THE SUN BEGAN ITS SLOW ASCENT over the horizon when Tyson opened his garage door. The room was bare, with a concrete floor and three garden chairs for company. Kidney-shaped oil stains blotted the ground, and a few haphazard boxes containing cans of spray paint, grass seed, and slug bait lay strewn around.

My eyes soon fell on Tyson, standing in the middle of the room, illuminated by a single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. He motioned for me to sit in one of the chairs, and as soon as I was settled, he began to work.

Tiny needles thrummed into my skin, the vibration sending a thunderous ache deep into my bone. As Tyson worked, his face grew increasingly serious, and he murmured soft words of encouragement. His movements were precise, the work delicate and intricate.

I blew out a breath as Tyson drilled further into my skin in the same sore spot.

"Hold still," Tyson said, pausing to wipe before he carried on. "Never thought I'd get you in my chair." His eyes flicked up to me, and he grinned.

"Never did I think a basement tattoo ever sounded like a good idea." And I still needed to be more convinced. The last thing I wanted was to succumb to sepsis after a dodgy tattoo in Tyson's garage. Over the previous twenty-four hours, I'd done many things I'd never done before, and this seemed like the least invasive of them all.

Overnight, I had begun to understand Derek and Tate a little less. Dad had been right to be wary of a Parker because I had been just as duped. Who had I been kidding? Tate never wanted change. He craved damage. My eyes flicked over to Derek; his nose splintered with packing on the inside and a dressing on the outside.

After what seemed like an eternity, Tyson finally stood and stepped back, surveying his handiwork. He turned to me then, a faint smile curving his lips. "You're done," he said. "Let's get you out of here."

I had a blackbird of my own. Turning my hand, I marveled at its sheer blackness as blood began to seep, mixing with the ink. Despite Tyson's rough exterior, his artistic touch was gentle. It was no bigger than two-quarters but fine in the detailing.

It bonded me with Derek and Tyson in ways I could never be with a boy like Tate Parker. The outside now reflected the real me; a life of fighting for acceptance and the losses incurred along the way— a life incomprehensible to someone like Tate Parker.

Somebody called my name from afar; then, the garage door began grinding, the rivets forced to swivel against their will in their rusted pockets before revealing my father.

"Alex, where have you been?" His eyes bounced between Derek and me before landing on my thumb knuckle. "What have you done?" His face turned ashen as his shoulders dropped.

I tugged the sleeve of my shirt down and stood. For every agonizing hour spent picking apart Tate's actions, there was one person whose process I couldn't hazard a guess at. Dad had protected Tate, even from me, and despite me, the consequences affected all of us. Now I was just as disappointed with him.

"Why did you never tell me? You could have stopped this."

His eyes grew weary. "I never warned you about Tate, Alex. I warned you about Dean."

"Tate lied to me, and so did you."

"Tate never knew either! Alex, my boy, you and Tate are more alike than different. How could I not protect him? You and he are the same. I was wrong to ask you to stop having a friendship. He's done nothing wrong. But I worry his father is still an influential man."

A slow-moving glacier passed through me. What did Dad mean Tate didn't know? The conversation was well underway when I arrived last night, and each word that left their mouths since was a lie. Dad had covered for Tate, and Tate didn't want me to know. My breath caught in my throat. A drum began to sound in my head, echoing my pulse. Tate didn't know.

"Rafael, you can't be serious. Have you seen my face recently? It goes way beyond Dean Parker now."

The cutting look my father shot Derek next would have thrown anyone. It was as foreign to him as it was to me.

"What I see is an unheeded warning. If you retaliate, you don't have the money to be sued by Tate's father—I speak from experience. Yours, however, would be at a loss for words. This is what you make of opportunities he can't have? If you expended the same energy into your studies as you do your fist-fights, you would be capable of graduating. Take the chip off your shoulder or god-willing, Derek, I will do it for you." Dad raised his hand.

My jaw fell open. But Papá didn't mean it. Broken shallows rimmed his eyes, speaking more of frustration than anger, desperation, and above all, unconditional love.

"I know this story, and I've seen how it ends," he added.

That's the moment a burn erupted inside. A scolding truth blindly ignored in favor of a stereotype. Tate was innocent. I'd treated him like I did when I first met him. My narrative hadn't changed one damn bit.

Dad's arm lost all power, and he slumped onto a garden chair, hands running through his hair. Stunned, Derek needed to figure out where to look.

All I could think about was amends—an apology. If I knew Tate well enough, he would be about to hang his future out to dry. There were too many similarities now between my father and Tate. Did the tangled threads of our former friendship need to snap under the weight of this revelation? Did I hate Tate? If he had never known, I imagined this would shake him as much as it had done me.

The nerves in my thumb fired off. I winced, drawing my hand up my chest. I glanced down at the little blackbird looking back, and my nest had never felt this empty.

"No, you don't, not this story, at least."

In a genuinely unexpected move, I shoved Derek, nowhere near as hard as I should, who stood immobile with a forlorn expression.

"What did you say to him? He promised not to fight back. What did you say to get him to break his promise?"

Derek said nothing.

My hand shot out and grabbed his collar, pulling him closer until our noses were almost touching. "What did you say? You must have said something. What would have made him lose his shit with you this bad?"

Derek was the one to finally break the silence, his voice even and low. "I reminded him how dead she was and that neither of you was coming for him."

His words knocked the air out of the room.

Dad's frame crumpled as if he'd just absorbed the weight of Derek's words as his own. Then, Dad glanced away toward the floor and swallowed hard. It was a single, almost imperceptible movement, but it spoke volumes—his guilt, his fear, his sadness for Tate.

My grip on his collar loosened slightly, unable to comprehend what he'd said, but my eyes never left his. "No me jodas, Derek. No me JODAS! You knew he was helping. How could you? If you touch him again, you'll no longer be a cousin of mine."

I let go of him. He turned away from me, his tattooed arm flexing as he balled his hands into fists. I could see the pain etched on his face, the hurt and anger mixing together to create a storm of emotions. I wanted to reach out to him, to comfort him, but I also wanted to beat the living shit out of him for what he had done.

Flock was about to lose his wheels again. I looked around the room one final time and then walked away without another word spoken. No one followed. My intentions focused solely on Tate and stopping him from murdering his future.

Alex

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