Listen to Your Sister E-Book

Neena Viel

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 474

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A razor-sharp, breathlessly harrowing novel of siblings, the nightmares that haunt us, and the deep, powerful love that can tie a family together, perfect for fans of Grady Hendrix, Isabel Canas and T. Kingfisher. Twenty-five year old Calla Williams is struggling since becoming guardian to her brother, Jamie. Calla is overwhelmed and tired of being the one who makes sacrifices to keep the family together. Jamie, full of good-natured sixteen-year-old recklessness, is usually off fighting for what matters to him or getting into mischief, often at the same time. Dre, their brother, promised he would help raise Jamie-but now the ink is dry on the paperwork and in classic middle-child fashion, he's off doing his own thing. And through it all, The Nightmare never stops haunting Calla: recurring images of her brothers dying that she is powerless to stop. When Jamie's actions at a protest spiral out of control, the siblings must go on the run. Taking refuge in a remote cabin that looks like it belongs on a slasher movie poster rather than an AirBNB, the siblings now face a new threat where their lives-and reality-hang in the balance. Their sister always warned them about her nightmares. They really should have listened.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Part 1: The Protest

Chapter One: Calla

Chapter Two: Calla

Chapter Three: Jamie

Chapter Four: Dre

Chapter Five: Jamie

Chapter Six: Calla

Chapter Seven: Jamie

Chapter Eight: Calla

Chapter Nine: Jamie

Chapter Ten: Dre

Chapter Eleven: Calla

Chapter Twelve: Dre

Part 2: The Cabin

Chapter Thirteen: Jamie

Chapter Fourteen: Calla

Chapter Fifteen: Dre

Chapter Sixteen: Jamie

Chapter Seventeen: Calla

Chapter Eighteen: Jamie

Part 3: The Nightmare

Chapter Nineteen: Dre

Chapter Twenty: Calla

Chapter Twenty-One: Jamie

Chapter Twenty-Two: Dre

Chapter Twenty-Three: Calla

Chapter Twenty-Four: Jamie

Chapter Twenty-Five: Dre

Chapter Twenty-Six: Calla

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Jamie

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Dre

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Jamie

Part 4: The Callas

Chapter Thirty: Calla

Chapter Thirty-One: Calla

Chapter Thirty-Two: Dre

Chapter Thirty-Three: Jamie

Chapter Thirty-Four: Calla

Chapter Thirty-Five: Dre

Chapter Thirty-Six: Jamie

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Calla

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Jamie

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Dre

Chapter Forty: Calla

Chapter Forty-One: Calla

Chapter Forty-Two: Jamie

Acknowledgments

Discussion Questions

About the Author

“Speculative fiction was invented so stories like Listen to Your Sister could be told. In this heartbreaking yet wickedly funny tale, three siblings’ love and traumatic pain are so acute that only the Nightmare World, a Dadaesque place where the rules of time and space are bent and childhood horrors run on loop, has a hope of accurately representing it. As creepily atmospheric as a Stephen Graham Jones novel, as knife-sharp in its observations about race as the best of Jordan Peele, and gorgeously written, Listen to Your Sister captures the soul-fracturing love of siblings growing up in a world that often feels like a horror show. What a knockout debut.”

Ashley Winstead, author of Midnight is the Darkest Hour and In My Dreams I Hold a Knife

“Incredibly original and seriously scary. Listen To Your Sister will make you feel the fear of being stuck in a nightmare that doesn’t just strike at night. In this unsettling and eye-opening tale that centers around sibling love and loyalty, Neena Viel addresses the horrors of racism, poverty, abandonment, and substance abuse while making you consider how much of yourself you’d sacrifice to save someone you love. Gripping and powerful, this is horror at its finest.”

Nick Medina, author of Sisters of the Lost Nation

“Listen To Your Sister is a brilliant fever-dream of a novel that effortlessly dances between horror, literary, and family saga—sure to appeal to fans of a diverse mix of authors: Grady Hendrix, Tananarive Due, Mona Awad, and Stephen King. A vivid and lyrical exploration of traumas that are both ghastly and achingly relatable, this debut dives unflinchingly deep into the aching, Sisyphean tragedy of trying to save loved ones from the systems of oppression that bind us all—and cements Viel’s permanent place on my bookshelf.”

Maria Dong, author of Liar, Dreamer, Thief

“Viel faces the dark side of family head on, painting a fever dream of the nightmarish obligations of love.”

Maggie Thrash, author of Rainbow Black

“Wonderfully weird and inventive. Viel’s tale of siblings’ love and struggle in modern America is as affecting as it is thought-provoking.”

T.L. Huchu, USA Today bestselling author of The Library of the Dead

“If you’re looking for a smart, contemporary take on the classic cabin in the woods horror novel, look no further than Listen To Your Sister.”

Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse

“Equal parts haunting and humane, Listen to Your Sister moves with breathtaking velocity. Rearranging the contours of speculative horror, Neena Viel tells a sharp, funny, unsettling story of what it means to fight, be it against inherently unfair systems or for the ones you love. Viel is a brilliant new voice, and this novel marks the beginning of a brilliant career.”

Omar El Akkad, bestselling and award-winning author of What Strange Paradise and American War

“Viel brilliantly pulls off both the comic and the terrifying in a skillfully crafted voice that will have you laughing right before it knocks you down with grief. I loved these characters and how Viel examines the real horror that the past can manifest in our present-day lives. This is an amazing debut.”

Claire Jimenez, author of What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez

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Listen to Your Sister

Print edition ISBN: 9781835412787

E-book edition ISBN: 9781835412824

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: February 2025

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Neena Viel 2025

Neena Viel asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Typeset in Dante MT 10.5/14pt.

For my brothers, and our past, present,and future shenanigans

PART 1

THEPROTEST

CHAPTER ONE

CALLA

THE BIG SISTER

Calla was wearing the wrong bra. This sort of confrontation called for her sports bra, the one with six no-nonsense hooks anchoring her down and all the sex appeal of old goulash. Instead, she was in her limpest bra, the one with the missing underwire, making her right breast pop over the cup like a gopher.

