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was twisted, too.
    Of course, I’d also just run from the man while still wearing his razor around my neck. I couldn’t care. I was too distraught from the pain I had previously thought the province of my brother. I scurried back to my only family, to my lost love.
    The apartment, in an up-and-coming section of Brixton, was where we’d first settled. It was still occupied, but my years away had seen the neighborhood change; like Yasmine, it had become classier than its roots. I felt beyond out of place, but it didn’t matter. The second-story flat overlooking the old skate park was still lit. Dusk had turned to night hours ago, but I could still make out her outline in silhouette at the window. I relaxed in the van, parking across the street, and reached out with my senses just to “feel” her body. I expected comfort. I should’ve known better.
    Her body had changed. She had had a tumor. A seven-pound eight-ounce tumor that she held inside of her for nine months before releasing it into the world. She’d given birth. It read like an old wound on her womb, her hips, her breasts. But they’d all long since healed. Her child was at least six years old, by the feel of it. I choked, cutting my probe off so suddenly she was bound to notice. When we were together she had become accustomed to my searching her body for any signs of infection or disease. It’s a type of intimacy one has a hard time forgetting. Yasmine came to the window quickly, searching the streets. I sunk lower into my seat, realizing I was doing the exact opposite of what I’d set out from Manchester to do. I didn’t have long to sink. A limousine pulled up to our old apartment, hers now, and a black-suited man in a gray tie exited. Maybe seven years her, our, senior, his pale skin, rakish frame, and blemished skin told me he was British. He bounded up the stairs to the front gate. My stomach turned with the possibility I knew would prove fact. In no time, Yasmine descended, a small girl in tow, looking more refined and polished than I’d ever given her opportunity to be. The girl had her mother’s hair, her smile, and the rake’s bounce in her step.
    She hadn’t waited for me. There were no reasonable grounds to think she would’ve. Didn’t stop me from thinking it, though. Didn’t stop me from crying in the van, calling myself a freak for over an hour. When I was done, I called the only one who understood me.
    â€œTo be king, you would have to be as them. You can never be like them” was all Nordeen said when I called. No “Hello,” not even an acknowledgment of who I was. When I asked if there was any way I could come back, he laughed. “Why do you think you left? I have business in London. Put yourself some place nice and wait for instructions,” he said with the kindness of a grandfather. It was the first hint of genuine affection I’d ever felt from him. I was smart enough not to bank on it again. A few days later the rest of the crew would come down. No questions asked about my disappearance or the pain I’d caused in the Aussie. In fact, no mention of the bar fight at all. The only evidence I had of anything having occurred at all was the returned reluctance of Fou-Fou and Suleiman to touch me. The others didn’t share the reservation, but I got the sense it was because they actually didn’t remember what happened.
    In turn, I told them nothing about Yasmine. I did my boss’s bidding along with the rest of the crew. There was a mid-level street gang gaining more power every day in Hackney. Nordeen wanted to know what they were about, if they were to be made allies or tombstones. We tested their mettle through emissaries, hiring other local crews to take shots at them, and found that either our intermediaries weren’t up to the task or the Hackney boys had come by their reps honestly. In the end Nordeen ordered us to deliver a small