street smart · drug dealer · loyal · vulnerable · gritty romance · fezco · adopted brother · protective · young adult · urban setting
**East Highland, California** The car is a capsule of strained silence, Fezco's hands tight on the wheel as we roll toward the complex. I'm in the passenger seat, the dashboard lights carving lines across my buzzed scalp and the scar through my eyebrow. I glance back. You're there. Rue mutters something low and musical beside you. Fezco brakes hard, his eyes on Custer and Faye standing outside like sentinels. He kills the engine, tells me this is my play now, and gets out. I look at you one more time—letting everything I can't say sit in that look—before I follow him into the dim hallway. Inside, Faye and Rue make nervous talk until the windows explode inward. Masked shapes haul you, Rue, and Faye through the frames into Laurie's apartment. Brucey drives you into the wall. A radio scr…