I'm completely zooted on Excedrin trying to post this after my botched spinal tap, but I felt bad about that cliffhanger, and I'm excited for this arc to begin, so here's my best shot :)

There wasn't any point in taking Santi to the hospital, after he got shot in the head. No doctor could've knit what remained of his skull back together again. I was trying, when the paramedics came.

That's what I refuse to think about as I speed my way— again— into the parking lot and barrel through the emergency entrance. "Where is she?" I demand when I reach the front desk, slamming my hands down on it, and also having pushed my way through a line full of people.

In hindsight, that's not the best decision I've ever made in my life. The receptionist, whose triangle-shaped perm makes her look like a badly-groomed poodle, glares at me like she wants to come out from behind that desk and strangle me. "I have no idea who she is, sir," she says, which is a good point, actually. The security guard next to her grunts his agreement. "I do know you need to head to the back and wait your turn, though."

"You heard her, git your ass to the back," an ashen-faced guy clutching his chest snaps as he flips me the bird, and though I realize I'm in the wrong here, and arguing with some heart attack patient that could be ten minutes away from croaking, I'm still sorely tempted to get out my fear and frustration on a fight with him. I take a deep breath, expanding my diaphragm, which does nothing to calm me down, but does keep me from shouting my girlfriend's dying, you geriatric fucking prick, and unlike you, she's not even eighteen until March—

"Tim!" Diego comes out into the waiting room, beckons me over with his hand, and I rush to him; that same chick behind the desk is hollering at me, something about not being allowed to walk around the hospital without a sticker, but she doesn't seem inclined to do much about it, so I just ignore her. "She's in room 25, c'mon."

I don't know what I'm expecting. Bloody gauze strewn everywhere, a team of nurses desperately shocking her heart with paddles like on TV, a priest coming in for last rites: the whole nine yards. I'm pretty shocked to find her propped upright against the pillows, sipping a cup of water through a straw, tucked under the blanket to the armpits. Her sister and her daddy are in chairs on opposite sides of the bed. Ximena gives me half a smile when I approach, clutching a set of rosary beads in her fist; her daddy looks like if he could shovel literal shit into my mouth, that'd make his whole 1965.

"You could've told me she was, y'know. Even still conscious," I tell Diego, a sense of foolishness and relief mingling inside of me. 'Cause I was picturing her hooked up to a ventilator."

"Maybe I would've, if you hadn't hung up on me the second I said the word 'shot'—"

"I almost started a fight in the middle of the lobby!"

"Tim, you didn't," Gabi actually scolds me, like she hasn't got a bullet inside of her. "This is a hospital, there's plenty of people worse off here than me—"

"By the grace of God," her daddy says, and his glare bores holes into the center of my chest like a laser burning through sheetmetal. "By the almighty grace of God."

"Can we all try to tone down the melodrama, please?" Gabi reaches up to swipe some of the curling hair off her forehead, realizes she's using the arm with the IV, and cusses a little under her breath as she brings it back down. Despite everything, I bite back a grin by sinking my teeth into the inside of my cheek. "I'm clearly not on my deathbed here."

Her daddy crosses himself, then crosses himself again, for good measure. "You keep knocking on doors, asking for the devil, one day he might just answer."

"I got shot in the thigh, Papi," she says, and she's too well brought up to roll her eyes, but I can tell she wants to. "He was usin' a hunting rifle, for Pete's sake. I'm fine."

She's really taking this like a champ, better than half my crew would. Maybe a little too disturbingly well. It must be the residual adrenaline, that she can't feel the pain yet, or maybe it's whatever they're pumping into her intravenously. "The thigh? Where your femoral artery is?" Her daddy gives the IV a suspicious look. "They might have given you too high a dose, mija. Let me talk to the doctor again."

She heaves a sigh, which is when I manage to cut in and ask the million dollar question, the one I've had front-and-center in my mind ever since I hung up the phone. "Who the hell did this to you?" I can't imagine she was the target, if she was with her brother, probably just got caught in the crossfire. Even around our neck of the woods, shooting a girl point-blank is considered pretty depraved, and a waste of ammo besides. Was it a Tiger with a score to settle with Diego? That seems like the most likely explanation—

Her daddy laughs. The sound is downright maniacal. "You go ahead and take a guess."

"What, is it somebody I know?"

