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while there, and when “everything” got shot, all that seemed to be left was a whole bunch of nothing. It was no wonder to me why people were raging; you got to fill a space like that with something.
    But then the cops rolled through, trying to quell the rage with bullets. The order came straight down from the mayor himself: Shoot to kill any rioters. People died those nights. Shot in the street like stray dogs. Tonight the whole city seems to be on fire. Again.
    â€œDo you hear me?” Raheem says. “They’d be shooting at the white rioters, maybe, but definitely at us. I don’t want you out there.”
    â€œI’m in,” I whisper. I sink onto the couch, feeling smaller than my quietest voice can make me.
    Raheem stands over me for a while, looking all mad, but I’ve said everything I can and the bad part is more or less over. He can’t let it go, though, because it’s not the kind of night where anything cools down. Finally he walks tothe window, stares down into the street. Whatever he sees makes him mutter to himself.
    I kick my feet up on the couch. I’m much too grimy to be sitting on the furniture, and I ache to scrub myself clean, but first I need a few moments to just be still. Let my gaze roam anywhere it wants. Study the ceiling, the walls, places where the paint has chipped, the edges of the furniture where the fabric has frayed. The slightly burned corner of the big floor rug. Nothing is perfect, but when it’s just the two of us in here alone, the apartment feels like a pocket. All safe and close. Nothing from the outside can get in.
    Raheem turns away from the window, no longer mad—at least not at me. He comes and sits on the floor beside the couch, leaning against it.
    I let it all rest for a while, thinking. Raheem reaches over and touches my filthy, grass-stained skin. My forearm is scratched and, sure enough, kind of green. I move it out from under his hand. His face holds all these questions and I can’t let him ask a single one.
    â€œDid Bobby Seale speak?”
    â€œYeah.” Raheem’s eyes glow. “He was great. People got really turned on to what we’re doing.” He thumps his fist on the cushion. “Before it all went to hell.”
    â€œOh.” Flakes of disappointment. I missed it.
    Raheem studies my face awhile, but lets the questionsdrop. I’m safe now, so maybe he figures it doesn’t matter where I’ve been. Only I know different.
    We lie there, staring out the window at gray plumes of smoke rising, at the slight red glow on the sky. He stretches his arm up on the couch near mine again. We don’t say it at all, but we’re waiting. Waiting for Mama to come home safe from work, which won’t be till late. Waiting for the light of day, for it to be okay to go outside again, because that’s what we prefer.
    The color of the sky is strange and unsettling. Not red enough to speak for itself, just glowing with a reflection of everything roiling below. The whole city is burning, it seems, but I wonder how it manages to bleed onto the sky.
    A fire is like that, I guess. Licking from one surface to another, from one person to another, until everything is glowing red and melting.

CHAPTER 10
    T HE SHOWER MAKES ME FEEL ABOUT 1,000 percent better. I stand beneath the spray for a long, long while, running it cool. Watching the soapy, dirt-tinged water swirl down the drain until it runs clear and I imagine the day has been fully flushed away.
    I turn the water off before I’m really ready, but I know there’s only so much that can be dealt with on the surface of things. The knot in my stomach is still there. The memory of losing myself among the chanting crowd. The absolute high of the power of that kind of freedom. For the first time ever, I realize what a weight it is to carry fear every time I walk down the street. Always wondering, will the pigs be watching? Will today be the day I