Last to die

Dumbshit.

Theo walked inside, past the eight-foot-high display of ca

Theo checked his watch. Two minutes had passed. He had three minutes to grab the cash and meet Lionel in back. His pulse quickened. He could feel himself sweating, and for a moment he couldn’t move, paralyzed by the voices in his head, his aunt telling him to high-tail it out of there, his older brother, Tatum, yelling, Pussy, pussy, pussy! Without another moment’s thought, he leaped over the counter, yanked the crowbar from his pants, and smashed open the cash register. The drawer sprang open, and he reached for the cash. But there was none. It was completely empty.

What the hell?

“Help me.”

Theo froze at the sound of the man’s voice. It was faint, so faint that he almost wondered if he’d imagined it.

“Please, somebody.”

The voice was coming from the back room. Theo’s heart was in his throat, his thoughts a total blur. He just went with his instincts, jumped over the counter, and sprinted for the door.

“God, please, help me!”

Theo stopped cold, just a few feet from the door. Lionel would be gone in just ninety seconds, but those pathetic pleas for help had snagged him like a fish on a gaffe. The man sounded like he was dying, and Theo had never let anyone die before. He wasn’t sure what to do, but if that was the sound of death, he was pretty damn certain he didn’t want to be a Grove Lord.

He turned, raced back toward the stockroom, then stopped cold in the doorway.

“Oh, man!”

The clerk was lying flat on his stomach, his chest heaving as he struggled for each breath. Stretched across the entire length of the room, from the walk-in freezer to the stockroom exit, was a dark crimson smear. It was exactly the width of his body, marking the path he’d crawled inch by inch on his belly, bleeding profusely.

The man looked up at Theo and reached out with his hand. His face was battered and bloody, his clothes soaked with blood. He didn’t look much older than Theo, practically a kid, maybe Tatum’s age. “Help me,” he said in a voice that faded.

Theo just stood there, frightened and not sure what to do. The man gasped, and his face hit the floor. Then, with a sudde

There was a smear of dried blood on it.

“Shit, man,” he said aloud, and then instinct again took over. He turned and raced for the front door, falling to the floor as he smashed into the snack rack and toppled over the ca

And then he heard it-the sound of approaching sirens.

On impulse, he picked himself up, burst through the front door, and made a mad dash for the alley, fighting through the pain of his twisted ankle, knowing in his heart that his friend Lionel would be long gone when he got there.

“Theo, my man!”

It was Tatum calling out from the ring, cocky as ever, sparring with a young Latino who was about half his weight. It wasn’t his style to box pip-squeaks, but it was always Mr. Machismo with the twenty-seven-inch waist who liked to taunt the baddest dude in the gym. It was as if these muscle-bound weeds had something to prove, like those a

For Theo’s benefit, Tatum wound up like a windmill, toying with his opponent.

Theo just smiled. He didn’t love everything about his brother, but he had to love him. Jack Swyteck, his court-appointed lawyer, was the one who finally got him off death row for the murder of that store clerk. But through it all, there was only one other person who’d stuck by him all the way. In a lifelong give and take of sibling love and hate, this was the one great un equalizer, the debt he could never repay. At least that was the way Theo saw it.

Theo walked toward his brother’s corner and leaned over the ropes from outside the ring. The unmistakable odor of sweat and old leather tingled his nostrils. He could hear the fighters grunt with each jab, feel the intensity of their concentration. Only the intellectual snobs of the world thought that boxing wasn’t a mind game.

“Ever wonder why a boxing ring is actually a square?” asked Theo.

Theo could mess with his brother’s head better than anyone-distract him with extraneous thoughts, watch him take a beating. Even from across the ring, Theo could see that he’d broken Tatum’s rhythm.

“You got your three-ring circus,” said Theo, his tone philosophical. “Olympic rings. Onion rings. Smoke rings. Ringworms.”

“Shut up!” said Tatum.

The little guy was gaining confidence, moving around Tatum like a gnat on a lightbulb.

Theo snickered. “Diamond rings, toe rings, nipple rings, navel rings, scrotum rings, even ring around the collar. All them is circles.”

“I said, shut uuuuuup!”

Theo said, “Then there’s a boxing ring. I mean, how is it that a ring has corners?”

Tatum took a quick jack to the jaw, which startled him. “That’s it,” he said as he landed a left hook that sent the gnat flying across the ring. “Get your ass in here, Theo.”

“Thought you’d never ask.” Theo climbed through the ropes. The wounded Hispanic kid helped him strap on gloves. Then Theo stepped farther into the ring with his usual style, leaving the mouthpiece behind so as not to rob himself of his most effective weapon-verbal taunting.

“International rules?” said Theo.

“Uh-uh. Knight rules.”

Theo had always moved better than his older brother, and that was especially the case this morning, as he was completely fresh. And he seemed to be particularly on fire when it came to casting confusion to the enemy. “Hey, Tatum. How many times a day do you think lightning strikes?”

Tatum didn’t respond. Theo co

“Take a guess,” said Theo, ever-light on his feet.

“Strikes where?” said Tatum, grunting. The mouthpiece made him sound thick.

“The whole world. How many times a day?”

Theo could see him thinking, see his loss of focus on the fight for just a moment of weakness. He led with a hard right this time, landing another combination that jerked Tatum’s head back.

“How many?” said Theo.

“I du

“Hah!” he said as he delivered a quick blow to the belly. Tatum’s eyes bulged, as if to confirm the landing.

“Guess again,” said Theo.

Tatum was clearly hurting; Theo was holding nothing back. Tatum said, “A hundred.”

“A hundred times a day?” said Theo, scoffing. “That your guess?”

Tatum took a swing, but Theo quickly stepped aside and popped Tatum with another head shot. Tatum stumbled but didn’t go down.

Theo allowed him to get his footing, just to keep things interesting. “Try a hundred times a second,” said Theo. “That’s how many times lightning strikes every day.”

They circled one another slowly, sizing things up, looking for an opening. Tatum came at him, but Theo beat him back with a numbing blow to the forehead.

“Here’s the tricky part,” said Theo, still dancing in the ring. “How many people you think get killed by lightning?”

Tatum didn’t answer. He seemed to be struggling just to stay focused.

“About fifty,” said Theo, answering his own question. “A year.”