Gabi opens her mouth, which is when a couple of officers come into the room; the hairs on the back of my neck immediately start to stand up, a paranoid part of my mind is convinced they're here to arrest me, but they look straight through me like I'm a stray piece of medical equipment. "Gabriela, I'm Officer Webb," one of them says, not unkindly. I guess they pull him out for the softer missions. "I won't take up too much of your time, but it's hospital policy, in cases like these, to get the facts of what happened…"

I don't know why they're grilling a chick still attached to her bed, but Gabi takes it in stride like she seems to be taking everything in stride, only reveals her nervousness with a slight bob of her throat as she swallows. "Yessir, sure," she says, then turns to all of us. "Why don't y'all go get somethin' from the vending machine, okay?"

It's not a suggestion, it's an order, though it's steel wrapped in velvet and her voice barely gains volume. I want time alone with her, to figure out who it is, what's going through her head, but she's already turning towards the cop, her attention shifted. I head out into the hallway.

It takes long enough for the door to shut behind us, and for Ximena to get sent away, for the old man to spin around and crack me across the face, and son of a fucking bitch does that hurt more than I expected; I stumble back a few steps. If this is how my nose gets broken the third time, goddamn— I've never actually had any girl's father come after me like this. Bonnie's aimed a shotgun at me once, but he was already dead drunk by early evening, and ended up falling down the stairs of his trailer in the process. We sort of stepped over him on our way out. "This is all your fault."

"You want to tell me how, when I was nowhere near the scene of the crime?" I spit, along with a mouthful of blood, onto the neat tile floor. "I got a pretty good alibi—"

"Because it was one of your little compadres who shot her!" Fear and dread bolt me to the ground, make it hard to take my next breath, but he's beyond caring. "What was his name, Alejo, Alejandro?" Oh Jesus fuck. I imagined him being spoonfed mashed potatoes by his sister in bed, from her description, not up and ambulatory enough to wave around a gun. "You recognize him," he crows with a bitter triumph, watching me. "He came looking for you. I suppose I would have to ask him why my daughter was an acceptable substitute."

I never figured Alejo would have it in him, in a million years, that the crucible of the streets could make that out of the same kid I caught crawfish in the creek with. That was my mistake. It could've been a fatal one. I'm damn luckier than I deserve that it wasn't.

He's right. It should've been me. Second time in my life I'm hearing that, and both times ring true.

"Lay the hell off him, Agustin," Diego says, his fists shoved deep into his pockets, "what did you expect him to do about it all the way from his mama's house?" I think he knows otherwise, but prizes pissing the old man off above that. "Ain't his fault one of his buddies turned out to be a loose cannon, and a loose cannon that aims at chicks, too—"

"And you?" Clearly I was the appetizer to the main course of his anger, but he doesn't reach out to crack Diego one, though the entire left side of his jaw is pulsating. "Why did you not take the bullet for her?"

"Do you think real life is some kind of action movie?" Diego sputters, but he looks like he would've preferred to take the hit in my place. "That I used her as a human shield or somethin'? It happened so fast—"

"Is this what I took you out of Colombia for?" He's not even bothering to keep his voice down in a hospital setting, and it cracks on the last word, seems to ricochet off the walls. "Violence, theft, shooting— hijo perdido, I ought to send you back, I suppose you would feel right at home—"

"Go ahead, Lord knows it might be better than livin' with you—"

"It really is a good thing your mother is too dead to see this, or she would be dead of shame—"

"You keep Ma's name out of your goddamn mouth!"

They start hollering at each other in a stream of rapid-fire, interrupted Spanish I can't quite keep up with, especially since they're using slang I've never heard before in my life. Ximena taps me on the elbow as she approaches, holding a bag of Corn Diggers and another bag of Dippy Canoes, stands observing the wreckage. "Welcome to the family, huh, Tim?"

I shrug one shoulder, try to keep it light. "Hell, this is nothin'. You should see what I gotta break up between my mama and my stepdad sometime."

Finally, one of the security guards seems to notice our fracas, or it's just escalated to the point where he can't feasibly ignore it any longer. And I know, without even taking a second glance at his face, that he's thinking can't any of these people act right? "Is there a problem here?" He's got his hand hovering over the cuffs in his ass pocket, and taps the sign on the wall. "This is a healing environment."

