Marcus Reid stood in the blood-soaked warehouse on Tenth and Archer, the metallic tang of death thick in his nostrils. Three bodies lay sprawled across the concrete floor like discarded puppets — Rico's men, all of them. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered and buzzed, casting stuttering shadows that made the corpses seem almost alive.
He was twelve years old.
His hands trembled as he stared at the .38 Special in his grip, still warm from the shot he'd fired. The fourth body — the one that mattered — lay face-down in a spreading pool of crimson ten feet away. Marcus couldn't see the man's face anymore, just the back of his head with its fresh, weeping hole.
"You did good, kid." Rico's voice cut through the ringing in Marcus's ears. The big man stepped over a corpse with practiced indifference, his boots leaving bloody prints on the concrete. "Real good. Most boys would've froze up."
Marcus wanted to throw up. He wanted to run. He wanted to wake up in his bed and discover this was all some nightmare born from the sirens and screams that were the lullabies of the Blackwell Projects. Instead, he stood there, frozen, while Rico pried the gun from his white-knuckled fingers.
"Look at me, boy." Rico gripped Marcus's shoulder, hard enough to hurt. "You listening? You just saved your own life. That piece of shit would've killed you the second he got the chance. You understand?"
Marcus nodded, but he didn't understand. Not really. Four hours ago, he'd been doing his pre-algebra homework on the broken coffee table in their apartment. Now he was a killer.
"Clean yourself up," Rico said, gesturing to a rust-stained sink in the corner. "We got five minutes before the cleaners get here."
As Marcus stumbled toward the sink, his reflection caught in a grimy mirror bolted to the wall. He barely recognized the hollow-eyed boy staring back at him.
How did I get here? he thought.
But he knew. He knew exactly how.