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bounded out from his hiding place and instantly dropped to the ground when Teach shot him with the flashlight.
    "Stop that shit! I yield!" he cried, covering his eyes with his hands.
    "Go drink some water," Teach called, switching off the beam of light. Crash jumped up from the floor and bounced back into the clubhouse, banging his bum leg against MacDougal's bunk on the way to the bathroom. The old man swore in his sleep and immediately started snoring again.
    "To be young again," Teach proclaimed, listening to the cacophony of bangs and crashes coming from the bathroom. "Drowning in pussy and bourbon."
    "Yeah, but then you'd have to be Crash," Case pointed out.
    J. whistled softly through his teeth and Case grinned.
    "Don't insult the man when he isn't here to defend himself," Teach said. Case bent his head, chastened.
    The air in the room suddenly thickened as Teach spread his palms out flat on the counter. "What is it?" J. asked, the skin on the back of his neck prickling.
    Teach inhaled deeply. J. could tell he was weighing his words. "It's a good day, and I don't want to be the one to ruin it."
    J. felt a chill go through him. "What?" he pressed. Teach was freaking him out.
    Teach rounded the counter and stood before him. His weathered face seemed to sag even further. "Your sister called, Jeremiah."
    Case sucked in his breath and stepped back instinctively, stepping out of range as J.'s fists instantly balled at his side. J. took several deep breaths, willing back the red rage that threatened to overtake him right then and there.
    "You don't need that shit," Case muttered, reaching a tentative hand for J.'s shoulder.
    "Don't touch me," J. snapped, and Case pulled his hand back, looking wounded.
    "Jeremiah, hey." Teach's voice was both authoritative and soft at the same time. It cut through the blinding anger that clouded his sight. "Remember, Seneca. 'There is no battle unless there are two.' You can move on."
    "How am I supposed to when that shit keeps dragging me back?"
    J. hadn't been back to the neighborhood since he left for prison seven years ago.
    At first he had pined for the comfort of his family and the camaraderie of his friends. But as he did his time and kept his head down, he noticed more and more that the people from his past only weighed him down.
    Janelle, his mother...and Randall. The whole reason he ended up in prison in the first place. That fateful day when they walked into the convenience store. J. didn't know Randall had the gun. Randall never told him the plan. He just pointed it at the clerk and shouted at J. to grab the money from the open till. When the other clerk walked out of the storeroom, J. had acted on instinct, knocking him to the floor before he could press the alarm button.
    This elevated his charge from robbery to assault. And since his birthday was the week before, he had been tried as an adult. No amount of pleading had worked to get the sentence dropped, especially not when the clerk had showed up to testify with his jaw wired shut. Meanwhile Randall's lawyer had managed to cop a plea, claiming there were no bullets in the gun Randall used.
    And Randall was only seventeen when it had happened. He spent three months in juvie and then had his records expunged. He had been living free all this time.
    And now he was dating J.'s sister. Living in J.'s old bedroom. Sitting down to eat with J.'s mother.
    When Janelle had told him this during one of her visits, J. flew into a rage that landed him three weeks solitary. Janelle claimed Randall wanted to make amends, to do right by his family while J. did his time.
    But J. couldn't accept it. He told Janelle to get out of his life. He cut off his mother, his sister and never told them that he had been released early. He moved right into the clubhouse when he got out and hadn't contacted them at all.
    Somehow Janelle had found him. The past had found him. Everything he had been running from for seven long years was catching up, no matter how