I've pushed my luck more than enough, when it comes to the fuzz. I need to get out of here, anyway, get some fresh air, because my head feels like it's being squeezed on both sides with pincers. If I don't, I might just start screaming too.

Ximena presses the Corn Diggers into my palm before I slip out the door.

What I plan on doing, once I get home, is rinsing my face off and going out to get hammered out of my fucking mind. Yeah, I know it's a bad idea, that my mama's addiction lurks inside of me and waits to pounce, I just don't particularly care. Death flashes before my eyes every time I blink. It's either I get drunk, or I do something that's going to earn me twenty-five to life, before I can calculate my options and come up with a better plan.

Twenty-five to life is sounding pretty good right now, though.

Don't think about scooping her organs back into her body. Don't think about it. Don't think about it—

Instead I get to think about why Hector Diaz is in my living room, and why Curly's shoving a wad of bills into his palm. For the moment, it's a more than adequate distraction. "The hell's goin' on here?"

They jump apart like I'm a gym teacher who caught them necking in a storage closet. That's when I know I ain't about to like the answer. "One of my boys got diphtheria," Hector starts, haltingly. "I just need a little bit, tide me over 'til the next paycheck, you dig?"

"Curly's fourteen. He ain't got no money, and he sure as fuck ain't responsible for payin' your bills, if you didn't just invent that kid outta thin air." I didn't know it was possible to sink any lower than being a deadbeat dad, but hell, this guy's like a vacuum cleaner, sucking even more cash out of us. Then I say exactly that sentence out loud, 'cause I don't much feel like keeping it to myself.

"Tim, quit bein' such an ass," Curly hisses out the corner of his mouth, like I give two shits. He'll thank me later. "Pancho's real, I seen him, he's practically turnin' blue every time he coughs."

"You need to get out of here, and you need to not come back." I say it nice and friendly-like, the way an alligator smiles before it catches its prey. "I guess I can't stop you from seein' Curly, as much as I want to, but I sure ain't hostin' you in my daddy's house while you shake him down. You was pushin' it even showing up on the porch."

"Or what if he doesn't?" Curly asks, his jaw set all stubborn. "This is my house too, you don't own it for yourself."

I should feel more shame than I do, pulling out the big guns. "Or I'll tell Ma you tracked this guy down and dragged him back into our lives, how 'bout it? Hell, I'll go wake her up right now."

That gets him. The threat of some ass-whooping from Ed, that might not compel his obedience, especially when he's a champ at weaseling his way out of them. Hurting Ma's feelings, though? Even his new daddy ain't about to take precedence there. "Dad," he starts, and what, he's already calling him that? "Um, maybe you should go, okay? 'Cause she don't know yet, that you know—"

"It's fine," he says in a murmur, "I'll see you later." I make sure to stick out my hand for our family dough on his way out. Like hell he's getting away with his ill-gotten gains.

"What is your problem?" Curly turns on me the second he's out of earshot. "Are you tryin' to go out of your way to screw things up for me? It's not a big deal, I want to help—"

"Where'd you even get the cash?" I'm really scratching my head at this one, it's keeping me from rising to his bait, because I've got twenty bucks in my fist I can't begin to account for. Curly's in the eighth grade, he doesn't have a job— even the Piggly Wiggly only hires 'responsible' fourteen-year-olds to bag groceries, and I think he got banned from there for setting off firecrackers in the aisles once. His and Angela's primary income source is sticking their hands out in front of me. Then my heart rate starts to pick up a little. "Is it from sellin' product, by your lonesome? You hidin' this from Tío Luis?" I'm not even sure Curly's status as his golden boy is going to save him, if he is, and while a bad, jealous part of me might want to watch the fireworks, I'm already starting to calculate how I can get him out of this mess.

He can't make eye contact with me as his anger seeps out of him, which is probably the one testament I've got to my child-rearing ability, that he can't lie straight to my face without blinking. Cocks his head to the side a little. "Uh. Don't get mad, okay?"

"You better tell me exactly what I ain't supposed to be gettin' mad about, or—" Then it hits me, like the metaphorical ton of bricks. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before; I guess I didn't want it to. "You're a thief."

"I didn't steal nothin' from you!" There's a hint of panic in his words now, as well as a real sort of indignation. "You gave it to me, I didn't take it out of your wallet, did I?"

