extra years made a difference. People noticed me. Store clerks kept their eyes on me when they saw me reaching for the shelves in their stores. It was harder to shoplift, but it was a real blessing not to be stopped by security guards who insisted on knowing where my parents were.

And there was another interesting twist.

I could see it even now, slumped against the outer wall of a dimly lit pub, with boys and men going in and out to smoke along the line of parked motorcycles.

Their eyes traveled over me, some for a moment, others for two. Some were probably just wondering what I was doing there. But others lingered. They looked at me in a way I had learned to recognize.

It gave me a pleasant thrill to stand there, surrounded by potential predators, with our motel just five minutes away.

Enough time had passed, Cassy must have returned and noticed I was gone.

Maybe.

Maybe he would come to check on me.

"Hey. This isn't a place for kids."

I looked up at a big, bearded guy. He had tattoos on his bare arms and wore a little white apron like a proper housewife.

"Good thing I'm not a kid, then."

The man raised both eyebrows. Well… my chest managed to fool almost everyone.

"Go back to your mom or I'll call the cops."

"And why would the cops care if I'm just standing here leaning against a wall?"

"They'd care because it's my wall. Got it?"

The cloud of smoke around the nearby group of bikers began to clear as the men in the circle stopped savoring the nicotine and started taking an interest in us.

There was something wrong with me. Instead of scaring me, all those eyes on me made me feel full of energy.

"But… I really like this wall."

That man had the look of someone who knew how to be violent. I couldn't have said what details in his posture or expression gave it away, but I could always recognize a violent person.

People who aren't used to raising their hands to solve their problems have a different smell about them. An aura of pathetic docility.

The man took a step forward, but before he could reach me, a hand clamped down on my shoulder, making me spin around.

"We're leaving."

My brother Casper wasn't docile. He had never hit me, but you could tell just by looking at him that there was violence in his closed fists.

"I'm not leaving." I shook off his grip with a jerk, but he quickly grabbed me by the wrist and started dragging me away.

He crossed the line of motorcycles without even glancing at them and kept pulling me until we were on the other side of the street.

I could hear men chuckling.

"Let me go!"

Casper obeyed just to grab me again from my shoulders. "Why can you NEVER do what I tell you?!"

I huffed. "But I did do what you told me! I stayed at the motel. For HOURS! And then I got bored and went out for a walk. But just for a few minutes! You left me alone for…"

"Carli, I've been looking for you for five hours!"

Oh. He had come back sooner than I thought. Oops.

"Oh, well, but… I was doing something important! Look over there! That black bike, on the right. It belongs to that half-drunk blonde guy over there. Taking his keys will be a piece of cake. Then it'll be easy to get out of San Jose, and…"

"Carli." His hands shook me. "This isn't your problem to solve. You have to stop trying to…"

"To what? To pull your ass out of trouble? I'll stop doing that when you stop getting it into trouble."

The exasperated sound that escaped his mouth was becoming very familiar. He let go of me, and instead of my shoulders, he cradled his own head.

It took him a moment to recover. Long enough for the drunk blondy to toss his cigarette and head back into the bar.

Great.

I turned to follow him.

"And now what do you think you're doing?"

What I always did. Fixing his messes.

It had been four months since we sold his ridiculously expensive  motorcycle to escape Norgree. With that money, Cassy bought a used car and fake documents.

Now the money was gone, and the car had been stripped down piece by piece by some low-life delinquent. Cassy's plan to hide in shady neighborhoods had backfired quickly.

And now we were stuck in this shitty city, with no money and no semblance of a plan.

I dodged Cassy's last attempt to stop me and crossed the street again. The pub owner must have gone back inside because no one tried to chase me away or block my entrance.

"Carli!"

I knew my brother would follow me inside. It could come in handy—usually, that big, scarred man didn't go unnoticed easily.

I reached the center of the pub, surrounded by tables cloaked in semi-darkness. More than one head turned to look at me, but their attention was soon drawn to the guy tailing me with heavy steps.