She drew the long dark twists of her hair over one shoulder. She prayed it would keep anyone from noticing she currently had three breasts. If she’d known this morning she would end up at a disciplinary meeting at her little brother’s school, she would have dressed more authoritatively. Her boobs wouldn’t be giving her this much shit trapped in a blazer.

The balding man sitting across from her dwarfed his chair. Calla was envious of how his bulk communicated clout where hers communicated an affinity for chicken tenders. He tapped a Sharpie on a thick stack of paperwork. “Ms. Williams, we’re glad you could make the time. I’m afraid we found drugs in your son’s backpack.”

Calla snuck a look at her brother. Jamie was her own little Virgil, ushering her from work into the bowels of hell, which was a tight, awkward circle of folding chairs in the guidance counselor’s office.

“Of course,” Calla said. “I’m very concerned about Jamie’s behavior.” That sounded right, like something a good guardian would say. “What exactly is your role here, Mr. . . . ?”

“Thomson. Mr. Thomson. I’m an in-school suspension resource officer. And this is Jen, Jamie’s guidance counselor. We understand Jamie is troubled. We’ve made allowances for his circumstances. But your son’s attitude is unacceptable,” Mr. Thomson said.

In-school suspension resource officer could not be a real job. Calla wasn’t clear on what he did aside from stroking his neon-yellow-and-green lanyard, a proud layer of school colors across his windbreaker, and sighing heavily as though Jamie had personally offended him.

At the end of the lanyard, Thomson’s badge had the misfortune of including a picture, his red weathered face badly shrunken down to the size of Calla’s thumb. The name under the photo was partially scrubbed off, reading only P THOMSON. She obsessed over Thomson’s first name. Perry? He massaged the lanyard when he spoke, and Calla wanted to burn it while he watched.

She did not like that he’d introduced himself as Mr. Thomson. Calla was not the student here, though she felt like one, for sure. Going back to high school had that effect. Something about the march of battered lockers, the universal smells of bubbling hormones and stale Tater Tots.

Where Thomson was obviously a blowhard, the guidance counselor present appeared to be a ghost. She had yet to speak a word, only nodding weakly in Calla’s general direction. She had purple bags under her eyes and clutched a bottle of ginger ale in her lap. Calla was starting to suspect the woman was hungover.

“He’s my brother,” Calla corrected. She was mildly offended Paul or Percy or whatever thought she looked old enough to have spawned a sixteen-year-old. She was only twenty-five. It only confirmed what she knew, deep in her bones: taking care of Jamie was prematurely aging her. It was a wonder they hadn’t mistaken him for her grandson.

“Right, your brother.” Patrick (?) opened a file, thumbing through notes. His voice was shockingly high, a reedy embarrassing falsetto. “We have a zero-tolerance policy for drugs.”

Calla’s chair was jammed against a bookcase precariously full of self-help books and ceramics and dozens of waxy apples crammed between framed photos and cups full of pens. Jamie’s head was obscured by a sprawling spider plant, long speared leaves poking into his hair. He didn’t move a muscle, and Calla wasn’t sure her little brother was awake.

Improbably diverse students hugged each other in posters behind Jen, the bulletin board half-covered by flyers for French Club and SAT tutoring, basketball practice and biology internships.

Calla crossed her legs. Sitting like a lady took real effort on her part; her thick thighs did not want to stay closed.

Phineas, maybe, shifted his bulk in the narrow metal chair. He could totally be a Phineas. “As you know, Jamieson isn’t a first-time offender. We’re going to have to take a harder line here.”

Preston sent a quick glance to the guidance counselor. Jen took a long breath and a hefty swallow of ginger ale. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here, swallowed both by the brown fabric of her T.J. Maxx suit and her overgrown hair. Undoubtedly, she’d met hundreds of Jamies. Calla related—one Jamie was enough to drive her to drink. Hundreds would put her in rehab.

“We want your son to succeed here,” Jen said. “To thrive here. And while we want to be compassionate due to his background, it’s clear that he’s just not trying. Mr. Thomson, will you tell Mrs. Watson about the altercation?”

“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” Calla was not going to sit here being slowly consumed by fake apples while her brother moldered into a plant. This was why she’d wanted backup. Dre, her middle brother, was probably too busy flirting with a hot waitress at work to remember where he was supposed to be.

“Mr. Thomson,” he enunciated slowly.

“Your first name. Paul? Perry?” Calla shifted, dislodging an old yearbook. It clattered behind her chair, drawing sleepy raised brows from Jen and a dry cough from Pedro.

“Peregrine.” He looked down at his lap.

Wow. Okay. She could see why he wanted to stick to Mr. Thomson. “Nice to meet you, Peregrine. I’m Calla Williams, and this is my little brother. Jamie, what happened?”

She elbowed Jamie roughly in the ribs.

He stirred from his chair, slouching on Calla’s right. He was in a black hoodie, NIKE scrawled in faded red across his slender chest, a mustard splotch marring the “I.” He crossed his legs, black joggers tapered close to the shins. His feet shot out enormously in heavily dented Timberlands, classic tan, with custom maroon laces. His dreadlocks were slightly longer than Calla’s fingers, soft yellow at the ends and stiff with beeswax. Calla had always thought Medusa should be black, and this was why, the way Jamie’s locs writhed and cascaded with a will of their own.

His eyes were Calla’s eyes, but better. They shared the same round shape, the same deep-brown color, except he had a thick fringe of lashes where hers were stubby and stingy.

Everything about him was drawn and stale; his sweatpants were peppered with lint, his eyes crusted at the edges, and his smell—the cheapest dankest weed to be found on Rainier Avenue South—made Calla breathe through her mouth. His eyes were bloodshot, streaked with violent red.

And still, through all of that, he was carelessly handsome. He clenched his jaw as he realized everyone was staring at him, little creases stretching taut at his cheeks, just a promise of how his round baby cheeks would evolve into sharp edges.

He cleared his throat, and it went on forever, like something was lodged in there. Peregrine balled his fist around a pen, disproportionately outraged, and Jen peeked at her cell phone.

“You want me to . . . what now?”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Uh, I thought they were gonna tell it.” Jamie swallowed wetly.

