Read Online Party Girl by Lynne Ewing - Free Book Online

see the bullets coming.
    A back porch light came on. The back door opened and a high, angry voice filled the night air. “Get out of my yard!”
    “Bullshit,” one of the vatos spit.
    Then the man on the porch stepped aside and two pitbulls ran into the yard. Rough shouts filled the backyard, and the vatos disappeared into the night, the dogs growling at their heels. I waited until I thought they were on the next block, then pulled myself up and started walking again, my twisted hand throbbing, the tiny boysenberry thorns digging into my temples.
    When I finally got home, I tiptoed into the kitchen. I didn’t think my heart was ever going to slow down. I wondered if Pocho got away safe.
    I walked into the living room.
    “Kata …”
    A scream struggled up my throat, but I stopped it. Mom was sitting in the dark.
    “What are you doing up?” I said.
    “Waiting for my daughter.” She had never waited up for me before—ever.
    “No men to keep you busy?” I said. The empty space between us had grown too large for her to close it now by staying up late, waiting for me.
    “You found those words pretty easy,” she said. “Maybe you got more you want to say? Go ahead.”
    I shook my head, but I doubt she could see me in the dark.
    She sighed and went to her room. I felt like I was watching her ghost. I wished she had loved me enough to wait up for me back when I needed someone to wait up for me, back when I still had a chance.
    I went to my bedroom. I fell across my bed and drifted into a dream. Night dreams took me places I was always happy to go. But this half-waking dream kept me in my room, tied to the earth and all my troubles. The wind came into my dream, rushing around me with a great softness, whispering to me in a language I didn’t understand, telling me of ancient and secret magic, trying to show me how to lift myself up and away from this life. I struggled to understand the words carried on the wind, but the answers remained lost in the wind’s wailing.
    A sound jolted me fully awake. I sat up in bed, listening, looking for the danger.
    A shadow stood at my window. I sucked air into my lungs, expecting a spray of bullets to blast through the glass. Instead a hand reached up and knocked. I climbed from bed, went to the window, and pushed it open.
    “Hey, Kata,” Pocho said.
    “You made it.”
    “Yeah, I run faster than bullets,” he said, and smiled. “I got nowhere to sleep tonight.”
    “Come in, then,” I said.
    He swung his leg over the sill and pulled himself up and into the room. I closed the window and turned on the lamp on my nightstand.
    Pocho sat on the edge of my bed, the springs sagging under his weight. His eyes looked blank and sad. He took off his shoes and let them drop on the floor. I lay on the bed and pulled the covers over me.
    “You knew Raul wasn’t the one who shot Ana,” I said.
    He nodded and took off his Pendleton and T-shirt. Tattoos covered the hard muscles on his back and arms.
    “You took me to kill the wrong guy,” I said.
    “No,” Pocho said. “I took you to the right one. I loved Ana. I did. You know? She never let me touch her, and then she goes off with some vato from another neighborhood. Raul’s the one I wanted dead as soon as I heard.”
    “You should have blasted him yourself, then. It was wrong to send me.”
    “No, I couldn’t. If you blasted him, people would think he killed Ana. If I did him, they’d believe the story and think Ana loved him and I was jealous. I wanted the secret to die with him.”
    “Who told you, anyway?”
    “Amelia.”
    “The little bitch. Don’t you mess with her.”
    “She caught Ana with Raul,” Pocho said. “She knew about it but didn’t tell me until after the funeral. Said she’d tell me about Ana if I let her in. She said you were keeping her out.”
    “She doesn’t know what’s up.”
    “Maybe I’ll recruit her.” He said it like a challenge.
    “Don’t mess with her,” I repeated. “Out of