Page 68 of Violent Skies

“What was that for?” I ask, out of breath and shivering from the cold.

“Hands are good for more than just murder.” He rolls his head to look at me with a smug expression on his face but it’s forced, and I can tell he did it just to fill the gaps tonight’s violence created between us.

“The news is rabid about this shit.” Rafe turns on the T.V. in the garage and throws the remote on the couch as it flickers on. “If torturing us was their plan, then that just turned into murder.”

A thirty-seven year old man by the name of Sione Mauga was found dead last night in a parking lot stairwell. Mauga was brutally beaten before suffering a fatal shot to the head. The police are releasing information on the shooting in hopes that a witness will come forward. It’s believed that there was an illegal street racing meet-up last night in the parking garage. They are working diligently to pull any footage from the CCTV cameras in the building, but are at a loss for any substantial leads. Concerns around the nature of the murder are raising more questions within the community, as this is the third body to be found in the last two weeks. Does Phoenix have a serial killer?

“They’ll never find shit on those cameras,” Murphy scoffs, offended they’d even try. “I looped the footage back on itself so it was eating its tail for hours. They’ll chalk it up to technical faults and give up.”

“I’ve never been labeled a serial killer before.” Birdie hangs her head out of the back door of the Evo. She’s been in there for an hour, sprawled across the back seat reading one of her books, with half her attention on it and the other on us trying to work.

“No one is labeling you a serial killer,” I groan. They just think it’s one person.

“Yeah, we also didn’t have anything to do with the fish guy,” Murphy adds, pulling the sucker from his mouth and pointing at her. She opens hers and he slides his chair across the cement toward her to share.

“Imagine being a gangster and dying, only to be called Fish Guy the rest of your life.” Rafe laughs and the others join him.

“We could call him Barracuda John,” Murphy suggests, and Birdie snorts.

“Still lame.” She pops the sucker out of her mouth and hands it back to him.

“What’s lame?” Jesse appears in the garage doorway with lunch and sets it on the bench.

“Nothing.” I shut them up and grab my sandwich. “Hey, have you heard anything more from Jake about the race?”

“Things aren’t looking great. After last night people are making moves across the board and Jake got another text about keeping his mouth shut.” Jesse sighs, running his fingers through his hair. “They want this quiet and Jake’s worried that they’re going to overrun this race tomorrow.”

“Overrun?” Murphy scowls.

“They had one guy there yesterday, after you…” Jesse swallows tightly. “Y’know.” Murdered a dude, he mouths, like they’ve bugged the garage, and I roll my eyes at his dramatics.

“They’re going to beef up their numbers,” Rafe sighs. “If they’re going to do anything drastic, it’ll be tomorrow.”

“They’re using the race to trap us.” I nod, staring at them.

“There’s no way they play fair.” Birdie sits up and climbs from the back seat. “They’re going to out number us, use the race as a distraction, keep us split up.”

“We need help,” I admit, even though I hate the idea of it.

“Who can we even trust?” Rafe shrugs. I can see the words die on his lips. He can barely even extend trust to Cress, he has none to spare lately. Birdie chews her bottom lip and Murphy is no help because all his friends are in this room.

“My uncle,” Jesse offers.

“Liloa?” I ask, interested in what he has to say. He runs one of the dirtiest gangs in Arizona, he has his fingers in everything and even when you think he’s not involved. He is.

“He likes Cuckoo Bird. Thinks she’s a lunatic,” Jesse smiles at her and she giggles like it’s the best thing that’s ever been said to her.

“He keeps trying to get me to run jobs for him but I told him we don’t do that anymore,” Birdie adds to the conversation.

“What if we did?” I blurt without thinking.

“What?” Rafe stands from where he’s leaning on the back of the couch and narrows his eyes on me. “You said—”

“I know what I said.” After the last one ended up with Koa dead I swore we’d never do another run ever. But desperate times. “When was the last time he asked?”

Birdie pulls out her phone. "Two weeks ago. He does border swipes, Riggs, those are…”

“I know,” I stop her. We’d run a few back in the day.