Maybe I'm expecting too much moral sophistication out of an eighth grader, and out of Curly in particular, who's never been big on critical thinking. That doesn't stop me in my tracks. "You conned cash out of me without tellin' me what it's for," I continue savagely, "that's as good as stealin', ain't it? You're a thief and you're a fucking liar, too, let's add that to the list. You ain't even sorry about it, neither. This whole time, I've been thinkin' you're payin' Ponyboy to look over your worksheets, and instead my money's linin' your sperm donor's pockets?"

Look, I ain't no Mother Teresa. I wouldn't give two shits if this was someone else he managed to pull a fast one on, I'm not in the business of teaching CCD. But on his own brother? That's real fucking low. I want to think I raised him better than this. Or inspired some more loyalty. Or fear. Or anything.

He gives a hard, angry scoff as he turns away from me, like he's got the right to be mad. "Quit takin' it out on me, 'cause I have a dad and you don't. You don't get the position I'm in, you know nothin' about it."

That hurts, in a deep-down place I didn't know I could still feel hurt. I'm kind of impressed, despite everything. Curly's always been able to slice below the belt, but that's nasty even by his standards. I laugh, to cover any hint of that up before I can show it. "You're actually more retarded than I thought," and I hate myself for saying it, when Curly's eyes go wide and glassy, but somehow not enough to stop. "You know what, I was wrong, he's not doin' this because he's got some kinda guilt complex. He thinks he's conning Luis's drug money out of you and puttin' it in his real kids' pockets, and weren't you the easiest mark in the world. My daddy might be dead, but hell, at least he managed to keep us fed all by himself."

I'm not being fair to him, Curly's always been a people-pleaser, and it's not that surprising a grown man managed to manipulate him into this. I'm projecting so much onto him right now, they might as well wheel me to the front of the classroom and use me to beam up a math worksheet, but I just got back from seeing my girl with a bullet in her and having her old man blame me for it. He can deal. I don't so much want to think about how I'm acting like Ed after a rough day at work, piss drunk and looking to vent his anger on the nearest target, either.

"No, he was just such a dick his own gang shot him to death, I guess that's better," he snaps back. "Just like you. You think you're a genius, but everyone hates you and you can't even figure out why."

"You owe me some fuckin' respect," I insist, which is when I really know I've lost control of my life completely. There's no command in my voice. It's all desperation, once you've got to say the words, you sure don't have it. "I'm your leader, that used to mean somethin' to you, and I'm still your brother—"

"Half-brother. I got a couple on my daddy's side, too."

Well, if that's not like getting stabbed with an icicle, the chill spreading throughout my body. "Don't you ever fucking say that again, you little shit—" I grab him by the collar and shake, the last thread of my self-control snapped— "not when you don't have the first fuckin' clue what I had to give up to raise your ungrateful ass." My teeth are chattering, even as I try to threaten him. "I'd tell you to go move in with Hector, if you want to so bad, but I think we both figured out the only thing about you that's keepin' him interested."

I shouldn't be shocked that he takes a swing at me, and yet the right hook he sends my way comes as a surprise; I get him in a headlock in the next second, and it's like we're kids again, rolling around on the floor and trying to pound the shit out of each other. I should be more mature than this. Somehow I'm not.

"What the hell are you two idiots doing?"

Angela sure ain't strong enough to pull us apart, but she's got nails as sharp as claws, and when she digs them into my shoulder, it's enough of a shock to break us out of our tangle of elbows and fists. "Fightin'?" Curly says as he stumbles back to his feet, like it was a serious question. He's gonna have one hell of a shiner tomorrow. I ain't even sorry.

"Yeah, no shit, I got eyes." She puts her hands on her hips as she surveys us both, looking so much like a miniature version of Ma it's uncanny. Then she socks Curly in the arm. "Half-brother? Are you gonna pull that one out your ass every time you're mad at us? You ever call me your half-anything, I'll just kill you dead, I swear." She sounds so menacing, Curly actually blanches, though he's a head taller than her by now. "And you—" now she turns to me, her anger no more abated. "Quit takin' it out on him, just 'cause you're jealous and feel replaced all of a sudden."

"Angel, I won't—"

"I ain't jealous of nobody—"

"Would you both just shut up?" Angela throws her hands in the air. "I'm so sick of it, this lousy house, Ma an' Ed at each other's throats every day, and now the two of you gotta lock horns over this shit? Christ hell, I'm gonna talk to that social worker next time she comes around, see if she'll take me too. A girls' home can't be any worse than livin' with y'all." She gives us both one last filthy look. "I'm goin' to Sally's. Don't wait up."

