This chapter references episodes and events from the show in a more loose and fast way than previous chapters. I don't delve into a lot of exposition with these references, but I believe there will be enough information provided within the context of the overall story for readers to stay with the plot. Basically, if you've seen the referenced episodes, all the better. If you haven't, you should still be able to deduce enough from the context to not get lost. Of course, if you do get lost, let me know.

This chapter may also contain a bit more... well, cheese, I guess, than the others. But, uh, every story needs a little. Right? ... right?

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Chapter Six

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Miguel dropped the last file into Willis's filing cabinet then locked it for the night. It was late. Already an hour past quitting, and it was raining again. After hunting around for his jacket, he leaned into the doorway out of Willis's office, spotting him on the couch. "Hey," he said. "You're not by any chance headed to the Rec Center?"

Willis looked up from the papers in his lap. "Is this you asking for a ride?"

Miguel smiled and shrugged. "Only if you're going anyway. Aren't you running the probation meeting tonight?"

"Where's your car?"

"Grady gave me a ride, but he can't pick me up, he's already clocked in at the bar. Don't worry about it though, I can take the bus."

"No, it's alright. The meeting is tonight." Willis glanced at the clock and stood. "And I don't mind getting there early." He turned around and caught his keys off the hook. "Besides, I'd rather you not take the bus."

Miguel laughed. "You're worried about me taking the bus now? Don't take this the wrong way, but not even Beaudreaux gets that paranoid."

Willis jangled the keys as he found his own jacket, glancing in Miguel's direction with an unapologetic glare. "I've been hearing a lot of things lately. Things I don't like hearing about. Seems the lines of territory between the sets aren't as stable as they once were. Someone's shaking things up. And colors, or no colors, traveling in and out of Shadow Dragon territory can't be the safest thing for you to be doing these days."

"Yeah, I've been hearing the same things. But I don't think it's me you have to worry about."

Willis leveled a look at him.

"Hey." Miguel held up his hands in surrender, giving a small waggle with his fingers. "Whatever's going on, I've got nothing to do with it. I swear. But I know for a fact the sets aren't out to push each other right now. If Shadow Dragons are tense, it's not because of K-Streeters. It's because in their territory they don't just answer to themselves and things are happening on a level they can't control. Escalation between the gangs would be more than they could deal with. They don't need more enemies."

"Just the same," said Willis, opening the front door and gesturing for Miguel to go ahead of him, "I prefer not to take chances. After you got kicked in the face last year, I don't intend to be the one to tell Adam about any more of your trips to the hospital."

"Head," said Miguel. "I got kicked in the head. And I'm pretty sure Beaudreaux still thinks I brought it on myself."

As Willis closed the door, the phone inside started to ring. "Let the machine pick it up," he told Miguel when he stopped. "I'll check it when I get back."

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Pulling to the curb outside the center, Miguel spotted Clavo immediately. He was standing across the street, underneath the overhang of the Southside Tenement sign. Urgency was in his body language, but he was gazing deliberately in the opposite direction, like he was pointedly not waiting for Miguel.

Miguel shrugged his jacket up around his shoulders and popped the latch on his door, stepping into the drizzle. He peered through the rain, pressing his eyes to Clavo's back.

"Are you coming?" asked Willis, tapping the car's roof and gesturing toward the center. "If Cliff and Devon don't show, I'm going to need your help putting out the chairs."

"In a minute," said Miguel. "I'll meet you inside."

Willis flicked his eyes at Clavo, at the colors he sported, but said nothing, simply nodding as he turned around.

Miguel breathed gratefully and crossed the street, falling into step with Clavo without question, heading south, towards the boarded-up municipal building. Back towards home territory.

"Your boy showed up at the old hang out across from Luis's old casita," explained Clavo. "He's looking for you. How'd he know about that place anyway?"

Miguel glanced sideways. "My boy?"

Clavo just looked at him.

Miguel frowned and drew up short, putting a hand to Clavo's chest. "Grady?"

