The clock said 7:00 a.m., but Mark was already awake. He always was now.
Seven days. That was all. Seven days since the plane had touched down and _"Welcome to Brookhaven"_ sounded less like a greeting than a verdict. Seven days of sirens slicing through nights that never got quiet, of floors that stayed cold no matter how long he stood on them, of his grandfather's voice threading through his dreams with the same two words: _wake up_.
The room was clean. Mom had made sure of it. _"Clean room, clean head,"_ she said, the way other people said prayers. It was her only defense against a city that felt designed to clutter you.
He rolled out of bed and hit the floor. The wood was cold against his palms.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
His arms shook on the last one but held. Four sit-ups, stomach burning. Three squats, thighs already protesting.
5'7", 130 pounds. Scrawny by Brookhaven standards. Seven days ago, his biggest problem had been a calculus exam. Today, it was surviving until 8 a.m.
The shower came at him hard. American water pressure — violent, impatient. He dressed in the only things that fit: gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt, both worn thin from seven days of rotation. _"After my first paycheck,"_ Mom had promised six days ago, and she'd been working nights at Brookhaven General since day three. _"Bills, Mark. Brookhaven is expensive."_
He hadn't seen her awake in four days. Just notes stuck to the fridge in her surgeon's handwriting. _Don't wait up. Love you. Eat the leftovers._
Brookhaven was supposed to mean _better schools, better future_. That's what she'd told the visa officer, voice steady while she sold the car, while his grandfather stood crying at the gate. Now she was here. In East Brook. Cooking at 7 a.m. as if she could feed the city into submission, as if bacon and eggs might keep it from eating him first.
He smelled it halfway down the stairs — butter hissing in a pan, bacon spitting, the kind of breakfast that didn't belong to this place.
Mary didn't cook. Which meant —
Mom was in the kitchen.
She stood at the stove in a white robe, hair twisted into a bun, face bare. Thirty-six hours awake had carved shadows under her eyes, but her hands were steady. Surgeon's hands. They always were. It was her shoulders that gave her away, drawn up tight like she was bracing for impact.
He stopped in the doorway and just watched. Seven days, and this was the first time he'd seen her _here_. Not rushing out the door with a travel mug. Not collapsing onto the couch still in scrubs. Just… cooking.
He missed her. The thought came sudden and raw, the kind of truth sixteen-year-olds weren't supposed to admit. Not when you'd been the man of the house your whole life.
He stepped in soft. She'd startled two days ago when Mary dropped a pot. _"Hospital, Mark. You see things. You come home and a noise can feel like…"_ She'd never finished the sentence.
"Morning, Mom." He reached past her for the orange juice. "How was work?"
"Morning, baby." Her voice was gravel. Fear and exhaustion ground down to the same sound.
"Work…" She flipped the bacon, and the grease snapped like small gunfire. "This city, Mark. No. It's not like back home. Not even the bad parts we were warned about."
He drank straight from the carton. Cold. Sweet. A small rebellion.
"Last night," she said, and her voice flattened into the tone she used when she was delivering news to families, "I operated. Sixteen-year-old boy. Your age. Arms broken. Legs broken. Four places. _Each bone_, Mark. Four."
She set the spatula down and gripped the edge of the counter until her knuckles bleached white.
"How do they do that to a child?"
Mark froze, the carton halfway to his mouth.
_Sixteen. Four places. Each bone._
He didn't know. Seven days in East Brook had given him fragments, nothing more — Connor's texts: _That's Blue territory_. Mary last night, whispering through the door: _Saw guys in blue jackets. Watching_.
That was it. That was all he had.
But his stomach dropped anyway, the same way it had when the customs officer stamped his passport and said _"Welcome to Brookhaven"_ and he realized no one in this city knew his name, or cared to learn it.
He capped the juice. Set it down carefully. Put a hand on her shoulder. She felt thinner than she had a week ago, like Brookhaven was carving pieces off her.
"Don't worry, Mom," he said, and tried to make his voice solid, the way a man was supposed to sound. "We'll be fine. We'll make it. That's why we came, right?"
She turned. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep, not from crying. Doctors didn't have time for that.
"Mary, maybe," she whispered. "Middle school has metal detectors. Guards. But Silver High…" Her thumb, cold from the counter, brushed his cheek. "I hear the EMTs, Mark. _'Another one from East Brook.' 'Blue Academy kids.' 'Gang violence.'_"
She said _gang violence_ like it was a disease she couldn't cut out.
