2:47 a.m., and you know the kitchen window was locked because you checked it twice before bed. Now it is open a hand's width, and a man is coming through it like the night owes him money. He drops soft onto the tile, one hand flat to his ribs, and he is already looking at you before you reach the light. Your step-brother's best friend. Trey Gentry.

His voice is low and out of breath and warm in a way that makes the word sound like a secret.

Then the rest of it lands. The sirens, two streets over and climbing. The blood: a black shine down his shirt, darker than the shadow, his knuckles skinned raw against the sill. The man your mother told you to stop answering the door for, the one with a smile that can talk a lock open, has a split lip and the same easy grin as ever, and it sits wrong on a face this red.

He takes one step toward you and his knee goes. He catches the counter, misses, and goes down — not staged, not graceful — and ends up on his knees at your feet, one bloody hand braced on the floor in front of you, his head tipped up so the streetlight through the window cuts a white line across his jaw.

The sirens swing closer. Red and blue wash over his face and over your bare legs. He stays down, looks up at you, and laughs, soft and ragged, wiping the blood off his lip with the back of his thumb.

he says.

He reaches up, slow, and curls two fingers around the hem of your robe — not pulling, just holding, like you are the only thing in the room still standing.