“I love you.” I kiss Grams on the forehead and ease away from her bed in the living room. The window is open and the white curtains billow in with the warm breeze.

Grams is awake and while she holds my hand, there’s absolutely no recognition in her blank hollow eyes. She watches me as if I’m a specter. Something she’s not sure is really there or what it is.

I think of the night I came home from the hospital and hug that memory tight. That was the last time she remembered any of us. The last time she remembered herself.

“All the drugs will be out of the house and I’ve already paid the nurses for three months of service. After that, sell the house and place her in one of those nice nursing homes. I checked the market, and homes here go fast. Respectable neighborhood and all.”

I wink and my uncle Mac tries to grin, but that’s a hard feature for such a weathered face.

“Even still, visit her daily in the nursing home. Read to her, even if it has to be from the Bible. Make sure they’re taking care of her. If you piss or drink the money away or don’t take care of her, Isaiah will know and then I will know and then you’ll be very happy I can’t reach you, but know someday I will find you.”

Mac doesn’t flinch at my threat, only gives a dry laugh. He’ll take care of her. If I can do what I am doing, he’ll do this for me.

I study the old man in front of me. The two of us may have made different choices in our lives, but we’re the same type of person. A bit of good and a bit of bad.

“Take care of you, too,” I say.

“I will,” he answers. “Same to you.”

I nod and drink in the house. The peeling wallpaper. The ever persistent grandfather clock that rings hourly to tell me that time is wasting away. The ghosts of memories. The happy times and the sad.

But like always, I don’t have the luxury of time to reminisce. I have a job to do and, as always, I intend to do it.

* * *

Taking a risk, I return to the park at the same time and sure enough, he’s there, the narc, and he appears just as giddy to see me today as he was yesterday. His eyes flicker to the two little girls currently shrieking as they go down the slide with their arms wrapped around each other. He fingers that wedding ring that was absent the night we first met.

At school, a lot of people called me names, said I was evil, labeled me a slut and even a killer. None of it’s true. All of it lies.

I’m not really one thing or another. I’m me. I’m Abby. I’m right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and bad, a hero and a villain, and I’ve been just as capable of truth as I have been lies.

I used to not believe in choices. Thought there was only survival, but I was wrong. I do have a choice and I choose to be me.

To make him comfortable, as comfortable as an out-of-the-closet narc can be with a drug dealer, I sit at the other end of the bench. “Hello. Nice kids and don’t worry, I don’t mess with innocents. I only bite adults and that’s only when provoked.”

The death stare he sends me tells me he’s three seconds away from pulling whatever concealed weapon he’s carrying. “I knew you were the one. The moment you walked away after the Bible verse, I knew I had fucked up. And then you were shot later that night. My captain thought it was coincidence, but he didn’t see the way you smiled.”

I half laugh. “Scared you, didn’t it?”

“You’re too young to be terrifying.”

Yet I am. “Don’t lose sleep over not figuring me out immediately, most people underestimate me. So here’s the thing, I need you to arrest me.”

He actually twitches and I smile. That nice deadly one he just referenced.

“Not now. Later tonight. At a bar maybe. I have some lose ends I’ll need to tie up first. And it can’t be you. They know you’re a narc. We’ll have to make it all seem legit. Have it happen at a place where people would believe I am selling. And in case you’re wondering I’m not carrying now.”

The narc looks away from me as he leans forward to rest his arms on his knees. He watches his daughters intently and for that I respect him.

“I have to say, this is a first. The dealer asking to be caught. Forgive me if I don’t trust you.”

“Fair enough.” I slouch and kick my legs out. “I’m seventeen and if I don’t get out now, I’m screwed.”

“Then quit. You don’t need me to do that.”

“Seriously? A narc that doesn’t want an arrest?”

“I’m smelling setup.”

I roll my eyes. Who would have thought this would have been so complicated? I’m going to have to sell him on this and sell him big. “I’m Mozart’s daughter.”

Snapped head in my direction.

“See why I can’t just walk away now?”

I can see the thoughts turning in his brain like a hamster in a wheel. “If I arrest you, you’ll go to jail.”

“Juvie,” I correct. “I’m not stupid enough to carry enough to cause real problems for me, just enough to cause the problems I need. But I have some requests that are really demands. I can’t be given bail. I’ve got to stay in and then go straight to juvie.”

“You know how much to carry to get arrested, but not to cause you problems?”

“Arrests and possible punishment—occupational hazards. Always felt it was best to be informed. Like the more you know?”

He does that slow blink that most sane people always do with me. Pity I’m chatting with him so I can be arrested. Otherwise, I’d find this conversation a lot more amusing.