As soon as I saw his hand reaching out, I let out a sharp scream. "Stop following me! Don't touch me!"

Cassy halted, shot me a look that promised consequences, and turned his attention to the five guys who had immediately risen from their table with a threatening stare.

"Is there a problem?" One of them asked, approaching me.

"There's no problem," Cassy replied.

But in the meantime, I had spotted my target, the drunk blonde guy with the motorcycle keys. I just needed that little distraction.

I turned to my knight and whined, "He groped my ass and won't stop bothering me!"

Others stood up, and Cassy backed away. "That's not true," he said firmly.

"You picked the wrong bar to mess around in."

"I didn't do anything! That's my sister."

One of them gaped. "You're a sicko! You groped your sister?!"

When another one stepped forward, intending to push Cassy out of the pub, I knew I had to seize my chance.

The first punch flew, and I ducked under the nearest table. Among grunts, shouts, and chairs scraping the floor, it took me a moment to spot my target.

I slid toward the bar. A table was flipped over and slammed against the wall. I dodged a flying glass and reached the blondy, huddled among the brawl's spectators.

Between the drunkenness and the adrenaline, he wouldn't have noticed me even if I had stabbed his leg. So I simply slipped two fingers into his pants pocket and fished out the keys.

From there to the door was just a short obstacle course.

I let out a sharp whistle before stepping outside, signaling that big idiot to make a run for it. But when I found myself facing the dimly lit street of that grim neighborhood, I decided Cassy was big enough to fend for himself, and I started running toward the motel.

...

"Took you long enough."

Cassy gave me a dirty look. He looked pathetic, but there was more blood on his knuckles than on his face, so he had given more than he had taken.

To lift his spirits, I presented our prize, dangling the keyring from my finger.

Cassy closed the door to our room, leaving us in that cold neon light. He approached the bed where I was sitting and took the keys slowly. Then he walked over to the window.

"Wa-" I jumped to my feet, but I wasn't fast enough.

Cassy tossed the keys into a four-story abyss.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" I shouted.

He calmly resumed his walk toward the freezer. He opened it, grabbed a pack of something we hadn't put in there, and pressed it against his bruised temple.

"What do I think I'm doing?" He asked calmly. "Carli, there were at least thirty people in there. I could have died."

I scoffed. "Don't be so dramatic. I knew you'd make it out just fine."

Cassy stared at me.

These days, sometimes, I caught him staring at me with those vacant eyes.

"I'm not invincible." He shook his head and lowered the cold pack. Then, slowly, he slid down to the floor. "And I don't know what to do anymore."

He really did look pathetic, but it wasn't nice to point that out.

"Well, for starters, you can go down four flights of stairs and get my keys. Then we'll take that bike and get out of San Jose."

"And then what?"

"And then… we'll get back on our feet." I smiled. It was going to be a long road, but we'd walk it together. "Little by little. I'll be your right-hand man, like Masao was. And when we've found a new base, we can call him too, and everyone else."

And there they were again, those vacant eyes. Cassy looked away and stared at nothing. "I shouldn't have brought you with me," he said as if he were only talking to himself. As if I wasn't there. "I shouldn't have…"

I let out a sound filled with all the frustration I’d been carrying for four months. "Who cares if you killed Luther? He wasn’t exactly a saint!"

His gaze remained stubbornly distant. He shook his head again. "My mistakes started long before Luther," he whispered. "Carli, I’m sorry. I’ve ruined my life, but I should never have dragged you into it."

"What the fuck are you talking about?! It was your stupid boyfriend who called the cops. This is all Benjamin's fault."

"No, Carli..."

"And you made the right choice... bringing me with you. This time you didn’t choose Ben, or Masao, or Natalie, or any of your other stupid friends. You chose me." For once.

I waited for him to look at me again, but he didn’t.

"Cassy... you made the right choice."

He closed his eyes, refusing once again to see me. "I don’t think I’ve ever made a single right choice in my life."