Clavo nodded. "I sent him over to Luis's and told him I'd find you. Right now, I'm the only one besides you who knows he's there, and by the way he looks, I'm thinking it should stay that way."

"The way he looks?"

"Wrecked. Like he's dragging trouble. Problemas serios."

"And he's waiting for me?"

"I just left him, but he seems kind of jumpy. Carlos and Alonzo are supposed to meet me there tonight. I don't know if he'll stay if they show. You tell me. He's your hermano, not mine."

"And the casa de Luis?"

"Empty until next week."

"Okay." He gripped a hand to Clavo's shoulder. "I'll take care of it. But I need you to go back to the center and help Willis with the chairs. Tell him I had to go meet my mother. Don't say anything else."

"Hey, vato, since when am I on probation?"

"Just do it. You owe me one, and something tells me Grady doesn't need him asking questions right now."

"Fine. But I think after this, maybe we're even for a while."

"Quizás," said Miguel. "Hey," he called as Clavo started to jog away. "Lose the colors before you go inside."

"Yeah, yeah." Clavo waved back in annoyance.

/

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When he got to Luis's, none of the lights were on in the house.

Standing in the silence of the mudroom, Miguel left them that way. His chest expanded slowly in the dark, memories of Luis thickening the blood in his joints, making them ache the way they always did when he first entered. They were stronger lately—backed by the more recent images of Andrea being arrested in the kitchen for killing the G-Rock's leader. Being arrested and leaving Luis's baby without a mother. Being arrested for having done what Beaudreaux had convinced Miguel not to.

Cautiously, he walked through the hallway from the back entrance, listening for sound through the shadows.

The broken front window was covered over with plywood. A hammered sheet of corrugated metal braced the bottom half of the broken front door. And all around the interior, G-Rock bullet holes patterned the plaster.

Blood for blood for blood for blood.

He found Grady in the darkened kitchen, sitting on a wooden chair between the table and the wall. Angled defensively so he could see out the window.

Stopping by the refrigerator, Miguel folded his arms, watching the lights from a passing car manipulate the shadows over Grady's face.

He looked like hell. Like the last warning sign on the eve of destruction.

In the quiet, the refrigerator's motor kicked in, humming weakly. Grady spoke without moving. "I wasn't sure if you still used this place—after Andrea." His voice was like smoke. Like it could evaporate in a moment and take him with it.

"Luis's uncle paid it off two years before he died. Andrea hasn't told me what she wants done with it yet. We've been keeping it for her. And for the baby." Miguel stepped closer to the table. "You have that look in your eye I don't like."

The flicker in Grady's gaze finally blinked in Miguel's direction. "I know," he said. A fine tremor belied his stillness, like a wild bird in a small cage. Blood or mud crusted the back edge of his jaw. Rust stained his collar. His hair was wet. "I'm sorry to show up like this. I just needed a place." He stopped, stared starkly out the window, then found Miguel's eyes again. "I just needed a place."

Slowly and deliberately, Miguel pulled out the chair on his side of the table and sat. "So you have a place," he said.

Lights from another car moved past the window. Grady held Miguel's stare, then closed his eyes and dipped his head. A distorted stripe of pale silver idled across his shirt. A sweeping glow that disappeared as he breathed.

Miguel breathed with him, waiting. "I've never seen you look this bad. Ever. Not even with that pendejo, Nigel."

Grady opened his eyes. The streetlamp down on the corner lent them a dull light—showing some mixture of apology and fire.

And fear.

Miguel closed his mouth, tipping his head a fraction to the right. He was about to say something more when the ringing phone at the end of the table shattered the lull, startling them both.

Grady flinched—wide eyes darting towards it.

Miguel spread the fingers on one hand, holding them in the air until Grady focused towards him. He gave him a small nod, then curled his knuckles around the receiver. After the next ring, he brought it to his ear. "Mendez," he answered.

"Miguel." Beaudreaux breathed his name as though it meant reprieve. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

Grady leaned forward on the table, tense, elbows pressed to the wood.

Miguel closed his eyes, then opened them. "Beaudreaux, hey," he said, carefully casual. "What's up?"

