Page 75 of Ransom

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joe

Linc

joe what

Cruz

idk linc do I look like fucking the warden

Mateo

Joe Dancing. los lunas. four years. assault.

Linc

copy

Cruz

wait HOW DO U KNOW THAT

Mateo

I listen

Linc

cruz be cool

Cruz

I AM cool. coolest one here. ask anybody.

I scrolled past the rest. Down the table, Cruz was eating his eggs left-handed with his right thumb still going under the edge of the bench. Mateo had his phone face-down beside his plate but his eyes flicked to it every six seconds like clockwork. Two seats down, somebody — couldn't tell who without turning my head — was wheezing into his coffee.

I locked the screen.

Across the table, Joe put another bite in his mouth and didn't look up. He'd clocked the buzzing. He didn't know what it was about and was pretending he didn't care, which is the same thing prison teaches you to do with anything you can't control.

Linc came in from the porch with Fenix behind him. Fenix paused in the doorway with one hand braced on the frame. He stopped, and he shuddered.

"What's wrong, birdie?" Linc asked, frowning back at Fenix.

Mateo's fork paused halfway to his mouth. The Cruz kid set his coffee down. Sierra didn't turn around from the stove, but his shoulders went a particular kind of still.

Joe set down his fork.

Linc took Fenix's hand. "Come sit with me."

"There are spirits," Fenix whispered. "Stuck to him."

Fenix's hand came off the doorframe one finger at a time. Then he bolted. The screen door banged behind him.

Linc went after him. Sierra caught his arm at the stove.

"Let him."

"Sierra."

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