ANDREAndre dreamt, for the first time since was a little boy, of Molly.Molly was the first of many firsts for him.She was the first girl he knew that could outdrink any man. The first girl he knew who could beat even the strongest men at arm wrestling. 'It is all about technique, Andy, not strength,' she would tell him after winning a bet he had thought she was sure to lose. Molly was the first girl he knew who could outfight anybody, man or woman. Even himself. She always carried on her person a pocketknife with a scratched blade; she claimed it was her granddaddy's, said it was him who thought her everything she knew. How to fight, how to arm-wrestle, how to flip a blade out faster than a heartbeat and end a potential altercation.Oft, she liked to mention how the old man had taught her how to fuck, too, and although Andre was absolutely certain that she said it only to make him squirm so she could get a good laugh, she did know how to fuck. He could tell. T

Dante'He intends to give you more of what my father gave you.' Dante told the gathering, calmly. 'I think by that he means territorial expansion. He means more supply. More everything. And by everything, he must mean everything. My father made a lot of widows. Do you want more of that? More death, more soldiers in funeral homes long before their time.''The boy is asking you all to be cowards.' Amir sniggered, but there was no follow-up. Only very few joined him in laughter this time.Dante straightened himself to his full height. He had not worn a tie, so there was no tightness at his throat, no want for air. His voice filled the room.'Coward, he says. It is actually very funny that he uses that word. He talks about his love for my father and their friendship. But my father has been dead for weeks now, soon to be months, and Amir Bageria never once reached out, never once tried to avenge his death. Coward, he says.' Dante chuckled. 'I do not intend to make w

BIG JACKJoaquin returned from the drive-by shaken, his fingers numb.It was a sight. Joaquin trembling, his hands shivering from much more than the cold. It was a very frightful sight. Joaquin who moved with a gracefulness that any ghost would envy. Joaquin who could, at fourteen, whip and twirl guns round and round his fingers like a gunslinger out of a western-style movie. Joaquin who had no qualms about leaving the province in which he had been born, breed, and raised into a young adult, to babysit another oblivious, somewhat entitled young adult, a job which other young RWDs would have balked atThere he was, at a bar a few clicks away from the motel, drinking Old Crow with shaky fingers.Big Jack had nearly began to forget that the boy was, at the end of the day, still that: a boy. Barely as old as his own daughter. Big Jack liked to think of himself as a sort of father figure to the men he and Raymond had taken off the streets. He had been so, had he not?

ANDREIt was two days to Christmas and he was at a hospital, but he did not know it yet. The Christmas part that is. He damn well knew he was at a hospital. He was reminded every time the doctor lumbered in to check up on him, every time a nurse shuffled by, every time the day turned to night and the only glimpse of New York he had, of snow, was the one he saw flutter outside the windows.In retrospect, it was his obliviousness that kept him whole.When the dreams released him from their tight, underwater grip and he resurfaced, Doctor Ingrid admitted that Trent had died. Passed on, were the exact words that she used. 'Passed on'. Passage implied smooth locomotion. It implied fluidity. It implied willingness to go. There was nothing willing, even remotely, about the way that Trent had 'passed on'. There were tyres screeching, screaming their displeasure at being maneuvered so. There were shots and shouts and shattered shot glasses. Nothing about the entire affair came close to fluid. T

DANTEThe saccharine sweet taste of winning filled his mouth. Dante savored it along with the rosé wine his uncle popped at the after party. Perhaps, it was the wine itself. He was not sure. All he was certain of was the sweetness that was left in the walls of his mouth after he won the polls. The shock on Amir's face was palpable, adding even more sugar to his tongue. He had met the man only a few days before. There was the instant he set eyes on him, and the instant he recognized him as the Amir Bageria. In between those moments, seconds before the man opened his mouth and spewed words that solidified their rivalry, there was pure distaste.Now as he watched the guests amble across the sprawling space of Natasha's home, clinking drinks, making small talk, he thought about change. Change was a force to be feared, doing as it willed, taking and giving as it wanted. Mere weeks ago, he was at a funeral, saying last words and shoveling dirt into his father's grave. Dust to dust, they ca