“And now I’m asking you.” Calla used her new voice, the one she’d acquired only in the last year. The voice that emerged only when faced with children past your fucking limit, pushed to a level of aggravation beyond what you thought was possible.

“Uh, I was just—” Jamie looked at the door. Calla wasn’t the only one dreaming of escape. She also wasn’t fooled. Her little brother wasn’t just silver-tongued; he was dipped metal all over. It took a while to wear down his skin for the glibness to show.

She waited impatiently, furtively checking the time. She was hoping to make it back to the office before the workday was over. She estimated her odds were about 64 percent.

“I saw him walking around during class time. Without a note,” Peregrine volunteered.

Oh, goodness, Calla would need smelling salts. Jamie had walked outside of class, like a lunatic.

Jamie rolled his eyes. “I had a note from Mr. Spencer. You didn’t even give me a chance to get it from my pocket.”

She lowered her chances at getting back to work to 32 percent.

“You were clearly high, clearly skipping class. You completely ignored me.” Peregrine’s neck started to spot with red. Calla wished she could tell him to pace himself. Jamie was bad for the blood pressure.

Jamie studied his shoes. “Look, it’s been a hard time for me. I just needed a minute to myself.” He linked his fingers, holding his own hand, and when he glanced up his gaze was heavy and soft. Soulful. “I genuinely didn’t hear you. I was lost in my thoughts.”

Shit, Jamie was warming up. Her hope shriveled to an ambitious 14 percent.

“You tried to run away,” Peregrine said flatly.

“I run when I’m upset. My therapist said exercise is a good coping mechanism.” Jamie wiggled his feet, the sole on the left shoe nearly flapping. “I thought exercise was a healthy way to express my feelings. Supposed to be better than alcohol or unprotected sex. I guess I was wrong.”

“Jamieson, please,” Jen said. “It’s important that you take responsibility for your actions. We can’t move forward without accountability. We all know why we’re here.”

“Yes, we do.” Jamie shot up from his chair with such force that it toppled over. “Because of racism. Fucking racism, that’s why.”

Fuck, Jamie was coming in hot. Right about now, Calla’s boss would be standing beside the CEO as they welcomed an important potential client. There would be small talk, coffee, tea. Cookies, if someone was feeling saucy. She worked at a marketing firm, and she’d done all the heavy lifting putting together a proposal for a local tech start-up. She was on thin ice from all the skipped meetings taking care of Jamie required. Nailing this account would keep her employment on life support.

Her boss said the incessant buzz of her phone—Jamie was sick, Jamie was in trouble—interrupted the team synergy. When her phone was on silent, her boss said the team sensed Calla’s distraction and it killed the innovation. She was a misstep away from losing her job. Jamie needed things like shelter and food and medicine, and if Calla could not provide those things, he would end up in foster care. She’d worked her ass off on this account.

And now, because of yet another one of Jamie’s fuckups, the probability that Calla would make the meeting? Zero percent.

The probability that her boss would take all the credit for her painstaking work and the CEO would still think Calla was a deadweight diversity hire? Fucking 100 percent.

“You ran. That’s suspicious. I had to get backup.” Peregrine stood, too, the lobes of his fleshy ears red. With both of them standing, the office became claustrophobic. Calla could barely adjust her glasses without hitting an apple, a plant, a thigh, a hip.

“You had drugs in your backpack.” Jen pulled a clear Ziploc bag off the table. It was bulging with weed, thick clumps packed in every corner. Calla realized the bag had been there the entire time; she just hadn’t noticed.

“Let me have been white, they never would’ve harassed me like that.” Jamie was thunderous in his honesty or cruelty; Calla never could tell. His face was artful, jaw tight with resolve, brown eyes soft with sadness. A tear slid down his cheek. But what really brought the performance together was the way he held himself, as though he could barely stand up; he was too weary from racism.

“You had actual drugs in your backpack,” Jen repeated.

Suddenly everyone was looking at Calla and it took her a moment to realize why. Peregrine and Jen seemed to think Calla could get some kind of control over Jamie. She couldn’t even get him to take out the garbage; they’d missed trash day three goddamn weeks in a row. Her used tampons belonged to the rats now.

Jamie assured her this was how composting worked. Calla had several doubts.

Right. She was the guardian here. She was supposed to rein Jamie in or—from his expectant look—join him in the pool. The water would be warm because Jamie wasn’t all wrong. Plus, their comfortable assumption that she was a young single mother had to be a microaggression or another kind of low-key racism with a catchy name. She wasn’t totally sure—she’d missed the antiracism training at work because Jamie had set someone’s backpack on fire. Luckily, that incident had happened off school grounds.

Now that Calla was looking, that gallon-sized Ziploc bag was obscene, far surpassing an ounce or two for recreational use. This bag was for selling. She was a dead drug dealer’s daughter; she’d learned these things at her daddy’s knee.

“Ms. Williams, this is exactly the problem we’ve had with your son the whole quarter,” Peregrine said. “Jamieson, where did you get the marijuana? You said before that you were ‘holding it for a friend.’”

“We have a responsibility to the safety of our student body. If you don’t tell us where the drugs are from, we’ll be forced to consider expulsion,” Jen said.

The school administrators were clearly worried more students were involved, but they could sleep soundly on that count. Jamie found the teens in high school too immature, too baby-faced. They hadn’t been to the hard knocks of juvie or experienced Real Life. His friends lived with aunts or ex-stepfathers or were emancipated; they knew the streets and not of roads less traveled but detonated through.

“Suspension?” Calla said. “What he needs is extra school. Maybe in-school suspension, considering that’s your actual job title.”

“In-school suspension resource,” Peregrine said. “It’s a resource. Out-of-school suspension is also a resource.”

“If Jamie can really participate in his own rehabilitation . . .” Jen trailed off. “Authenticity is a key tenet of Franklin High School.”

Calla did not bother to dignify that with a response. Even Peregrine—a guy named frickin’ Peregrine—obviously thought that was weak as shit.

“I’m not a snitch.” Jamie righted his wayward chair, sat back down as though the very thought buckled his legs.

“Where, Jamie?” Calla said. This was the closest high school to their home, a mere three miles from the house and less than one from her office. She needed him to stay in this zone. She didn’t want a long commute on her way to hell.