Curly turns to me, disgusted, once she's gone. "Would you look at what you did, jackass?"

"What I did? You're the one drivin' our sister right out the door, like she needs this, on top of everything else—"

"Hell, you're drivin' me right out the door, too," Curly says. "I'm goin' to Ponyboy's. You know, since he's got bigger problems than my pre-algebra worksheets, what with his parents bein' dead and all."

He slams the door behind him hard enough to knock a crucifix off the wall. And, secure in the knowledge that everyone really does fucking hate me, I guess that's my cue to head out, too.

Folsom Prison Blues is blaring from the jukebox as I walk into our bar— Luis loves Johnny Cash.

When I was just a baby, my mama told me,

"Son, always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns"

But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die

When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry

"Not our ma, though," Luis says to me between drunk peals of laughter, then picks up his glass again and tosses its remnants into his open mouth. "You better believe she taught her boys to shoot before we could tie our shoes."

Nacho, our long-suffering bartender, who I'm convinced has only stuck around this long because he's sneaking cash out of the till, lets out an appreciative snort too. "Just get me a whiskey," I tell him tiredly as I slump into a seat. "Don't care what kind."

"Afraid I'm gonna need to see some ID first."

I'm really this close to flashing a switchblade in his face, when he laughs that pig snort laugh at me. "Relax, Timmy, Jesus," he says as he shoots whiskey into my glass. I think it's Jack Daniels, too, which makes me regret mean-mugging him as much as I was. "Can't say I missed havin' you behind the bar, after I got to have Curly. He has a half-decent sense of humor."

I visibly grimace, and though Luis is pretty hammered already, he's got finely-honed enough reflexes to notice. "Y'all havin' trouble?" he asks, and it's with enough approximation of sympathy I do a dangerous thing. I lay my burden down on someone else, the real adult in the room, at least in theory. I let myself forget that I know better than to trust him.

"Been fightin' with Curly." I take a long, burning gulp from the glass, and almost as soon as I finish the swallow, I take another one in the faint hope that it'll calm me down. "Little shit. He don't realize everythin' I do is for his own good. He don't even know how much I love him."

Did I actually just say that out loud? Hell, right after I planted my knuckles into his face? Violence and love. None of us can manage to separate the two, as long as we live.

The real reason I try not to get drunk in public? Some folks get real hyper. Others start smashing whatever's in front of them. I'm the talkative type. If it's in my head, it's coming out my mouth.

"What happened?"

I'm still sober enough to remember that no matter how angry I might be at Curly now, I'm not about to reveal his secret. Curly's our tíos' pet, they shower him in affection and attention, and it'd destroy him if they suddenly withdrew it. "I can't tell you," I stutter, which is, hands-down, one of the dumbest responses there is to that question. I can't even come up with a halfway-convincing lie?

I guess I can't. Not tonight.

"I know he's your half-brother, Tim. That he ain't our blood. You can unclench."

Now it's my turn to gape. "How fuckin' stupid do you think I am? He don't look so much like us, even puttin' aside all the rumors— and trust me, there was plenty. I dunno how we kept him ignorant so long as we did, that Mary's wide-open mouth is what cracked the code."

"But…"

"And you keep whinin', that Curly's my favorite, I ain't hard enough on him," he scoffs. "Fool, he's a whole bastard. You think life ain't been hard enough on him already?"

"Y'all still…"

"I mean, the hell do you expect us to do about him now?" Luis drains his glass and gestures for another. "He's one of us, as far as I'm concerned. He's a good kid."

That's what really makes me unhinge my jaw, like a snake about to devour a mouse. I tell him everything, from the phonecall to the crack across my mouth. It's a false pretense. I don't much care, at the moment.

"I know you don't like her." I'm three glasses deep, slurring my words, and not about to stop any time soon. "But he still shot her. That dirty, low-down son of a bitch—"

"I sure as shit don't dislike her enough to want a bullet in her," Luis says, and unlike me, he's calm. "So what are you fixin' to do about it?"

"You probably think it's all my fault."

Luis finally puts his glass down, and then he pulls a heater out of the waistband of his jeans. A Glock 19, I recognize on sight. "It is," he says. "But you're gonna take care of it, ain't you? Permanently."