Bad blood

I feel something vicious whiz past my woolly red toboggan.

I taste ice in my mouth as the boy grabs me by the waist and drives me down into the ground—the heat of his body pushing me deeper into the snow as he curls around me, protecting me like a brave knight would.

More gunfire from the church.

More shouts.

Edier’s yelling out my nickname again. He’s spun the stolen car away from the curb, swung it around, and skidded to a stop by the sidewalk I’m now sprawled across.

“Bug—”

His next words are cut short as a bullet hits the trunk.

“Shit!”

Sam kicks open the back door. I feel his hand dragging me toward the car, with the boy still attached to me, but he rolls away at the last second, leaving me free to be yanked to warmth and safety.

“Go,” I hear him croak in his strange accent from the white ground. “You don’t belong here, muñequita… Go!”

“Shut the door! We need to get out of here!” Sam sounds scared as he reaches around me for the handle.

“We can’t leave him!”

“He’s a Carrera.” He spits out the word as if it were poison. “He’s their look-out. He gave the signal. Don’t you see? This whole meeting was a trap. He deserves to die like a dog for that.”

The boy in the snow unleashes a rush of angry Spanish at him.

He doesn’t look scared. Not like us. Maybe he’s a knight, after all.

Another bullet bounces off the trunk. A hundred feet away, men are still fighting and killing.

Men including papá.

But he’s invincible, right?

Are the Carreras invincible, too?

Carrera.

I spell out the word under my breath: C-a-r-r-e-r-a.

Sam’s wrong. He doesn’t deserve to die. He tried to warn me. He tried to save me.

“Come with us!” I reach out my hand to him as Edier revs the engine in warning.

The boy shakes his head, his dark eyes blinking something unreadable into mine. “I can’t. I won’t… This isn’t our war yet. But it will be soon.”

I open my mouth to ask for more, but he swings his foot out and kicks my door shut. Sam pulls me back just in time. Edier hits the gas with the sound of police cars rising above the gunfire flames.

No one speaks until we reach the bridge.

We plot our alibis before Manhattan.

All the while, I’m thinking about a knight in the snow and a war that’s coming for me.