A tentative knock sounded, and they collectively whipped around as the door opened. Dre, Calla’s middle brother, entered with a miasma of bacon grease and cocoa butter emitting from his pores, the white threads of a hairnet clinging to the bottom of his Afro. If Jamie was carelessly handsome, Dre was offensively well put together. Even the flour dusting his long-sleeved shirt looked like art. He did something mysterious with cold water and white vinegar to keep his black clothing black—this wasn’t a guy who tolerated his colors fading. The creases of his work pants were sharp enough to draw blood.

She sometimes lost her breath at the precision of him, the dimensions of his Afro, meticulous as a rosebush.

“Sorry, the breakfast shift got wild. What did I miss?” Dre looked anywhere but at Calla.

She saw the exact moment the idea crystallized in Jamie’s brain.

“It was Dre,” Jamie sobbed. “He gave me the drugs. He said to just hold it.”

“Dre Watkins? Jackson? Johnson?” Peregrine scribbled furiously.

“This Dre.” Jamie pointed a trembling finger. “My brother. Substance abuse is generational and shit.”

“I did not,” Dre started, pausing when he spotted the Ziploc bag of weed. “Wait, that’s the drugs? All right, I did. That’s my property. I’m almost twenty-three—a legal adult.”

Jen yawned. “Six-week suspension and mandatory counseling.”

“Substance abuse is generational. See it all the time.” Peregrine closed his notepad.

Calla wondered how they could be so fucking stupid. Well, not Jen. It was clear Jen was not interested. Maybe she’d been shiny once, a long time ago, before she saw so many boys like Jamieson go to prison or accuse her of racism. Now she was dead inside, like she was living for the weekend, of course, but also dachshunds, heists, rough sex, anything that might make her feel alive.

“I’ll just, uh, confiscate this.” Dre snagged the bag of weed and rushed for the door, colliding with Jamie. Elbows were thrown, the N-word muttered, as the boys squeezed into the hallway while Calla processed what Jamie’s suspension meant for her career (unemployment). Teenagers couldn’t be left unsupervised any more than toddlers. There was a sweet spot where kids were too old to stick their fingers in electrical sockets and too young for drugs and sex, but she wasn’t parenting that magical age.

She marshaled her strength and followed her brothers.

CHAPTER TWO

CALLA

Jamie bolted when they hit the cold mist of the parking lot, dashing between cars in a frantic bid for escape. Calla cursed, sprinted for her beat-up Ford Focus. The underwire of her left bra cup bit into her flesh, and she suddenly remembered why she’d ripped the right one out. Her thick gray workbag slipped to her elbow, the sharp angle of a laptop pinching her armpit.

“Let him go. He’ll come back when he’s hungry,” Dre said, ducking into the passenger seat. His fingers flicked across his phone screen as Calla sent the car squealing after Jamie.

“You were late,” she snapped.

“We arrive when we’re meant to. I think Gandhi said that. It all worked out, didn’t it?” He raised an eyebrow—he’d inherited their grandfather’s generous forehead, so the eyebrow had space to roam. He’d also inherited their mother’s delicate eyes, the lilt at the corners that made him look like he was an inhale away from laughter.

“It didn’t work out. He’s got six weeks of suspension. That’s a guaranteed fail of fall quarter. I have to find a substance-abuse counselor.”

“Silver lining.” Dre beamed. “I have a shit ton of weed now.”

Calla kept her eyes trained on Jamie’s long legs, the soles of his boots flapping as he ran. She really needed to replace those shoes. She forced traffic to a crawl and craned her head out the window. “Get in the fucking car. Now.”

Jamie tugged on headphones, blew her a kiss, and darted down a one-way street.

That little shit had weaponized his own birthday gift against her.

“It’s fine.” Dre waved an airy hand. “He’ll turn up. He always does.”

Calla sighed. “It’s going to be a long six weeks. What days can you come over and watch him? I can’t keep missing work.”

“I’m pretty slammed,” Dre said without a hint of regret. “Anyway, you’re hovering. You gotta chill, Cee. Those frown lines make you look like Grandma. Keep this up, and you’ll be an old-ass woman hobbling out of bingo night to babysit.”

“That joke wasn’t funny the first twenty times either.” Horns blared as Calla switched lanes, eager to deposit her brother at the nearest bus stop.

“Oh, I can’t walk home. Not wearing the right shoes,” he said, voice distracted as his phone lit up.

The distance between where the bus dropped him off and his house barely qualified as a walk. She glanced over, expecting to see his I’m fucking with you expression, but he looked perfectly serious as he opened the glove box, withdrew a pick she didn’t realize was in the car, and started fixing his hairnet-head.

“You’re wearing sneakers,” Calla said blankly.

“For jumping,” Dre corrected. “Not walking.”

Her mouth dropped open to deliver a stinging comeback until she noticed how fast he pulled the comb through his hair, the crease marring his brow.

“Hey,” she said. “Everything okay?”

“Super-duper.”

His bleakness had Calla skipping the bus stop and cutting a left, winding through red cedars and Dre’s neighborhood. Her crappy windshield wipers squeaked ineffectually with each swipe, smearing the rain worse.

“‘You like Krabby Patties, don’t you . . . ?’” she asked lightly. Hard to hold onto a black mood when you pictured SpongeBob’s smug face when he called Squidward on his bullshit. They’d watched the episode many times, tucked up on the couch. Quoting the dialogue made Calla think of spicy pickles. And laughter. And home.

“‘Squidward,’” he said, the answer teasing a smile. “Roberto’s been acting weird. I don’t know, he just . . . holy shit,” Dre breathed as they approached his house. The fog was so thick they could barely see the porch. The remodeled Craftsman held four apartments, one of which he shared with his roommate, Roberto.

She parallel parked. Turned the dial for heat and got a halfhearted puff of cold air. “Maybe you should come over,” she said, trying for casual.

“Nah. I need to sleep.”

“Then spend the night. Play video games with the boy. Whatever Roberto’s doing probably isn’t—”

“I said no,” he said, his tone a verbal slap. “Jamie would be home right now if you at least pretended to listen.”

Calla flinched. The check-engine light blinked in alarm, a red warning only she could see as Dre shot out of the car and disappeared into the mist.

