Annie came to with Cass putting water on her head. “Dehydrated and sick.” She said. “You…missed my race.”
She felt bad, “I’m sorry Cass.” Annie said, “I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s fine hon,” she said, “you did good. I bet you would have killed it if you’d been in my heat. Coach was impressed.” Annie nodded.
“You hungry?” Cass asked as she helped Annie to her feet. “Yeah.” Annie said, almost choking when she saw Juan staring at her. Cass misinterpreted it, smiled. “You like him?” She said. It was more a statement than a question. Annie just nodded. She didn’t even want to try to explain. Cass laughed. “You like them big huh? Might wanna be careful. He’d crush you.” Then all play faded. “He actually kinda scares me.”
Yeah, me too. Annie thought. She followed Cass to the concession stand.
Juan stopped her on the way there, and Cass bailed on her to get money from her mom for food. “Nice run.” He said with an intimidating smile. He looked at her wrist. “I see you still have that bruise.” Annie backed away.
“Leave me alone.” She told him, weakly. He just laughed. “Never Annie, that ain’t gonna ever fucking happen.”
She tried backing away again. He stopped her. “We’re for life girl. There isn’t no getting away from it. There isn’t no getting out. That doesn’t exist. We’re gonna teach you that someday. You can count on that.”
Annie darted away, hurrying to catch up to Cass.
I dreaded that walk down the railroad tracks. Nothing but Mark’s threats could have made me go. “Juan has his eye locked on you, his isn’t about to let you go.” He told me.
I walked, Mark followed me closely, I started counting. All my fear, all the worry, I pushed it away with the numbers. “What is he going to make me do?” I asked him in little more than a whisper. “God only knows Annie.” I looked at him; he turned his head away from my gaze. But I caught the unspoken words.
“I’m sorry.”
The warehouse seemed larger, more ominous, more foreboding than it had the first time Mark had brought me there. I hesitated at the door, so Mark pushed me through. “Don’t let them know you’re afraid.” He whispered to me. I knew he wouldn’t have risked saying anything unless it was important. I held onto his words with a vice.
“Here she is guys.” Juan said with a callous laugh as soon as he saw me. I looked at the group; a few more guys who hadn’t been at my initiation were there. Everyone stood up. They were all big, they were all scary looking, and I knew instantly that any of them could kick my ass. I only recognized one other person from my school besides Mark. The rest were high schoolers, and I knew that they wouldn’t cut me any slack.
“Okay white girl,” Juan said sarcastically, “we decided that your test would be a fight… a fight with Jeff.”
I had to keep myself from jerking my head frantically from side to side to figure out who ‘Jeff’ was. I was able to keep my cool. “Okay.” I said.
Jeff walked out of the group. He wasn’t as big as Juan was, but he was built, either way I knew that I couldn’t take him. I was 5’1 and weighed 98 pounds. This guy looked like he was 5’9 and like he weighed 175. I looked at Mark, he wasn’t looking at me. I knew then that this ‘test’ was for me to lose against this guy. They wanted me to learn, to learn my place. I learned that and more.
I learned that no one ever plays fair…I learned that at the same time I learned that I couldn’t trust anyone. Especially my friends.
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