Page 93 of Capitol Matters

“Don’t do this,” he said. “Let’s just forget about the vote and go home.”

“Go home?Theycan’t go home, Donnie.” I gestured broadly to the closed storage units. “They never could. Leaving the city is their only chance.”

“If somebody’s gonna die, better them than us.” His dark, doe eyes were pleading. “Right?”

Not even a flicker of surprise crossed his face. He already knew. Of course, he and Grimm had discussed gang matters that didn’t concern me. They had also, apparently, been slandering me behind my back. Grimm was planting doubts in Donovan’s mind and forcing him to choose sides.

Staring at him now, I wasn’t sure he’d chosen mine.

I pressed forward. My brother tried to counter, but my glare was enough to cow him. Donovan stepped aside and wrung his hands while I stooped to the base ofthe closed metal door. I still had no notion of who occupied which garage or what to expect when I raised the door.

Solitude brought out the worst in people. I remembered fantasizing about murdering the guards in Thorngate and didn’t doubt these people had ample time to imagine what they would do to escape their makeshift prison cells. When the lock clicked over, I gripped the lever handle and freed my other hand, ready to repel a potential assailant.

I pulled the door up.

Clattering metal shattered the quiet as sunshine poured into the narrow storage unit. Compared to the last garage I’d seen, twinkling with ice and snow, this was a desolate wasteland. Pizza boxes stacked waist-high against the wall, crawling with roaches that scurried as light beamed across them.

A five-gallon bucket lay on its side, spilling into a puddle of blue-tinted water with clumps of soggy toilet paper and pieces of wet shit. My nose wrinkled, and I was thankful for the leather mask muting my sense of smell.

Curse words jumbled together as I took a reflexive step backward.

I was still gawking at the raw sewage flooding the path when Donovan said from behind me, “It’s too late, Fitch.”

My head whipped around to find him abashed.

“They’re gone,” Donovan said, a revelation I should have arrived at much sooner.

Turning, I inspected the unit once more. Thevacancy was better than a corpse suspended from the ceiling. Also better than an addled isolation prisoner ready to slit my throat with a piece of stale pizza crust.

But it symbolized something much worse.

“Fuck!” I shouted, pushing Donovan aside on my way to the neighboring unit.

I wasted no time with keys or locks, instead grabbing the door handle with a mental hook and yanking hard. The latch gave way, and the overhead door shot upward, grating against its tracks so fast it made sparks.

Inside, I saw pizza boxes, a thankfully upright shit bucket, and a folding chair as empty as the room around it.

Advancing down the aisle, I ripped the garages open as if they were flimsy tin cans. The doors hung at odd angles, nearly off their tracks, revealing ransacked units.

Chest heaving and face flushed, I yanked off the leather mask and threw it on the pavement. I whirled around to where Donovan hung back. He hugged his arms around his chest, but that damn cell phone never left his hand.

“I’m sorry…” Tears choked his voice.

I pointed at the cell, letting my finger lead me in a march toward him. “Who have you been texting, Donnie?”

“N-nobody,” he stammered, getting paler and a bit green as I closed in.

“Show me.” I opened my hand.

His head wagged, and he backed up quickly, stumbling into the corrugated metal wall between open doors. His body hitting it caused a rattling clang thatmade him flinch.

“I was trying to keep you out of it,” he protested. “You and Grimm have been at each other’s throats, and he’s so mad, Fitch…” Donovan paused and frowned. “The stuff he’s saying about you—”

“Like what?”

He gaped at me. “What?”

“The shit Grimm’s saying.” My fingers curled into fists, sending tension up my arms and across my chest. “He told you I’m dangerous. What else?”

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