A headache pinched behind her right eye. She’d somehow fucked up with both her brothers. Her boss had left three (!) voicemails and several texts crowded with exclamation points. The gnarled traffic was further indictment of Calla’s inadequacies as a sister, guardian, and employee.

When she pulled into the weeds alongside her lopsided duplex, she was nearly too tired to get out of the car. Her foot slid out of her blasted left boot and sank into marshy dead leaves.

A rat watched her with amusement while enjoying the spoils of her garbage can. The little fuckers had pulled out her trash—in broad daylight; there was just no decency anymore—scattering it around the slope of the parking lot. Wonderful. Now her neighbors would know she was the kind of adult who ate Lunchables.

She climbed the four steps up her walkway, swiveled to the final three. Her front door was in sight. Red wine. She wanted a glass of wine and some popcorn.

An old Asian woman was waiting on her doorstep. “Calla,” Mrs. Vu said, one hand lost in the depths of a thick flowery shawl, one hand gripping a crisp navy umbrella advertising some prescription drug. Her tiny round glasses were foggy, but Calla knew from experience her eyes were sharp.

“My photo albums are missing,” Mrs. Vu said.

“Okay.”

“They’re missing from my car.” Mrs. Vu tilted her head. “My window is broken.”

“I’m . . . sorry?”

“I saw Jamie hanging around here this morning.” Mrs. Vu’s gaze wandered to Calla’s stoop.

“Well, this is where the bus stops.”

“He was here this morning. My car was broken into this morning.” Mrs. Vu’s brows lifted with significance.

“Jamie doesn’t want your photo albums. Come back if your stereo goes missing.” Calla put the key in the lock. It’s not that she didn’t think Jamie was capable of theft; she did. He just wouldn’t steal if it didn’t benefit him.

“My photos are very valuable. I know about eBay.”

“This sounds like a family issue, Mrs. Vu.” She stepped inside, her foot sliding out of her boot again. She left the shoe outside and closed the door behind her.

Mrs. Vu knocked once. Twice.

Calla let her bag fall on the thin carpet. That couldn’t be great for her laptop, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She’d bought her beautiful sectional fresh from IKEA, and it had been her most expensive furniture purchase ever. Paired with a graphic pink-and-black spiraling rug and fuchsia throw cushions, it used to fit perfectly in her one-bedroom apartment when she’d lived alone. The throw pillows were now missing or dead, and the rug had to be replaced twice due to Jamie’s cigarette burns, though he insisted he didn’t smoke.

Calla still had the couch, but it didn’t fit into her new home, the one she’d gotten because Jamie needed a bedroom. She’d had to banish his boy stink from the living room for her own sanity. The couch was too large for the living room, dominating the space like a sullen bully, leaving a sliver to maneuver around. She snaked her way with practiced ease between the couch and the blue coffee table, climbing the unnecessary two steps into the kitchen.

She reached under her sweaterdress, unhooking her wisteria-purple bra and working it around and out through her sleeves with a sigh that bordered on orgasmic. She dropped it carelessly on the floor, where it nestled with an identical sweat-stained busted bra.

The destined glass of wine was finally hers when there was another knock on the door.

She could pretend she wasn’t home. Be done with this whole day. Only Calla was a guardian now; guardians couldn’t afford to ignore knocks at the door and chimes of the cell phone. It could be about her errant charge, and there she’d be with a glass of wine and a dick in her hand when the cops came. She opened the door.

It was another neighbor, bearded Matt from next door. He was streaked in Seahawks war paint, damp from the rain, blue and green oozing down his good-natured face to his curly beard. His jersey strained over his round middle.

“Hey, Calla!” Matt smiled brightly. “I have tickets for the next Seahawks game but can’t make it. I wanted to drop them off for Jamie. Thought he’d get a kick out of going.”

Calla gulped wine. Boys who brought drugs to school did not get to watch the Seahawks. She was pretty sure that was solid parenting. If Jamie was going anywhere, it could only be to a remote lake where he could watch the water and think about what a shit he was.

But if she told Matt no, he’d ask questions, waylay Jamie with concern, linger by her mailbox to express fresh apologies. He would do so in great detail many times, projecting neighborly earnestness until Calla detached his head from his shoulders.

“Email me the details. Thanks so much, Matt.” She started to close the door, but he stuck his foot in it.

“Nothing like a live game. The energy is so different.” Matt pumped his fist. “You free next Saturday? We’re doing Star Wars trivia at my place. Going all in with costumes. You’d make a really exotic Leia.”

Calla drank more wine. She had to live here, and she needed an ally. The last time she’d clashed with Mrs. Vu, a broken washing machine had mysteriously appeared next to Calla’s trash can, earning a fine from the city. Two of Jamie’s beloved outdoor plants disappeared (RIP, Nate and Yolanda). Coincidence? Calla thought not. These folks were Portland-passive and Seattle-aggressive, capable of shockingly annoying feats.

Matt had to stay on her team and continue to not call the cops when Jamie played music too loudly. “I would just drag you down. I’ve never seen Star Wars.”

His smile brightened to an impossible wattage. “Perfect! Next Thursday and Friday, we’re actually going to be rewatching the movies.”

She was getting outmaneuvered by the short Paul Bunyan next door, and that could not stand. “That sounds fun. Ugh, I have work. I wish I had . . . those days free. Thanks, though. Jamie and I were just talking the other day about how welcome you’ve made us feel to the neighborhood.”

Matt leaned comfortably against the doorway as though this awkward conversation happening while he stood in the rain was all he’d ever dreamed of. “Well, I think everyone should feel welcome. I told you, right? My cousin is a cop in Iowa, and I told him that what was happening right now is just—”

“I’ve got something in the oven. Gotta run, thanks.” Calla tightened her grip on her wineglass and closed the door.

She slid gratefully into her deep sectional. This couch had absorbed her tears and late-night make-outs, spilled drinks, and lost fries. It cradled her wallet for safekeeping and smelled only a little like feet. This couch was her goddamn sanctuary. Her phone lit up again with a new email from her boss, question marks blotting out the subject header, but she couldn’t bring herself to look.

