Page 134 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

“Let go of her!” he shouted, charging forward. Two boys—his and River’s grade, eight—held River’s arms, and one of them had been slapping her, taunting her, as he’d neared. He glanced to Diamond, their little brother, who had dragged him out to the back soccer fields of the school when they were supposed to be meeting to be picked up by River and Diamond’s mother, Rhonda.

“Go get your mother,” he ordered Diamond, who was two years younger than him and River. “Go get her now.”

Once, a year or so ago, going for an adult authority figure would have been the last thing on his mind, but not now. Not after Diamond and River’s parents had brought Anthony into their home and treated him like family. Not after their uncle—as white as Anthony but just as loyal to the Camerons, who were Black—had taken Anthony to this place where he was treated like a person and cared for and forgiven for his fuckups as he learned to forgive others.

Nope—they definitely needed Rhonda and Kaden, and since Rhonda would be waiting for them in front of the school, that was the safer bet.

“Go get your mother,” one of the boys—Stef Salter—mocked. “Go get your mother, you little—”

And then he said averybad word. A racist word. A word that Anthony, in a million years, wouldneverlet anybody call his family.

“You take that back,” he growled, his vision turning red.

“Oh, get off it, you little faggot,” Stef taunted. His buddy, Arnold, got really creative then.

“Isn’t their uncle a faggot? So you’ve got a whole family full of n—s and f—ts!” And that’s how Anthony heard the words too, by then. Not the actual whole word, but the beginning and end of the word, because the actual word was sort of whooshed out by blood rushing through his ears.

“Yeah,” sneered Stef. “So if your whole family is n—s and f—s, what the hell does that make you?”

Anthony had gotten close enough now to see the bruises on River’s arms and that her nose was bleeding and that the pretty pink-flowered blouse that had been her favorite was now torn.

And when he spoke, he sounded older and angrier and meaner, and all those muscles from all those fights before he’dmet the Camerons were bursting in his arms and his legs and his neck and his heart.

“I’m an avenging fucking angel, that’s my family, and I’m gonna kick your ass to hell.”

“SO,” RHONDAasked Jackson, her voice sounding worried over the phone, “do you think I handled it right?”

Jackson was trying hard not to drive all the way up to Forest Hill and find the little pukes who haddaredtouch his namesake, and Jade’s, and the boy who had become family in the last year, sohecould administer some old-fashioned family justice.

“Was she okay?” he asked, probably for the millionth time.

“Yeah, baby,” Rhonda said, her voice soothing like it had been in junior high when it had been Jackson, Jade, Kaden, and Rhonda, having each other’s backs like a Doom Squad to survive daily. “She was fine. Once Anthony got there, she got some good licks in—I got there in time to see both of them kicking ass. If the other kids hadn’t started it three to one, they never would have gotten her in the first place.”

Jackson smiled slightly. Rhonda was a teacher now, at the same school her kids attended, but he noticed how proud she sounded that her kids were nobody’s meat. Rhonda had never belonged on the streets—an accident of school placement had put them in one of the shittiest schools in the district, and Jackson and the Camerons had helped keep Rhonda alive until they’d all made it to high school and the honors classes to help keep them safe—but Rhonda had learned to be tough all the way through graduation.

“Just like her mother,” he said fondly.

“That’s kind,” Rhonda told him, “but seriously—do you think I handled it well? Jackson, this is important. I don’t want him to feel like he can get involved in violence on a regular basis, but….” She got a little sniffly. “I was really proud of our boy.”

“Well, did you take him out for ice cream?” Jackson asked.

“We did. And promised him pizza during the suspension.”

Jackson still couldn’t believe the “both sides” bullshit of the suspension.

“Did you promise him pizza in front of the administration?” Jackson asked.

Rhonda’s laugh was low and mean. “You bet your ass I did. I also told them that I knew the editor of the local paper, and there would be a big fat article on the backward standards of education in this week’s issue.”

Jackson had a moment of misgiving. “Rhonda… do you have tenure?”

“No,” she said with a sigh. “But there’s a district not too far away from Foresthill—you’ve heard of Colton?”

“Didn’t they have all those guys stuck in a gravel pit this summer?” Jackson asked, racking his brains.

“Yeah, honey. And two of them were the school principal and the local sheriff’s deputy, both men, who got married in August. So I’ve got an application in there if this place doesn’t want me. I’ve already got nibbles. I’ll be the belle of the ball, don’t worry. But right now we’re worried about Anthony.”

“So you’ve done ice cream, pizza, any gifts?”

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