Page 42 of Claimed By my Father's Enemies
Emilio drops into a crouch beside me. He has a seedling in one hand, holding it wrong, fingers too tight around the stem.
"How deep?" he asks.
"Loosen your grip first. You're not holding a tool, you're holding something alive." I take the seedling and show him. "Root ball just below the surface line. You want the crown sitting at grade. Not buried. Not elevated. Buried rots. Elevated dries out."
He watches. Takes it back and tries.
"Better." I move to the next one. "And give them more space than you think they need. They look small now, but they’ll grow."
I press the next seedling in, firm the soil around it. "Actually, here's something interesting to know. Plants that are slightly stressed, that have to work a little harder to survive, often produce more flowers. More vibrant ones. Because they're trying harder to reproduce."
Emilio looks at the seedling in his hands. I can see that he understands the parallel that I’m trying to make.
I look at Emilio. The tattoos on his forearms are visible even in the low light, the dark ink against his skin, the careful detail of them. He got most of them before Charlie's arrest record threat scared him straight enough to show up at a Green Guerrilla initiative.
“You see, plants are like—” I don’t get to finish the thought.
The sirens arrive without warning.
No gradual approach, no time to process. Four sets of headlights and four sets of sirens hit the lot simultaneously from two directions, flooding the space with blue and red and white. For one full second nobody moves, shocked by their arrival and blinded by the lights.
The flashlight beam swings across my face and I throw my arm up against the glare.
"Hands. Show your hands. Now."
"Everyone stop. Don't move."
"Hands where I can see them."
Three different voices, overlapping, one officer ahead and two still moving up behind. The sirens are still going. The light is everywhere and I can't see past it to count how many there are.
"Emilio." I whisper to him. "Drop the shovel."
I hear it hit the asphalt.
"Everyone come to me. Stay behind me." I force calmness to my voice. "Now."
They come. Rosa first, then Dev, then the others, moving toward me in the dark while the lights pin all of us.
Emilio is close behind me. His voice near my ear, "Can't your cop friend help? Call her."
"It doesn't work that way." I keep my eyes on the officers, tracking them. "Wearetrespassing."
The officers are spreading out now, the chaos of the first thirty seconds beginning to resolve into something more organized. One of them hangs back slightly, watching. The aggressive one isalready talking, already moving toward our group, his flashlight sweeping across faces.
"Black clothes, no lights, private property. You know what this
"We're landscapers." I keep my voice clear and calm. "We're installing a community garden. I have a complete list of plants and materials in the truck if—"
"And this one here." He moves the light to Emilio.
It stays there while the officer's eyes move from Emilio's face to his forearms and back up. Slow. Deliberate. The kind of deliberate that knows what it's doing.
"Gang tattoos," he says. Not a question.
I feel Emilio shift behind me. He steps around me.
He is in front of me now, facing the officer directly. He is not small, he is not afraid and this is going to go badly inside of thirty seconds if I don't change it.