How had she gotten here, collapsed on a couch in a strangely designed duplex, all red wine–stained teeth and dry hair? She’d moved to Seattle for college to get as far the fuck away from her mother as possible, had stayed for the mountains, water, Subarus. To her delight, Dre eventually followed. Just a year ago, she’d been happily if drunkenly painting a lioness while Jade made an ass of herself on America’s Next Top Model and Dre sketched Black Batman and narrated.

It would be easy to point a finger at the lawyer who’d called her, asking if she would consider taking custody of Jamie. But the roots of this wreckage went deeper than that, back, back, back to the beginning.

All the way back to when she’d had beads that clacked, before she was aware of how fucked up her home was, before she was aware of how she was hurting and how she would hurt again.

Back to when Jamie was a baby and insisted on sleeping directly on her chest.

Eight-year-old Calla thought it was sweet at first, clasping her baby brother close at bedtime. He had a perfect curly coal-black Afro. The soft spirals gently tickled her chin. He had that smell, that new-baby smell, talc and powder and milk and dancing pandas. Her brand-new brother had chosen her, jabbed a baby fist of approval in her direction. She sang bits of garbled songs she’d heard on her mother’s radio, butchering Brian McKnight and Boyz II Men.

Unfortunately, Calla was a dedicated side sleeper—this back-sleeping thing was complete bullshit. She was terrified she would doze off and crush him, squash him between the blankets and her hip. She spent long muddled hours squinting up at the ceiling, groping for diapers and wipes and bottled breast milk, the weird bulb that helped him clear his nose.

She tried depositing him gently in his crib—that age-old ballet women decades older than her were still figuring out. She remembered the quiet slide of her socks across the hardwood floor, every second tense as she lowered him down, carefully, carefully. His eyes would shoot open in accusation, tiny fists flailing, and she would snatch him back, hold him close before his tantrum could begin in earnest. Pad back to her twin bed in resignation. Let him sprawl happily across her chest. He shit on her in gratitude.

She’d met Jamie before, of course she had. Her parents had brought him home from the hospital, a shockingly adorable newborn with a full head of hair, swaddled in thin blue fabric. Her mother had tipped her arms down so that Calla could see, could stroke one achingly soft cheek.

But lying there, back at square one with a velvet anchor weighing her down, Calla thought this was her first real introduction to her little brother. She returned to this moment often. Not just that one, but so many fleeting moments of cuteness.

When he was four and spoke only in a made-up language, and how she’d been kind of sad when he’d grown out of it. When he was seven and refused to take off his spaceship-themed footie pajamas. She would babysit while reading a book, refusing to let him leave her peripheral vision. He rode his red tricycle obediently four sidewalk squares in one direction, then four more the other way, never even trying to sneak to the fifth. Back when all he wanted to do was eat pickles and watch SpongeBob, or bake cookies and watch Die Hard, and making him happy was easy.

“Yippee ki-yay!” he would whisper-shout from under the bed, in closets, behind the sofa. “Yippee ki-yay, mothers!”

Dre was equally capricious in childhood and adulthood. He’d prep the occasional bottle, but he might also be watching honeybees outside. He might come over, cook dinner for Jamie while Calla worked late, but also the game could be on. She should be used to his push-pull, only it still stung. She should have read the signs the morning Jamie moved in, only the bullshit that followed still felt surprising.

She’d gotten a ticket on her way to pick him up. The light was red, and her car was stopped, but the stupid camera snatched her plate anyway. She assumed it also ticketed stray cats and bold squirrels. The ticket was in vain; his bus was late. Dre and Calla pushed soggy waffles around at Denny’s until the bus straggled in. Jamie had swiped at the sleep at the corners of his eyes, toting a small suitcase spotted virulent pink. So little to build his new life with.

After another breakfast at Denny’s, she’d settled Jamie on the couch and folded herself back into bed.

“Calla,” Jamie had whispered.

“Mmmm.”

“I took a shit. It smells really bad in the bathroom. Don’t go in there a while.”

“Mmmm.”

Calla burrowed deeper into the blankets. She lingered there a long moment before her eyes opened in alarm.

He’d woken her up to tell her not to go into the bathroom.

She shoved herself out of bed, her footsteps leaden as she investigated.

Jamie had gone through a phase where he would creep into her bed because he was afraid of the dark. He was too afraid to walk down the hallway to the bathroom, but not too afraid to walk down the hallway to Calla’s bedroom. He would climb into bed, push away her stuffed animals. He would piss in her bed, leave her sleeping in his wet puddle to find Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Adventure Time.

The kind of kid who pisses the bed with her in it does not grow into the kind of teenager to warn her about a stinky bathroom. She opened the door and was bowled over by smoke.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Jamie said, when she roused him from the sectional.

Calla had to strain to see the little boy in the footie pajamas, who had ostensibly been eaten. There were traces of that boy in the thick curl of his hair and reluctant dimples. But that’s it. He was tall now, strong now, and honestly kind of a dick.

She made him sit down for this lecture. “Day one, and you smoke in the bathroom.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Then why does it smell like a Black & Mild? Why is the fan on?”

He shrugged. “My shit just smells like smoke. It’s bacteria.”

“Really?” Her mouth wanted to twitch into a smile, but she held firm. “Bacteria makes you crap out smoke and ectoplasm?”

He barked a laugh.

“It’s not funny.”

“It’s kind of funny,” he’d said, blinking those eyes at her, her eyes, but better.

They had Daddy’s eyes, wide and innocent. But on Calla, they were half-blind, requiring Coke-bottle glasses or contact lenses. Jamie wore them beautifully, with perfect vision.

There was no justice in the world. They both had middling-brown skin, but hers was dotted with freckles where his was luminous and smooth. He was tall and slim. She was short and broad. Looking at Jamie was like looking at the version of herself she was supposed to be and had fucked up somehow. A version that was taller, thinner, sharper.

When she had learned that Jamie needed a new home, that their mother was officially an unfit parent, she hadn’t thought much about what it would mean to be caring for a fifteen-year-old. She’d been thinking of Peter Parker from Spider-Man. He would have greasy pimples and struggle to make eye contact with the cute girl at the adjacent locker.

