Josh answers with more silence and he watches the road. Moments ago, he seemed on the verge of violence. Now he has deflated. History changes things. Maybe now he can understand how almost losing everything to the law makes people wary of others. It's fair, isn't it, to tell him? Maria is too wooed by his charm, and Izzy would rather see him fail.
His voice comes quiet, reluctant, when he says, “What happened?”
“I left the Reaps. They restructured.”
I shrug. I won't give him everything. He wants the details of my switch to Abuela's side, how I managed to be an outcast of the enemy and yet accepted. Yet that certain bit of history has nothing to do with the relationship of the two ringleaders.
Josh is eying me sideways, a narrow suspicion shining in his blue eyes. He says, “You just left? And they let you?”
A sly grin creeps across my lips. I answer, “I disappeared and they had much bigger things to worry about.”
“Sure you're not a Fed?” he asks with that same flattened look.
I freeze, a rage bubbles up so strong I nearly slam the brakes just to punch him in the mouth. After the shit I've endured, I can't believe he would dare to be that stupid. I turn my glare at him and I know it's apparent despite my shades.
He holds the connection for a few seconds before he cracks a smirk. He's testing me, seeing how far he can push it. Why? I swallow the anger, force my calm and my attention back to the road. My voice doesn't waver when I say, “Are you sure you're not?”
He laughs, but it's not humor. He's coping, in his own way, with a new point of view. The smile fades. He cocks his hands behind his head and his plain white t-shirt sticks to his body. The suspicion melts into thoughtfulness.
“Do you think it's because of you, then?”
All the heat of the anger he provoked turns to ice in my chest. Maybe he doesn't mean what I think he means. Maybe I'm jumping the gun. I usually do.
“What?”
It's the only word I can manage without giving away the sinking feeling inside. I pointedly watch the road.
“Do you think Gram moved against us because of you?”
Haven't I considered it? Every day since the world fell apart.
I won't tell Josh that, so I say, “I was never that important to them.”
He lets the conversation stall, stagnating in the wind. Again, I can't see his face for his arm. He isn't the angry, caged up beast from earlier. He's cooler, looser. What changed?
I bite back a curse. He broke my composure and he checked me. It may have been the first time ever. He's graduated and now he gets to gloat. Fine, dammit, it's all ahead full. I tease the speedometer up to sixty-five.
Again the machine at my control calms me, grinding out some of my tension against the road. I'm quiet until my breaths are even and my emotions are locked away. Good for him. He's smart enough to shut the fuck up.
Miles later, we're crawling toward city limits. Traffic gets heavier and the potholes start to appear. Something about the inherent grunginess of this city is familiar to me. My thoughts have slowed to an ordered pace, and I have cataloged all the anger for later use.
I glance at Josh, staring miserably at the encroaching phantom that is New Orleans.
The sun is well on its high climb. It beats down brutally on this land of cement, stone, and history. He doesn't get it – that feeling of homecoming – because he can't, but I'd bet the poker pot I won from Abuela last night that he's going to learn real soon.
I'm not really one for words of wisdom, but I feel like I should at least bring him down a peg. Cocky so often equals dead in the game, a lesson he hasn't had to learn the hard way.
I check the mirrors. I change lanes, slip around a few cars, then coast her back over.
“Eventually, you'll figure out that appearances in this world are barely the surface. Everything is connected. I won't black both your eyes for calling me a Fed, but remember this – I only grant you mercy this once, because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Next time you feel the need to climb on your high horse, remember that you're a wanted man, too, Josh. By being part of this team, your name is on the lips of the underground network. Don't get too comfortable up there above everyone, because you don't know the depths of slums until someone knocks you down.”
He goes rigid, gathering all the tension he released in his introspective oblivion. He's not used to me having much to say, and he's not used to someone putting it to him exactly like it is. Try as he might to find one, there's no threat to it. Just that prevailing theme that's starting to piss me off: truth.
Violence is not an option and it's starting to take its toll. His right knee is bouncing. He makes a long, shaky sigh. We usually don't push each other like this. We usually just ignore the shit out of each other.
Finally he says, “That's fine, Freddy. Great. While you're mucking along that low road, make sure you presume to know who the fuck I am.”
His reaction makes me grin. It's a wolfish smile that I learned from someone I now despise. But it's one reminiscent of the times when someone was proud of me – or when I was proud of myself. Josh could use some balls to survive all this.
My reaction quells his anger, throws him off guard. He doesn't quite know what to say and – by hell he's finally learning – he leaves it to silence. And that's the way we roll back into the city's arms.
Chapter 23 Long
