GREY 

"Y-yeah. Thanks." I pulled my phone from my pocket, capturing the monitor screen as TaKylar replayed the footage of Cody's Monday-morning montage.

"This is insane. You really think your friend killed someone?" She logged off the computer, then headed for the exit to return to the main store.

I shook my head as I followed her, pushing wide the door as she unlocked it. "I don't know, but...now I can prove those towels weren't just some freaky coincidence. Whatever he was doing here was—"

POW!

A bullet whizzed between me and TaKylar, the sharp breeze trailing it mere inches from my face.

The two of us dove to the ground as another shot shattered through the plastering on the wall above us. "GET UP, YOU B—"

"TaKylar, run!" I grabbed at a carousel of hairspray cans, hurling a towering tin of aerosolized paint at the attacker; but another bullet ripped into it and sent flurry of shards slicing through the air.

"OW!" I screamed as metal scraped my neck and I crashed into a rack of Chips Ahoy and saltine crackers.

Another gunshot fired through the air, and I covered my head as I scrambled past the fallen snacks littering the aisle beside me.

Faintly, the smarting of my phone against the tiled floor crackled in my ears; I trembled to grip it between my sweaty palms, swiping up for emergency and slamming the screen with my fingers.

The pharmacy lights blitzed to blackness, shadows falling to cover me as I stumbled forward.

"I KNOW YOU'RE IN HERE, GIRL!" The voice from earlier roared through the dark, purest rage surging with the crack of every word.

I felt along the wall nearest to me, felt the ebony ghostliness of the umbers surrounding, felt my heart scuttering out a pulse in time with the throbbing terror inside my head—felt the callouses of a thinly fingered hand circle my wrist with an iron grip.

What the—?

The whining creak of a wooden side door, the frantic pull that thrusted me off balance, the bang of another merciless gunshot—I was hurled from shadow to shadow, somber obsidian melding to pitch blackness, the wooden frame now slamming shut from behind.

"TaKylar? Is that—ow!"

The same hand that pulled me deeper into the dark smacked the back of my head. "Keep yo' voice down!" hissed an unfamiliar voice.

"But...but TaKylar—"

"She's safe; I got her too. Now shut it or else you gonna get us all killed."

I gulped. "What're you talking ab—"

"Boy, for five seconds, can you just shut the fu—"

"Zaja."

I gasped. "TaKylar, is that you?"

The hand guiding me smacked the back of my head again. "Boy, shut up!"

"Zaja," TaKylar repeated. "Cool it, girl. He's freakin' out."

What the heck is going on here?

TaKylar clicked on her phone light, rays of white shining for the first time on the stainless metallic walls flanking us on all sides.

"Where are we?" I gulped again. "What is this pl—?"

"The underground," TaKylar answered. "I only been here a few times myself." She turned to the other girl beside me, who wore a scowl as she tightly gripped a white package stuffed with flour. "But Zaja's been here at least a dozen...haven't you?"

"None a yo' business!"

TaKylar crossed her arms. "None of my business? Really? Four stray bullets and an angry shooter—I'd say it's my business." She stepped closer to Zaja, ripping the package from her hand. "Why don't you tell Grey what's really in this flour?"

Zaja jumped at TaKylar. "Give that back, you—"

I caught her hand and twisted it, pushing her back. "Words, Zaja," I finally ordered. "Why don't we all try using our words instead of grabbing each other?"

"If I ain't 'grabbed' you, you'd be deader than DeWayne right now; so you betta back up!" Scowl deepening, Zaja squirmed in my grip but couldn't break free.

TaKylar narrowed her eyes. "I knew it. I knew you had something to do with—"

"I ain't did nothing!"

TaKylar held up the flour, moved to rip it open.

"NO!" Zaja screamed, but I held her in place. "LET ME GO!"

"Not until you tell us the truth!" I barked. "Who was that shooter, and why was he after us?"

Zaja growled. "He ain't after you, alright? He after me."

"No," TaKylar shook her head, holding up the package. "He's after this."

"Fine, yeah, whatever. He after them drugs."

Drugs!? I took a step back, releasing Zaja as my eyes grew wide.

She angled her head toward me, snorting. "You actin' like you never seen a brick before. Guess you preppy Goldengate boys ain't know how to have a good time."

"Zaja," TaKylar growled.

She shot TaKylar a look. "What? It's true, ain't it?" She eyed the package once again. "Now give it back already. I got runs to make."

"Girl, what is wrong with you?" TaKylar hissed. "You seriously makin' runs out of Mrs. Georgia's pharmacy?"

"Well, I ain't goin' back to Kingston," she snapped. "All these white boys done lost they minds. Can't believe they offed DeWayne and his daddy." She began feeling along the wall, pressing at the indentations in the metal until a tiny box slid open.

"Zaja," TaKylar mused, "don't do this. Not again."

"Wait." I reached out and grabbed Zaja's arm.

"Let go." She rolled her eyes. "Ain't you the one that said use yo' words?"

"Please, I just..." I ripped out my phone and tapped open the photos, scrolling left until an image of me and Cody at a barbecue glowed at the center. "Have you ever seen this guy? You make 'runs' or whatever in this pharmacy, right? You must've seen him."

She squinted her eyes. "Yeah, he been up in here, 'specially last week."

"Did he look...I don't know...suspicious?"

"I ain't been watchin' him like that. Just seen him a few times, but...there was this white girl with him, always waited in the car. I thought maybe they were dealin', but he only ever came to buy towels."

"A girl? Who was she—?"

"Boy, I don't know! Coulda been his mom for all I care. Now let go!" Zaja ripped her arm free and snatched the white bag from TaKylar's hands. "I got a job to do."

TaKylar scowled at her, the glint of the phone light still sheening off the bag—off the imprint of two spiraled black snakes superimposed on the plastic.

I slid out my phone and snapped a photo, right before Zaja dropped the powdered drugs inside the box protruding from the wall, the package tumbling out of sight into a shadowed abyss.

Slamming the opening shut, Zaja turned her back to us, twisting a finger at the tips of her curling afro. "Call the cops," she ordered over her shoulder. "Tell 'em you hiding in the basement."

"What!?" I shouted.

"She's right," TaKylar said. "I been down here before. And the shooter might be waiting for us upstairs. Only way we get out safe is if the cops show up and run that creep away." She sighed. "If we follow the path all the way around, we get to the basement anyway."

"So what, we just...just pretend like 'the Underground' doesn't exist?" I motioned toward Zaja, my mouth agape. "She just dropped a freaking brick of who-knows-what down a hole, and we're not telling the police?"

Zaja snorted. "Tell 'em if you want, boy. All they gon' find's a room with four metal walls that jams phone signals. Cops been down here before; they even been down that slot box where I dropped the goods. And guess what? It's all clean, every time. We got a system, and it works." She kept her back to us and strode away, heading deeper into the darkness of the corridor where we stood.

"But...the guy with the gun—"

"I ain't scared of no shooter," Zaja called from the distance. "And I ain't talkin' to no cops."

I shook my head. "This is insane."

"Just let her go," TaKylar whispered next to me. "Not like we gonna be able to stop her anyway." She thumbed past her phone's fingerprint scanner, revitalizing the screen before tapping the name at the top of Recent Calls:

Gavin Longchamp.