"Oh my gosh, Bear. I'm so sorry. That's awful."
A shrug. "I guess. Foster home to foster home, none of them good, till I was twelve. That last family was fucked up. Mom tried to do things to me, Dad kicked the shit out of me, and their kids made fun of me and did all sorts of mean shit. So I took off."
The burn in my heart increases, and my eyes sting. "Bear, my goodness. That's…how can people be like that?"
A soft snort. "Most people are, in my experience." Another pause. "Was a street kid after that. How I ended up in the gang." He touches the tattoo I asked about. "Three-One-Three Bishops."
He looks down at me; I'm on his left, Panzer on his right. The light is fading, but with these two beside me, I couldn’t possibly be any safer. All the same, I huddle closer to him, soaking up his warmth as the late spring evening turns cool.
"When I was twenty-one, I was out late with…I guess I thought he was my friend at the time. Alex. He was driving. Decided he wanted to knock over a liquor store."
“Knock over, meaning…"
"Rob. Steal cash and some booze. Supposed to be a quick in and out. I wasn't armed—never carried a gun. Didn't need to." He lapses into silence, thinking. Remembering. "Clerk got gutsy. Talked shit to Alex. Alex pulled his gun, and I tried to wrestle it away from him. I wasn't about shooting innocent people. The gun went off, and the clerk got shot."
"It wasn't even your gun, and you were trying to stop it," I protest.
He nods, shrugging. “No security camera inside. Alex was wearing gloves because it was January. I wasn’t. My prints were on the gun; his weren’t. We both got tagged, but he ratted on me and said it was my gun. Didn’t matter what I said because they had my prints on the murder weapon. So I got the manslaughter charge, and Alex only did a nickel. I got twenty-five years."
I gape at him. "Twenty-fiveyears?"
He nods. "Did just shy of eleven."
"Eleven years in prison for something you didn't do?"
A shrug. "I was there. A guy got shot. Someone had to pay."
"Aren't you angry?"
“At who?" A shake of his head. “Alex? I was, for a bit. No point, though."
“No point in being angry at getting framed and spending eleven years in prison for a crime you didn't commit?" I stop and look up at him. "I'd be so angry."
"I did a lot of bad shit before that, Noelle. Hurt a lot of people very badly." He looks down at me, gray-green eyes deep and serious. "Only if they started it, but still. Committed other crimes. Way I see it, I did the time I deserved, just not for the crime I was convicted of."
"You were an orphan. Living on the streets, homeless at twelve? I have to imagine the things you did you only did because you had to, to survive."
A shrug and a nod. "I guess. Doesn’t make it right, though.” He peers into the darkness that's fallen around us, then back at me. "Prison changed me. Learned how to stop being so angry. No more fighting. No more hurting people."
I stare at him, frowning. "You seem so gentle, now, Bear. It's hard to imagine you angry and violent."
He clears his throat, looking away from me. "It's ugly. Dark. Bad. Not who I am anymore."
I cling to his hand, squeezing hard. "No, it's not."
"If you were in a gang and other people carried guns but you didn't…how did you survive?"
He shrugs, making a fist the size of an industrial wrecking ball. "When I hit people, Noelle, they break." The fist relaxes, no longer a deadly weapon, just a hand.
Panzer growls, attention on something in the darkness. He gives one big, deep, threatening bark, and there's the sound of scuffling feet on concrete and a curse as someone runs off.
"Braver Hund, Panzer."
"Not safe around here, Noelle. Not a great area."
I lean into him. “I’m with you."
He heaves a deep breath. "Question I can't answer is why."
