I turned thirty shades of red while Brit told her dad that she’d convinced me to take her to see a movie after dinner, some chick flick. Francis clapped me on the back. “Better you than me, son,” he said, and then we were in my car, about to make a night of it.

Brit was like a live wire, buzzing in the passenger seat. She couldn’t stop talking; she couldn’t stop asking questions: Where were we going? Who would we target? Had I been there before?

The way I figured it, either tonight went well and that earned me Brit’s undying respect, or tonight went poorly and her father broke my neck for putting her in danger.

I took her to an abandoned parking lot near a hot dog stand that was pretty popular with faggots, who sometimes met here to hook up in the bushes behind. (Seriously, though, could there be any greater cliché than gay guys meeting at a wiener stand? They deserved to be beaten up for that alone.) I had thought about messing up some coons, but they were basically animals and could be pretty strong in a fight, whereas even Brit could pound a pansy.

“Are the other guys meeting us here?” she asked.

“There are no other guys,” I admitted. “I used to have a crew, but after one of them turned on me, I realized I like working alone. That’s how the rumor started about the bikers. The only reason I took down a whole gang by myself is because I can’t trust anyone else.”

“I get it,” Brit said. “It sucks to be abandoned by the people who are supposed to support you.”

I glanced at her. “Somehow I think you’ve lived a pretty privileged life.”

“Yeah, except for the part where my mother up and left me behind when I was a baby, like I was just…trash.”

I knew Francis didn’t have a wife, but I didn’t know what had happened. “Man, that sucks. I’m sorry.”

To my surprise, Brit wasn’t upset. She was furious. “I’m not.” Her eyes burned like coals in a fire. “Daddy said she ran off with a nigger.”

Just then, two men walked up to the hot dog stand to order. They got their dogs, and walked over to a half-broken picnic table.

“You ready?” I asked Brit.

“I was born ready.”

I hid my smile; was I ever that brave? We got out of my car and sauntered across the street, as if we were going to grab a bite, too. But instead, I stopped at the picnic table and smiled pleasantly. “Hey. Either of you limp wrists got a cigarette?”

They exchanged a glance. I love that glance. It’s the same one you see on an animal when it realizes it’s been cornered. “Let’s just go,” the blond one said to the short, skinny dude.

“See, that doesn’t work for me,” I said, stepping closer. “Because I’ll still know you’re out there.” I grabbed Blondie by the throat and punched his lights out.

He went down like a stone. I turned to watch Brit, who had jumped on the skinny guy’s back and was riding him like a nightmare. Her fingernails raked across his cheek, and as he stumbled to the ground she started kicking him in the kidneys, then straddled him, lifted his head, and smashed it back down on the pavement.

I had fought beside women before. There’s a common misconception that skinchicks are subservient, barefoot, and pregnant most of the time. But if you’re going to be a skinhead girl, you have to be a tough bitch. Brit might not have gotten her hands dirty before, but she was a natural.

When she was pounding on a slack, unconscious body, I hauled her upright. “Come on,” I urged, and together we ran to the car.

We drove to a hill that offered a great view of planes taking off and landing at Tweed airport. The runway lights winked at us as we sat on the hood of the car, Brit swimming in adrenaline. “God,” she yelled, tipping her throat to the night sky. “That was unfuckingbelievable. It felt like…like…”

She couldn’t find the word, but I could. I knew what it was like to have so much bottled up inside that you had to explode. I knew what it was like to cause pain, for a few seconds, instead of feeling it. The source of Brit’s restlessness might be different from mine, but she had been reined in all the same, and she’d just found the breach in the fence. “It feels like freedom,” I said.

“Yes,” she breathed, staring at me. “Do you ever feel like you don’t belong in your own skin? Like you were meant to be someone else?”

All the time, I thought. But instead of saying that, I leaned over and kissed her.

She spun so that she was sitting on me, facing me. She kissed me harder, biting my lip, devouring. Her hands were under the tail of my shirt, fumbling with the buttons of my jeans. “Hey,” I said, trying to grab her wrists. “There’s no rush.”

“Yes there is,” she whispered into my neck.

She was on fire, and if you get too close to a fire, you go up in flames, too. So I let her slip beneath my zipper, I helped her hike up her skirt and rip off her panties. Brit lowered herself onto me, and I moved inside her like the start of something.

—

ON THE MORNING of the arraignment, I get dressed while Brit is still sleeping in the pajamas she’s worn for the past four days. I eat a bowl of cereal and I prepare myself for war.