Outcast. Joan Johnston

Fuentes arrived at Epifanio’s hospital bedside, her dark brown eyes huge with fear.

      Epifanio had been defiantly silent in response to Ben’s disapproval. But when his grandmother sank into the chair beside his bed, crossed herself, closed her eyes and folded her hands in prayer, the kid started to cry.

      “I’m sorry, Abuela,” he said. “I won’t do it again. I promise.”

      Ben had kept up his visits to the household. And the kid had been true to his word. Two months later, Epifanio was still off drugs, still not part of a gang and still in school. Ben was counting his blessings, but because of constant reminders from Waverly that the good behavior couldn’t last, he was taking things one day at a time.

      “I’m looking forward to having the sergeant as my brother-in-law,” he told the boy.

      “I hate cops,” Epifanio said, his dark eyes narrowed, his lips pressed flat.

      I’m a cop, Ben thought. But he merely met the kid’s gaze.

      Epifanio made a face as he holstered his own plastic gun. “You might wanta watch yourself when you come around to the neighborhood. I been hearing rumors of something bad goin’ down.”

      “Bad like what?” Ben asked.

      Epifanio shrugged. “Just guys lookin’ over their shoulders, you know? That sorta creepy feeling you get when something’s not right?”

      Epifanio might not belong to the 18th Street gang, dubbed the 1-8 by the MPD, but most of the kids in his neighborhood did. It was impossible for him to avoid them entirely.

      As far as anyone in the neighborhood knew, Ben was supposedly a “Big Brother” from the community group Big Brothers and Big Sisters. His ICE connection was a secret. Which was why another ICE agent monitored the activities of the 18th Street gang.

      “Thanks for the heads up,” Ben said.

      Trouble among the gangs hit the streets like ocean waves. Some waves passed without incident. Some devastated everything in their path. He put a hand on Epifanio’s shoulder and said, “You be careful out there, too.”

      “You know I will,” Epifanio said with a cheeky grin.

      “How about that homework?” Ben said.

      The kid grinned. “I ain’t got—”

      “Don’t have—” Ben automatically corrected.

      “Any homework,” Epifanio finished, his grin widening.

      Ben ruffled the boy’s short dreads, something he wouldn’t have done even a few weeks ago. “Then go read a book.”

      As they left the Games & More video arcade, Epifanio teasingly flashed Ben the 18th Street gang sign. He laughed when Ben frowned at the display, then sauntered down the street toward home.

      Ben stuck his suddenly trembling hands deep in his pockets, clenching them into fists. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He had trouble catching his breath.

       He felt the searing heat of the desert. The grittiness of the sand at his collar. The stickiness of blood on his hands.

      “Hey! You gonna stand there all day? We’re late!”

      Ben’s tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He jerked a nod toward Waverly, who’d pulled his Ford Explorer up to the curb.

      “You okay?” Waverly asked, sticking his head out the open window.

      Ben forced himself to take a step. Another step. He crossed behind the car, to give himself time to recover. After all these months, he wasn’t going to let this … shit … get the better of him. The incidents were occurring less often. They were less severe. Surely, at some point, they would stop entirely.

      By the time he got to the front passenger door of the car his hands were out of his pockets and functioning without a visible tremor. As he slipped into Waverly’s Ford he said, “I can’t believe you and Julia are letting Patsy throw you a party, especially this close to the wedding.”

      “Your dad was more of a dad to me than my own. When she suggested it, I didn’t want to say no,” Waverly replied. “Don’t blame me if your stepmother invited your whole family. Julia said just about everybody agreed to come.”

      Ben groaned. “Everybody? My mom and the senator in the same room with my dad and Patsy?”

      “Yep,” Waverly said.

      Ben groaned. Although his parents had divorced twenty years ago, his mother had never forgiven his father for cheating on her with another woman. His father had never forgiven his mother for her lack of understanding and inability to pardon what he claimed was a single lapse in judgment under extraordinary circumstances.

      Both had remarried within a year, and from what Ben could see, both had remarkably successful second marriages. But he was pretty sure his parents had never really stopped loving each other. Otherwise, they wouldn’t still be so miserable in each other’s presence.

      Unfortunately, their continuing attraction made things pretty uncomfortable whenever their respective spouses were in the room. Which meant the party tonight would be a parental minefield, exacerbated by the warfare that went on between the very different children who’d grown up as relatives because of their two second marriages.

      Ben was one of thirteen siblings. And nobody was married yet or had produced offspring.

      Actually, fourteen siblings. He was forgetting the reason for his parents’ divorce, his father’s bastard son, Ryan Donovan McKenzie. Ryan was the result of a one-night stand his father had indulged in with a barmaid, Mary Kate McKenzie. His dad had insisted on acknowledging and supporting his illegitimate son, and invited Ryan to every family gathering. The Black Sheep always declined.

      “How many of the Fabulous Fourteen have said they’re coming?” Ben asked Waverly.

      “The senator’s three kids by his late wife, one of your three brothers, your stepmom’s twins with her ex from Texas and your three half sisters. And, of course, my lovely fiancée. In short, nearly the whole dysfunctional bunch. No surprise, the Black Sheep sent his regrets. Should be a great party.”

      Ben felt his heart take an extra thump. “I can hardly wait.”

      2

      “How are things with the kid?” Waverly asked as he drove out of the ethnically and economically mixed Columbia Heights neighborhood toward elite Chevy Chase, Maryland, where the party was being held. Columbia Heights was becoming gentrified, forcing out the poor, but right now it was still a blend of the crumbling old and the very new. The distance to Chevy Chase wasn’t far in miles, but it might as well have been a trip to the moon, the two worlds were so far apart.

      “The kid is fine,” Ben said as he reached for the rep-striped tie he’d left in the backseat with a jacket earlier in the day.

      “For now.”

      Ben buttoned up his shirt, slipped the tie around his neck and began to tie it. “I’m optimistic.”

      “You’re naive.”

      “You’re jaded.” Ben shoved the Windsor knot up to his throat.

      “Maybe so. We’ll see.”

      Ben hesitated, then said, “Epifanio has heard rumblings that something bad is in the works.”

      “If the kid asks too many questions, they’re going to shut him up. Forever,” Waverly warned. “Don’t push it.”

      “I didn’t ask for information. He volunteered it.”

      “Someday somebody’s going to make the connection between you and ICE and the kid. They’ll start to wonder what he’s told you. And—” Waverly made a ragged sound as he drew his forefinger across his throat.

      “I’m