Instead, her baby brother somehow had cultivated more sexual experiences than Calla herself, and she’d done Mardi Gras twice. He was a black Casanova, smooth-spoken and athletic. She wanted to punch him in the clear skin of his unreasonably beautiful fucking face.

Her sistering/mothering wasn’t cutting it. He was doing drugs in school. Selling.

At least it was Friday. She should try to calm down. Make dinner, take a hot shower. Light candles, take deep breaths, think about her next move. She refilled her glass and picked up her phone to harass Jamie. She couldn’t sleep without him home.

She didn’t see the shadow pressed against the window, the fingers that curled over the glass.

CHAPTER THREE

JAMIE

THE BABY

Jamie was floating, and it was a blessing. He sprawled languidly on the floor at his friend Rashad’s spot. Mephistopheles, Rashad’s chubby tuxedo cat, was nowhere in sight, but the dirt-brown carpet was sprinkled with used cat litter seeping from a bag of trash.

If Jamie was sober, he would find the mess deeply troubling. Luckily, he was beyond fucked up. It softened the world, faded the kitty litter into flecks of sparkling quartz. It was even pretty, in the right light. Jamie had figured out the secret: the world was sweeter, easier, when he was fucked up.

Speakers blasted the shitty mixtape of a friend of a friend, an incoherent Auto-Tune croon. Jamie had rhymes that were ten times better, muscular rap that actually had something to say, except he couldn’t think through the steps to put his songs on just now. There were girls here; in particular, there was a very hot girl with a blunt pixie cut capped around a creamy round face.

Jamie was fucked up, so he was half in love. That was quite a bit; Jamie’s love was stingy. He loved in dimes and quarters, never the whole bill. But tonight, he was no match for the half sleeve of watery hibiscus flowers dancing up her arm. She smelled good, of something light that made him think of sheets fluttering crisply on a clothesline.

Her nails were brash—red ombre flames—but her touch was charmingly hesitant.

Jamie wanted to tell her it was okay. He would not make her come tonight because he was too tired to do the work, but he would make her laugh. Hold her close. Kiss the tip of her nose and run his fingers through her silken hair. He’d tell her she’s more beautiful without it when they discover her makeup smeared on the pillow, and make sure the coast is clear when she wants to leave but can’t find her bra.

Tonight would be great; morning was the problem. He would probably wake up sober, and then he would remember everything was awful, and he wouldn’t text her. He would hear his mother’s voice screaming at him, the despicable things she’d said that crawled into his skin, through his ears and mouth, carving him hollow to make room for poison.

In the morning, he would deal with Calla. He’d have to pretend to take her seriously while she recited parenting tips she found online, even though she’d probably be wearing one of her socks and one of his, sticking her face in the plume of steam over her tea because she thought it was good for the pores.

Someone nudged Jamie’s leg. He glanced up to find Rashad behind him on the couch. Rashad was a giant: tall, thick, wide. People sometimes asked him for his autograph, assuming a black guy that big, his ear winking with a rock that size, must be a famous athlete.

Rashad switched on a blocky strobe light. Jamie’s vision spliced into white and black, white and black as his friends stop-motioned their way through grinding and smoking and drinking and touching.

The hot girl smiled in the white; her grin vanished in the black. She was closer in the white, a single intake of breath in the black. Her mouth was narrow and glossy, but Jamie didn’t lean in. She could come to him. Girls came to him. And she did, that flame-tipped hand creeping up his thigh. Jamie stroked her cheek, met the dark oil of her eyes.

The moments in between counted more than the kisses themselves. In here, Jamie could live gilded by promise, the moment before things went gold with chemistry or coal blue with disappointment. This one would be gold; he was sure of it.

His phone buzzed. Maneuvering it out of his pocket was a long dance. It was Calla. He let the phone slide from his grip. He didn’t want to talk to his sister right now, didn’t want her bringing reality back into focus.

The world was punched black, and the hot girl’s scent changed. It slid from sunshine and windblown linens into rot, into marshy dead things.

His vision was dazzled white.

Her cheek split under the gentle press of his fingers, his thumb slipping into something mealy and hot in her chin. The curve of her pretty moon face sealed close around his hand. She smiled flirtatiously like nothing was happening, like the space under that smile wasn’t a scrawl of red and Jamie’s flesh.

He gagged at the feel of it, the itch and squelch and warmth.

No. No.

Jamie tried to yank his hand back. The flesh squirmed under his fingers like steaming spaghetti, and her skin glowed around his hand, and none of this could be happening.

His fingers began to burn. White. Black. White. Black.

Small dark fingers climbed over his, pressing his hand down. A baby’s hand, a child’s hand, locking him in place with a steel grip, the fingers surprisingly calloused. Holding him. Controlling him.

“Get the fuck off me!” Jamie levered up a foot to her chest and kicked. Hard.

His hand finally slid free, striped in red tendons and pale bits of skin that made his stomach revolt. The girl shot backward into the overflowing garbage bags, yellow loops stretched hopelessly far above its contents. Glass crunched. Someone screamed.

The lights came on. His friends’ heads were sparks and blotches, faces smudged by spots. But the girl was very clear. Someone was helping her up, picking pale leftover noodles from her tank top. Her face was perfect save for a budding bruise along her jaw in the shape of his fingers.

Jamie looked at his hands. They were clean.

“What the fuck, Jay?” Rashad slurred. “What the . . . what?”

That was the second time someone had said that to him today, and Jamie honestly didn’t know. His hand was still humming, and he knew with a certainty what the inside of that girl’s face felt like. There wasn’t enough weed in the world to make him hallucinate that or forget its sizzling meaty texture.

Rashad shoved Jamie into the wall, his arm pressing against his neck, his breath heady with vodka.

“Get off me.” Jamie strained against his friend. Drunk or sober, Rashad had a hundred pounds on Jamie.

“Why did you do that?” Rashad demanded.

“My hand—She—” Jamie hissed out a breath. People were staring, and there was more than one phone pointed squarely in their direction. “I need some air.”

“You fucking get outside.” Rashad hauled him to the front door, shoved him to the hallway. “You better get your shit together for tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. Fuck.

Rashad took a massive step over the threshold, closing the door behind him. Anyone sane would have backed away slowly. When a guy the size of Rashad has that particular look, emanated that special brand of menace, you inch away, eyes on the ground.