"Grady's gone off the reservation. I think he's in real trouble and I'm hoping you can help me find him."

Miguel flicked his eyes at Grady's face. "What happened?"

"I'm still working on that part. But, listen, he knows I'm looking for him, so he's probably going to try to stay out of Little Saigon, which means you're the most likely person to get a line on him. I need you to put the word out. I'm not sure where he'll go, but if you see anything, or hear anything—if he contacts you—I need you to call me right away."

Miguel paused, pulling air through his teeth. He locked on Grady's gaze and didn't look away. "No," he finally said.

Silence folded around the line. Silence in the room. Silence in the house.

A car horn grunted in the distance, somewhere far down the street.

"No?" said Beaudreaux. "What do you mean, no?"

"I mean, no. If Grady's gone to ground, maybe he has a good reason."

"He's in trouble, Miguel. Real trouble. He needs help."

"And the only reason he'd even consider coming to me for that help is if he knows that I won't go to you."

Beaudreaux's voice bent sideways, tilting to one Miguel recognized—restrained frustration, excessively reasonable. "Look, I know the two of you feel some sort of need to cover for each other, but—"

"No," Miguel interrupted. "Not cover. That is never what this has been about."

"Really? Then why don't you tell me what it's about?"

"You really need me to say it?"

"Enlighten me."

Miguel clicked his teeth. He looked at Grady, sitting across the table in the fluttering darkness, eyes reflecting the barest slivers of light. "This is about trust, Beaudreaux. Trust and living up to the things you've taught us."

"You've gotta be kidding me. The things I've taught you?"

"Yes."

"This isn't what I've taught either one of you. And if you're thinking it is, I'm going to have to wonder if I've ever gotten through to you at all."

"When my parole ended and the G-Rocks were gunning for me, you knew Grady knew where I was, but you didn't ask him to tell you until the time was right. I know you weren't happy with me, but you were doing what you could for me anyway. And you respected Grady's silence because you knew he was doing the same thing."

Beaudreaux said nothing.

"See, Beaudreaux, even if we don't always say it, even if we don't always recognize it for what it is—we all feel a responsibility to this little familia we've been drafted into, the same way you do. But when the son can't go to the father—when he's off the reservation but still trying to stay on the planet—that's what brothers are for. And if Grady comes to me, it will only be because he knows I will not betray that."

Grady breathed silently in the dark.

Miguel slid his elbow onto the table, balancing his hand in the air like he was waiting to arm wrestle. Grady nodded and closed the grip quietly, cool fingers locking around the base of Miguel's thumb, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.

"He's hurt," said Beaudreaux. "Maybe seriously. He needs medical attention. If he's off the reservation or the planet, loyalty will mean nothing to him if he's dead."

"If he doesn't know he can come to me, maybe he would be dead already."

"Or maybe the two of you are just too stubborn to ask for help when you need it."

Shaking his head, Miguel tightened his knuckles around Grady's hand, holding his eyes. "If I see him, if he needs medical attention, I'll make sure he gets it. But that's the most I can promise you."

"Miguel," Beaudreaux began.

"There are monsters in the world, Beaudreaux," Miguel interrupted. "Sometimes you see us as children. You think you can go out and slay them all for us. But the truth is, some demons are bigger than others, some louder, some more real. And we are old enough to know that even you cannot kill them all." He waited a beat, then pulled the phone away from his ear.

"Miguel, wait. Miguel."

Dropping the receiver against the base of the cradle, Miguel cut the connection, ending the call.

Grady sighed slowly. "Thank you," he said, closing his other hand over the back of Miguel's fist before releasing the grip entirely. He winced then, leaning sideways in his chair, arm running close to his chest. "He's going to be looking for us."

Miguel watched him. "Then tell me I did the right thing, because you look like hell."

Grady lifted his eyes. "Beaudreaux finds me—people die."

Miguel swallowed and nodded. "Okay." He rose from his chair. Circling the table, he reached for Grady's arm, slinging it over his shoulder as Grady staggered upright. "I think I know where we can go."

/

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tbc