"That's why I got you this."
Her hand went into the pocket of her robe and came out holding black metal.
A taser.
Mark's breath caught. "Mom—"
"Hospital gave them out." She pressed it into his palm. "All the women. Doctors. Nurses. The parking garage isn't safe. Another doctor got mugged last week. Cruel people, Mark."
It was heavy. Cold. It felt like the deadbolt he'd slid shut last night after Mary said _"lock the door."_
"Mom, it's expensive. You can't—"
"Stop." The word was gentle, but final. "You and Mary are all I have. You understand?"
He did.
He closed his fingers around it. _Click_ — safety off. _Click_ — safety on. His hands weren't shaking. That surprised him.
"I see," he said.
Because _thank you_ was too small. And _I'm scared_ would break her.
He shoved it into the waistband of his sweatpants. It bulged against his hip. Hakim was picking him up at 8. Fifty-three minutes. He'd have to hide it better.
Mom turned back to the stove. "Eat. You're too thin. Brookhaven will eat you alive if you don't eat first."
She piled his plate — eggs, bacon, toast. More food than they'd eaten in a week back home.
He sat. He ate. He didn't taste any of it.
The taser dug into his leg with every breath.
Seven days ago, he'd been worried about exams.
Now he was in East Brook with a taser in his waistband because a boy his age had been broken in four places.
He didn't know who. He didn't know why.
He only knew his mother's knuckles were white on the spatula.
And 8 a.m. was in less than an hour.
_We'll be fine._
He'd said it. She'd needed it.
It was a lie.
But he ate anyway. Because that's what you did when the world was already lying to you.
You swallowed it down. And got ready for the next punch.
---
The clock read 7:53 when Mark pulled his grandfather's sweater over his head. The bulldog on the back snarled in white thread, teeth bared like a promise or a warning. He hadn't decided which. The black Adidas pants fit better than anything else he owned, the three white lines running down each leg like racing stripes, and the J4s were still too new, too clean for East Brook's sidewalks.
He tugged the hem of the sweater down over his waistband, feeling the hard, unfamiliar shape of the taser press against his thigh. One check was enough. He didn't need to look. The weight of it was its own kind of truth.
Downstairs, the house smelled like coffee and bacon and the ghost of a morning they used to have back home. His mother stood at the counter, her white robe loose around her shoulders, a mug cradled between both hands like she could siphon the warmth straight into her bones. Thirty-six hours without sleep had hollowed the skin under her eyes, but when she looked up at him, something in her face lifted.
"Bye, Mom. I'm heading out," he said, aiming for casual. "Meeting friends."
She blinked. "Wait. You made friends?"
The word _delighted_ didn't cover it. It was relief, pure and sudden, as if she'd been holding her breath since the plane touched down in Brookhaven seven days ago.
"Yeah," Mark said, and was surprised to find himself smiling. "I kinda did. Hakim, Connor, Adrian, Austin."
"That's wonderful," she said, setting her mug down with a quiet _clink_. "Why don't you invite them for dinner sometime? I'd love to meet them."
"Sure." The lie came easy. It had to.
He was out the door before she could see how the word _friends_ sat crooked in his mouth.
The Brookhaven air was cold enough to bite. His phone vibrated in his pocket, just above the taser.
_Connor: yo we at the bodega. 4 blocks. pull up_
Four blocks. He walked. He didn't run — he'd learned, in a week, that running in East Brook drew eyes, and eyes were the last thing he wanted. The taser bumped against his leg with every stride, a steady, secret rhythm that echoed his mother's voice from the kitchen: _Brookhaven will eat you alive._
The bodega appeared at the end of the block like a beacon, and in front of it idled a black Toyota, windows down, engine purring with the kind of confidence that said it belonged to the street.
Connor's arm was already hanging out of the back window, a silver chain bracelet glinting each time he moved. When he saw Mark, his whole face split into a grin. "I see you've finally made it! Come on in, let's go!" he shouted, loud enough to turn heads.
Mark closed the distance and took them in through the glass, the way you'd study a picture before stepping into it.
Hakim sat in the driver's seat, still as a statue. His black dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, a silver cross resting against his skin, and everything about him — from the set of his jaw to the way his hands rested on the wheel — suggested control. In the passenger seat, Austin wore a vest over a button-down, his dress pants creased sharp, his attention fixed not on the car, but on the street beyond it, scanning with the quiet vigilance of someone who expected trouble.
The back door kicked open.