But Jamie had known Rashad when he was a string bean; they’d been on the wrestling team, smirking at each other over black spandex. He’d known Rashad when the boy had a mouthful of metal braces with gummy green bands. They’d smoked their first stolen joint together. Once, when Rashad had a bad spate of acne, Jamie had thrifted a bunch of products from Calla’s special drawer. They’d spent the night smoking and trying various face masks, purifying clay, and exfoliating sugar and clarifying goops of pomegranate. To help cheer up Rashad’s grandmother after her fall, Jamie had helped Rashad wash, blow-dry, and style her hair with satin bows. It was not possible for Jamie to be intimidated by that stretch of history.

“You want me to tell everyone Jay Williams choked?” Rashad poked Jamie’s chest, a tap from a bear. “Is that what’s happening here? You gonna take your janky ass home and tuck CeeCee into bed?”

Rashad wasn’t supposed to bring up Calla’s night terrors, the screams he’d heard from her room during sleepovers. Just like Jamie wasn’t supposed to mention how Rashad had wiped his grandma’s ass for weeks.

Jamie grabbed Rashad’s shirtfront, gave him a quick shake. “Keep my sister’s name out of your mouth.”

Rashad pushed him away, swaying on his feet, head lolling. “Wait. Why are you starting shit right now?”

Jamie bristled. “You came at me. You’re lucky we’ve been friends for so long or I would have laid you up.”

He wished everything would stop spinning. The strobe light crept under the door, black and white flashes peppering their feet.

Rashad’s lip curled with derision or disappointment. “You’re trying to get out of this.”

The party thumped behind the closed door, the air stale with weed and compressed hot breath. The hallway was empty, the neighbors fuming silently or gone. The carpet was a faded yellow beneath Jamie’s boots, and there was a hole punched in the wall next to Rashad’s front door. Jamie remembered punching the hole. He did not recall why.

“I’m not trying to get out of anything,” Jamie protested. He’d look at Rashad as soon as the dizziness ebbed. Make his friend understand.

“This was your idea. If you back out now—”

“No one’s backing out,” Jamie snapped. “It’s just been a weird night. What, I’m not allowed to have a bad day now, Raj?”

Rashad’s eyebrows drew together. “You kicked a girl, Jay. What. The. Fuck. You know she’s riding with us tomorrow. There are zero circumstances where it’s okay for you to fucking hit a girl, and when that same girl knows certain details about both of us—it’s a really fucking bad idea. So I’m asking you again, nigga, because this is the last time we’re having this conversation: You good?”

Jamie felt hot. He wondered if Rashad could see his sweat, his pools of doubt. The sensation that had washed over him was the bad kind of déjà vu, the sort that felt like a warning. An intense dread that he was touching this girl, partying with these people when he should have taken his ass home and stayed there.

His throat clogged when he tried to think through an explanation Rashad wouldn’t chalk up to a drug-induced hallucination.

“I’m good,” Jamie said, the lie sour as vomit.

“You sure?” Rashad craned his head down to push into Jamie’s space. To Jamie’s befuddled brain, it looked sinuous and slick, a snake unwinding. Maybe Jamie was hypnotized. That would explain everything: the girl, her face, his hand, the small fingers threading through his.

Jamie heaved, doubling over against the wall. He spit up bile and tequila.

“I gotta say,” Rashad said when Jamie recovered, “this ain’t inspiring confidence.”

Anger didn’t have to be reasonable, and Jamie welcomed its burn. Rashad didn’t get to judge him. If Jamie was a fuckup, so was Rashad. They were here together, in this ratty hallway, in the streets and all the rest. Jamie wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I’m good.”

Things were gathering in big loops, overriding his reason and tightening his fists. The girl, the hand, the face, CeeCee, Rashad. Tomorrow. God, tomorrow. He had to leave. He had to leave before he fought for control the only way he knew how: throwing a punch.

He stumbled, found his feet. “Tell that girl . . . tell that girl I’m sorry.”

“You know she goes by Alice. Tell her yourself. And if you’re gonna pull this bullshit, don’t bother showing up. We don’t need you,” Rashad slurred, going back inside. There was a burst of hot clouded air and peals of laughter before he slammed the door and left Jamie alone in the hallway.

Jamie jammed his fingers in the crooks of his armpits, rubbing warmth into them. Like that was news. Like everyone in his life wasn’t determined to show how little they needed him.

A part of him argued that he needed to go back in, find Alice. She had to have felt his fingers inside her skin. A bigger part, that tough scaled hide of self-preservation, shut the idea down fast, got him walking away. He took the stairs, climbed past a rusted bicycle. The narrow walls were cheerfully defaced by overlapping graffiti, sprays and markers and dicks and hearts. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a faded green chalk drawing, a little boy holding a rope. Jamie decided to take the stairs three at a time. There wasn’t any fucking air in here, that was the problem. It was musty, thick with dust, old weed, spilled liquor.

He erupted through the exit into blankets of mist. The night was cold and damp, the curb packed bumper to bumper. He eased down between an old Jetta and a shiny Audi, thumbed out his phone with a shaking hand. He didn’t want to look up, didn’t want to see if the mist would fuck with him, too.

He couldn’t go home. Calla would be beyond pissed he’d run away, that he’d blown her off all night. She didn’t head to bed until she knew he was safe, and Jamie was an asshole for keeping her up. But to text her that he was okay was to open the line of communication, pave the way for a conversation he did not want to have. Calla would have him believe the only way to keep her nightmares at bay was if he stayed home, but she still woke up screaming sometimes when he was. She would tear out of bed and check on him on the futon, hand trembling as she called Dre.

Jamie texted, fingers numb.

CHAPTER FOUR

DRE

THE MIDDLE CHILD

You can’t be named Dre without channeling, at least some of the time, hip-hop mogul Dr. Dre. Dre had to produce his own mood to upgrade to the good doctor, which he was currently doing with great success.

It was his time. He had decent leftovers—Alfredo pasta from the other night; a little basil would make it good as new—and a fresh haircut. He had a new pair of kicks, a barely creased pair of retros he’d gotten for a steal.