One day I'm not going to be here. That's why I keep telling you to fight hard, Abram.
My mother's voice, arriving from nowhere, while I watched Max Donman walk up that street.
And when somebody else is fighting for you, don't you dare relax. You double it.
The words sat in the office air as if the plain had opened a door into it. Dust. The dead terminal. The iron lattice under my palms still holding the cold of the glass.
Vince came up off the asphalt.
He didn't scramble. He rose — one hand, then both feet, the motion of a body that had decided the road was finished with him — and set his feet, and a small smile arrived on his face like a man who'd finally found something worth staying for. The empty patience gone; something hungrier in its place.
Max reached Sherry and May.
