Chapter one
ELEVEN YEARS AGO
Will
Icupped my hands and brought them to my face, blowing over the numb skin of my palms. The gloves I’d discarded on the ground taunted me, but I couldn’t work as well with them on. Frozen fingertips were a small sacrifice for the greater good of my art.
Ignoring the ice crystals attaching themselves to my eyebrows, I focused on my task, pressing my finger down on the hard plastic valve, feeling the rush of power from the aerosol canas the paint sprayed evenly across the concrete wall. Good. I’d been working on that, practicing in the gardener’s shed out back where my parents never bothered me. This was the third time I’d done this. The first two times, I’d been shitty at it, leaving drips and drags. But I had my technique down now.
I worked faster to finish my piece, the cutting wind harder to ignore. It bit at me and broke my concentration—unsurprising since it was two in the morning in the middle of December. Not to mention, this part of Seattle mainly consisted of warehouses and office buildings. The little patch of brown grass where I’d dropped my gloves was lonely next to all the concrete and asphalt.
The wind blew overspray onto my black coat. I’d have to check it when I got home. If I couldn’t wash it myself, I’d need to toss it and say it got lost. Josefina came in twice a week to keep house and do laundry, and she’d report it to my parents if she found my clothes covered in paint.
Riley stood ten feet away. He shook his can hard, the ball rattling around inside, sounding like a goddamn bullhorn in the quiet night. He laughed like a lunatic at whatever he’d done.
“Shhhhh!” I hissed. “Keep it down.”
“Dude. Nobody’s around. You need to relax.” He shook his head at me but stopped shaking the can.
He was probably right. We hadn’t seen anyone since we rolled up half an hour ago. A few cars had passed by, but none came close enough to spot us. Some buildings had Christmas lights shining along their rooflines—I assumed those businesses just left them on all night—but they weren’t exactly spotlights.
I stepped back from the wall to survey my work.
“Billy…you corny motherfucker.”
Riley came over to stand behind me. He grinned and pointed at my mini mural of a row of three Grinches. Each one was alike, except they were making different hand gestures. The firstGrinch had his fingers pinched in devil horns, the second Grinch threw up the middle finger, and the third made the ASL sign forI love you.
“What?” I smirked. “I think it looks good.”
“You know it does, asshole.” His grin turned into a laugh. “But here I was thinking we were trying to be badass vandals, and instead, you’re some kind ofar-teeste.” He raised his pinky finger in salute.
Smacking his arm down, I glanced over at his tag. He’d been working on it, but it still didn’t look like much to me. A bunch of triangles, basically. He’d been trying to get me to make up my own tag, but I’d drawn the line at that. I wasn’t trying to be some poseur. I could convince myself doing this was okay if I called it art.
Riley had been tagging for a while. I guessed he wanted to be part of something, and I could relate. We’d both graduated from high school six months ago. He didn’t have the grades for college and wasn’t interested in trade school. I’d had a rough go of it the past few years and decided I needed a gap year. My parents agreed, on the condition I spend at least part of my time working. They’d tried to get me to intern at my dad’s fancy financial services firm, but I was not doing that. I got a job busing tables at a steakhouse downtown. I’d met Riley there.
We’d become fast friends, united by our lack of direction, even coming from very different backgrounds. I’d grown up with money and gone to private schools my whole life, mostly a loner, with a few exceptions. He’d gotten a diploma from an online alternative high school and seemed desperate for a social life, instigating most of our hangouts. He’d been tagging on and off for years and had convinced me to come out with him a few times over the past month.
“I’m just giving you shit, man. It’s good,” Riley said. “But why is he doing something savage in the first two and then something schmoopy in the last one?”
“Schmoopy?” I chuckled low, still conscious of the silent street. “It’s my way of saying the Grinch is very misunderstood.”
He punched me in the shoulder playfully and made a gagging noise. “What’d I say? Corny as fuck.”
I slugged him back, but didn’t reply. I didn’t care if he understood. Or if anyone did. My art was about the only thing that made sense to me. Inspiration struck how it struck, and that was the end of it. Christmas was my favorite time of year and always had been. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t going to wear some stupid reindeer sweater or join a caroling group. I just loved that it was the one time of year I knew what to expect. My parents were busy, but they always made a point of having a big family Christmas, even with just the three of us. I had held on to it year after year as a reminder that my family, while at least moderately fucked up, wasn’t completely hopeless. Maybe I was a corny motherfucker.
“What do you think of mine?” Riley asked.
“It’s…your tag,” I said, trying not to smile.
“Asshole.”
He was shoving our supplies into his backpack when a loud, unmistakable sound split the frigid air.
WOOP… WOOP… WOOP…
The red and blue lights of a police cruiser flicked in the distance, three or four blocks away.Fuck!Had someone seen us and called the cops?
“Get the shit, man!” All traces of the laughter in Riley’s voice from a moment ago had vanished. I looked over to see him wide-eyed and frantic.
