CHAPTER 3

THE WALK THROUGH THE STATION

Behind Closed Doors, the air inside the station hits him like a different planet. Outside, the night is thick and wet and loud.

Inside, it’s cold and thin and buzzing. The temperature shift crawls under Pretty Boy’s clothes and sinks its teeth into his damp skin. The sweat along his spine, still warm from the street, turns clammy in an instant. Goosebumps ripple up his arms, pebbling the skin beneath ink and cotton.

The door thuds closed behind him, heavy and final. The sound reverberates down the main corridor, swallowed a second later by the rest of the building’s noise: phones ringing, voices overlapping, printers whining, the distant crackle of a radio dispatch. Everything here is fluorescent white and beige and gray, like somebody sucked all the color out and left only function.

His sneakers squeak on the polished tile. It’s too clean in here. Too bright. The floor reflects the overhead lights in milky

rectangles, broken only by scuff marks and the occasional dark streak where something got dragged and never completely came up. The smell is wrong, too—bleach and burnt coffee and old paper, with a faint underlying musk of stress-sweat that no amount of disinfectant can erase. A hand tightens on his elbow, steering him forward. The cuffs dig into his wrists, the metal unforgiving. They’ve been on long enough now that his skin feels swollen around them,

nerves protesting every tiny movement. He rolls his shoulders once, like he’s trying to shake off the grip, but he doesn’t pull away. He’s not supposed to pull away. Not yet. This ain’t the fun summer camp.

He keeps his head up, chin tilted just enough to flash the glint of his grill under the harsh lights. Not even a day off the streets, memories collide in the head with scrambled thoughts of grandeur. His mouth tastes like old adrenaline and street dust. The gold fronts sit heavy against his gums, a familiar weight that helps him remember who he’s supposed to be when eyes are on him.

And there are eyes. Always. The front desk officer barely glances up as they pass, more interested in whatever’s on her screen than the procession of one more cuffed kid through the glass door. But a couple of uniforms near the copy machine give him a once-over—the tattoos, the chain, the swagger even in restraints. One of them snorts softly, like he’s seen this movie a hundred times.

Pretty Boy feels their gaze and leans into it. Let’s his walk go a little looser, shoulders rolling. Gives them the show they’re expecting: unbothered, cocky, too stupid or too arrogant to be scared. Inside, under the leather and bravado, something tight curls around his heart. This ain’t new, he tells himself. You’ve been here before. You know these walls. But it hits different this time, coming straight from that sidewalk, from the feel of bone and blood under his shoe, the memory still hot in his leg.