Chapter One : The Bottoms
The first thing Darnell Tere learned about the Bottoms was that nobody really owned anything.
Not the buildings.
Not the streets.
Not even themselves.
Everything belonged to somebody.
The corner belonged to a crew. The laundromat belonged to a man who never came outside. The police belonged to whoever could afford to keep them looking the other way.
And if you were stupid enough to believe otherwise, the Bottoms had a way of correcting you.
Darnell stood beneath the flickering sign of a liquor store at the corner of Fifth and Mercer, hands buried deep inside the pockets of his hoodie.
Rain ticked against the pavement.
Across the street, Sean leaned against a rusted sedan, smoking a cigarette he wasn’t supposed to have. Pat stood beside him, watching traffic.
“You sure this is the spot?” Sean asked.
Darnell looked at the three-story brick building ahead of them.
“Yeah.”
“You said that twenty minutes ago.”
“I was right twenty minutes ago.”
Sean laughed.
Pat didn’t.
Pat was staring at the black SUV parked halfway down the block.
Darnell followed his eyes.
The SUV had been there for ten minutes.
Engine running.
Lights off.
Nobody getting out.
“That’s been sitting there too long,” Pat said.
Darnell felt the small hairs rise along the back of his neck.
“Could be nothing.”
“In the Bottoms?”
Sean flicked his cigarette into a puddle.
“Nothing’s ever nothing.”
Darnell smiled despite himself.
That was Sean.
Always joking until the moment he wasn’t.
Darnell looked back toward the building.
One delivery.
One envelope.
One hundred dollars.
That was all tonight was supposed to be.
Easy money.
He was nineteen years old and already understood the most dangerous sentence in the city:
It’s easy.
Darnell stepped away from the liquor store.
“Wait here.”
Pat caught his arm.
“Don’t go alone.”
Darnell looked down at Pat’s hand.
Then back at him.
“I’m not going inside.”
A pause.
“I’m just checking the door.”
Pat let go.
Darnell crossed the street.
The rain had started getting heavier.
He reached the building and looked through the glass.
Empty lobby.
Broken mailboxes.
One dead fluorescent tube buzzing above him.
Then he noticed something.
The elevator indicator.
It was moving.
Down.
Darnell stopped.
The numbers changed.
Three.
Two.
One.
The elevator doors opened.
Nobody stepped out.
Darnell stared at the empty elevator.
Then his phone vibrated.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
He answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice.
Low.
Calm.
“You shouldn’t be there, Darnell.”
The call ended.
Darnell stood completely still.
Across the street, Pat was already moving.
Sean dropped his cigarette.
And the black SUV’s headlights came on.
Darnell turned.
For the first time that night, he ran.
And behind him, the Bottoms opened its mouth.
