Tory and I laid low outside my crib the next day after what went down with the Silicon Cogs. Despite it hitting seventy degrees, the black hoodie over my head was necessary to hide from our enemies. Tory, though, had on a bright ass yellow outfit that anyone could spot.

“I hate gacha games, bro,” he said while pressing his thumbs on his phone screen. We sat on the small step outside my front door. “My luck is ass.”

“Another one-star review is comin’, ain’t it?”

He nodded with a smirk. I laughed and grabbed the headphones around my neck, tempted to put them on, but the thought of not hearing someone pull up on us scared that idea away.

“Yo, you wanna chill inside?” I asked. My paranoia was kicking in heavy after seeing a black car with tinted windows ride through the parking lot of the complex.

“And sweat like balls? Nah man, you gotta get’cha AC workin’ before I go up in there again.”

I brushed his comment off with a slick suck of my teeth before turning my head and seeing Marcus jogging through the complex. He spotted us and sprinted over, pulling out his wired earbuds.

“My boy out here lookin’ ripped,” Tory complimented him with a dap. The praise was well deserved; I could see his muscle and chiseled chest through his white tracksuit.

He dapped me up next before saying, “How y’all livin’?”

“We coolin’,” Tory replied.

“That’s what’s up. It’s just y’all two out here?”

He looked over at Ashanti’s place, no doubt thinking she was going to come out any minute for his satisfaction. He was obviously still feeling her, but it’s whatever. I wasn’t gonna get jealous or anything like that.

“Nah, Ashanti ain’t around,” Tory informed him. “She had to help her mom with somethin’. Ain’t that what she texted you, Z?” I slowly turned my head to Tory with wide eyes. That was a big lie. “Marcus, you know that’s his girl, right? They a whole vibe right now.”

Bro, seriously?

Marcus laughed, probably thinking it was a joke. He surveyed me and asked, “Straight up? That’s all you?” I had to swallow the lump in my throat. The look he gave was the same stare he’d give his opponent whenever he wrestled.

“I mean, like, we close, you know? Like…we gettin’ there. Ain’t nothin’ official-official, though.” I stumbled over my words, moving my hands wildly. Tory’s face dropped in his palm, disappointed by my fumble.

“Anyway,” he picked up the conversation, “you got any matches or events comin’ up, Marcus?”

I thawed out of Marcus’s icy glare after he looked at Tory and smiled, saying, “Somethin’ like that. I got a call this mornin’ from a wrestlin’ scout in the big leagues. He saw enough of my work to wanna take me out the independent circuit and sign me for a couple shows this summer.”

Both Tory and I stood up to dap him in celebration. “Damn, bro. That’s sick,” Tory congratulated him. “So, like, you gonna be on TV and all that? Doin’ promos and jumpin’ off cages?”

“I don’t know ‘bout all that yet. I’m probably gonna be used as enhancement talent for some established wrestler to beat up on until I make a name for myself and get out of jobber status.”

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Confused, Tory tilted his head to the side. “Man, I don’t know ‘bout any of that, but we gotta celebrate.”

“Cool, you got it. I’m gonna be celebratin’ later with my mom. This is the first thing to make her smile since my brother got locked up earlier this year.”

“I hear that, bro,” I said to him. “We can join in on that celebration later if it’s indoors.”

“Nah, we active right now,” Tory jumped in, a bit more excited than I preferred.

Marcus shrugged. “Aight, let’s head down to the pizza shop by the waterfront. Their slices hit different.”

The two of them started walking out of the complex, but I didn’t move. I almost couldn’t, to be honest. Just thinking what the Silicon Cogs might do if they saw us was enough for me to stay hidden until we had a plan of defense at least.

Tory looked back and saw my hesitation. He turned around and approached me, asking, “Yo, you good?”

“You know we on strike three, right?” I reminded him. He didn’t seem all that worried. “The Cogs could be lurkin’ on any block.”

“Z, we good, aight? We got superpowers, bro. We charged up, they ain’t.”

“Y’all busy?” Marcus asked a few feet away. “We could do this another time then. I ain’t gon’ die if we don’t go today.”

“Nah, we comin’,” Tory answered him before addressing my concerns. “I promise you we straight. Let’s just chill and be easy. C’mon.”

This ain’t gonna end well.

☾☼☽

While sitting on the benches outside of the pizza shop, Tory and Marcus got into one of their intense debates while we waited for our orders. This time, it was the argument that started it all: Marvel versus DC.

I laughed as the two went back and forth, appreciating moments like this. Things would be weird as hell if they ever agreed on something. No matter what happens in the future, we were all gonna be bros for the rest of our lives.

After eating and discussing our hobbies, we got up from our seats and crossed the street to walk the long grassy pathway that not only led back to the complex, but other restaurants and festivities. Suddenly, a black van rode up in front of us with five dudes hopping out.

One of them, was Miguel.

He was a bull seeing red with bloodshot eyes. “You’re dead,” were the only words I heard out of his mouth before I quickly placed my headphones on. There was no time for hesitation.

Tory zipped toward the gang members with lightning-fast speed, using his now electrified hands to strike and take down two of them. The others headed for Marcus, who handled himself well with grappling techniques and hard punches of his own.

And then there was the standoff between me and Miguel.

Like yesterday, people began to fill the area with excitement and suspicion. Miguel lunged at me with reckless punches that failed to land due to the contemporary R&B song blessing me with evasiveness and finesse. He continued his pointless aggression until I skipped to the next track in my rotation: a rap song that was gonna turn his lights out.

With a single blow to his mid-section, Miguel spat out saliva with repeated coughs to catch his breath. Fueled with rage, he continued to come at me, missing each time until he finally grazed the left side of my head with a fist that knocked off one half of my headphones.

Angered, I threw a strong punch that rammed into his face, sending him back a few feet before his body dropped to the ground. One of the men Marcus laid out earlier got back on his feet with his gun pulled, pointing it directly at me. Despite my power, the view of the barrel gave me cold feet, but it was Tory who saved my life with a kunai rope that darted out of his hand and pierced the thug’s back, shifting his aim after Tory tugged the rope.

The gun, however, still went off.

Everything after was in slow motion. My head turned to place my eyes on a disturbing sight. Marcus had been shot in the back.

Blood painted his attire as he looked at me with a petrified expression, his body collapsing in the grass. The splatters of his wound created a crimson garden where he now laid, unable to voice a coherent sentence while knocking on death’s door.

I did not want to lose a friend.

My pleads were louder than the horrid hollers of those watching nearby. “No. Marcus, no. Fight this, bro. You have to fight through this.”

Nothing. No response. Not even a glimmer in his eyes that were glazed over with a focus on the blue sky above.

I did not want to lose a friend.

Tory’s voice slithered into the crowd of screams. He was on the phone with 911. It took a minute for me to look away from Marcus, but when I did, the sight of Miguel wobbling through the throng of people to escape made me want to lose all control.

But no, now was not the time for vengeance. It was the time for mourning.

Why did I have to lose a friend?