No Dogs Allowed

Vocal Chords, Larynx

(ty for reading! you are very appreciated, and i luv you very much, and the star is as happy to see you as i am ! we near the final 1/5 of this book, which is exciting, so thank you for sticking around and please enjoy)

All right. Grab a Lucky Strike and a lighter.

I'm only gonna through this part once.

Mercy had yet to return my calls or texts about why my computer had suddenly decided I was the demon-come-to-smite-it, leaving me with no information on nothing and no one except for my own stupid head. It also left me out of contact with D and the rest of the Bengals though, so, I suppose you win some, you lose some.

The second week of September ended like a sandstorm, as fast as it was hazy as it was uncontrolled. The press was having an utter field day with Red and Zoe and Wynter's newly-earned Class I status. Coach had gotten so many calls within the weeks that she had taken a day's trip to the mountains for the sake of losing service.

"That high up though?" Zahir had asked.

"Nowhere is ever high enough from the press," Coach muttered. "Call Ramos if you need something. Don't get yourselves killed."

It would take a village for that.

Everyone had a heart attack for his hair upon leaving Washington. A rainstorm was coming for us, hot on our tails, the air misty with its promise. Diego shrieked.

"Look at that hair, like a true cuervo! Are you the new mascot?" he said, and cackled.

Rosalie frowned. "Where did you even get the dye for this?"

Kane glanced at me, but said, "I got it before we came. It's just so people don't ask. I can't do anything about anything else."

"Hey, man, it looks good," Zahir assured. "Diego's right. Our true mascot."

Meredith grinned. "Do you like it?"

Kane took a long, long minute to think. He shrugged. His smile was thin, a paper towel under drizzle, falling apart at the fibers. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I like it."

My stomach twisted into unbreakable knots.

Meredith had made her best attempt at maintaining our nightly dinners, even going as far as to cook up a storm in the girls' dorm with the help of Diego, the two buying groceries in bulk and stealing spices from our cabinets, trying every cuisine from Indian to Mexican to Japanese to Irish.

"Potato," Wynter said with a confident nod as Meredith attempted to jot down ideas for that day's dinner.

"Potato and?" she said.

"Potato, and..." She pointed to Zoe.

Zoe smiled. "Potato," she replied.

Meredith buried her face in her hands. "May God be kind with me," she sighed. "Potato gratin, anyone?"

Diego frowned. "That sounds like a slur."

"Thank you for that input, Diego."

The first semester of my second year had begun, although Mercy had neglected to block me into a substantial schedule, all circumstances considered. It left me with eleven units in total, one of which was a rhetoric class that required less than a brain cell in paying attention to, which parted the seas of work to give way for far more free time than I was comfortable having.

"So little credits!" Zoe said to me in said class one day, frowning. "What are you gonna do with all that free time?"

I let my head rest back against the seat. The glaring fluorescent lights faded right through me. The mindless lecture dissipated at my ears. Nothing could even think to occupy my mind but Red, Kane, Elias, and my father. Nothing but race tracks and bloodbaths flowed from my hands.