Chapter Three

SHAWN

It was late at night. The sun had set nearly three hours ago and I was sitting at the kitchen table with Corey and his daughter, Vanessa, an unfinished card game spread out in front of us. Vanessa was seventeen; a year older than my daughter, Danica. Angela was out looking for her. After much arguing, I agreed to stay behind with Corey and Vanessa, just in case Danica came back home.

"Where the hell could she be?" I mumbled more to myself, than to Corey. "Danica's a good girl. She wouldn't do anything like this."

"If you and mom let me have a car I could actually be helping Angela and Topanga find her." Vanessa said, putting water on the stove to boil.

"Well, we can't change that now, Vanessa." Corey said, sipping from the Sprite can he was holding.

"Well you should have." Vanessa mumbled, flipping her hair behind her ear.

"Look, why don't you just go home. You've got school tomorrow." Corey told her. Vanessa threw him a look, but stood up and started to look for her coat.

"Corey!" I shouted. I looked at him with an even dirtier look than Vanessa had given him. "How the hell could you just tell her to go? This is Brooklyn for Christ sake!"

"Shawn-" Corey told me. "-Look, Vanessa will be fine. So will Danica. Don't worry about-"

"No she won't! Vanessa, until Angela and your mom get back, stay here."

"Shawn-" Corey began.

"NO!" I yelled. "Vanessa, stay here." I said, a bit calmer than I felt.

"Shawn, are you alright?" Vanessa asked me as she retook her seat near the kitchen window. I slid my hands over my face and nodded.

"Mmm-Hmm." I lied. "Yeah."

Then the door opened and Angela walked in first. She called my name.

"In the kitchen!" Corey yelled for me.

"You don't need-" I began, but my words were cut short by Angela wrapping her arms around me.

"We found Danica. She's outside with Topanga." I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest.

"Where was she?"

"At the Shelter. Chanise thought Danica and Malcolm-"

"Chanise Jemero? Malcolm's mother? Angela, I thought we told her not to hang around with him anymore." I told her.

"I know Shawn, but she's a girl…And she seems to only hang around him. We can't just-"

"Forget about that. Where is she?"

"Outside with Topanga." I stood up from my chair and started for the door. "Shawn- please don't be too hard on her." Angela called after me as I threw open the door and walked down the stairwells toward the city that slept with its lights on.