"Yo, come in," Adrian said around a cherry lollipop, the stick jutting from the corner of his mouth. He wore a tight black long-sleeve under a white tee emblazoned with a Golden Azure dragon, its wings spread wide across his chest. His jeans were tattered at the knees, his high-tops scuffed, and he carried himself like a lit fuse. "We need to show you the city before the sun sets."
Mark slid into the seat beside him, with Connor on his other side. The leather was warm, and the car smelled like cologne and cherry candy and something expensive he couldn't name.
Hakim's eyes found his in the rearview mirror. "Yo, Mark," he said, a grin tugging at his mouth. "Make sure those two behave. You're the only responsible one back there."
Adrian popped the lollipop free with an audible _click_ and pointed it at Hakim like a weapon. "That's hurtful," he said, grinning. "But true, I guess."
Connor slung an arm over Mark's shoulders, the weight of it both friendly and anchoring.
The Toyota eased away from the curb, and East Brook began to unspool past the window — graffiti-tagged walls, corner stores with barred windows, kids on bikes weaving through traffic.
Mark didn't relax. He couldn't. The taser was still there, a hard line against his leg, and the word _friends_ still felt like a language he was only just learning to speak.
But for the next few minutes, at least, no one was watching him.
---
The Toyota cut through downtown, and Mark watched Brookhaven unspool past the glass.
Billboards towered over the street, selling phones and soda and a version of the city that didn't smell like exhaust. Street performers held crowds at corners — a man breathing fire, a girl on a violin, three kids spinning on cardboard. Pigeons rolled across the sky in gray waves.
It eased something in his chest. Just a fraction. The taser was still a hard line against his hip, but for the first time in seven days, the city looked like a place people _lived_ in, not just survived.
Thirty minutes in, the scenery shifted.
He saw it in the walls first. The tags changed. Blue Academy's sharp, jagged lettering gave way to something cleaner, looping silver script. _Silver High territory._ Connor had said it in a text once. _That's Blue territory. Don't cross unless you're with us._
They'd crossed.
The streets weren't all that different — same cracked sidewalks, same barred windows — but Mark felt it anyway. A loosening in his shoulders. A breath he hadn't realized he was holding. West Brook. Uptown's edge. Where the EMTs didn't say _another one from East Brook_ as often.
Hakim drove like the car was an extension of his hands. Calm. Certain. The rest of the boys fell into themselves.
Austin had a book cracked open, spine bent. _Theoretical physics_. He turned pages with one hand, eyes never leaving the text, like the car and the city and the rest of them were just background noise.
Connor hunched over his phone, thumbs hammering. Temple Run. The _whoosh_ of coins and the _thud_ of death came in steady bursts. "Man, I swear this game's rigged," he muttered, not looking up.
Adrian was all smirk and thumbs, lollipop shifted to the other cheek. His phone lit up constantly. DMs. Snaps. Girls. He typed back with the lazy confidence of a boy who'd never been told no. "Chill, shorty, I'm busy," he said to the screen, then grinned at nothing.
Mark said nothing. Just watched. The word _friends_ still felt borrowed, but here, with the tags changed and the sun higher, it fit better in his mouth.
Twenty minutes later, the streets thickened. People poured in from every direction — mothers with strollers, old men on benches, teenagers in uniforms and sneakers that cost rent. The air smelled like pretzels and exhaust and cologne. Noise rose: car horns, laughter, music bleeding from storefronts.
Then the mall reared up ahead. Glass and steel and light, too big, too clean, like it had been dropped from a different city.
Hakim eased into a parking space and killed the engine. "We're here."
"Finally," Connor said, already shoving the door open. He spilled out onto the asphalt like he'd been caged.
Austin closed his book. Marked the page with a receipt. Followed.
Adrian slid out last, stretching, lollipop still working.
Mark stayed a second longer. The door hung open. He let it all in — the air, the noise, the sheer _normal_ of it. This place had an aura East Brook didn't. It didn't watch you. It didn't wait for you to bleed. It was just… a mall. Kids with shopping bags. A security guard half-asleep by the entrance. For seven days, he'd been braced. Here, his muscles didn't know what to do with the absence of threat.
"You coming, man?" Hakim was already walking, keys spinning around his finger. The rest of the boys followed, a loose formation that said _we belong here_.
Connor glanced back over his shoulder, grin sharp. "If you are, then keep up, man."
Mark stepped out. The taser bumped his leg.
He followed.
---