Page 49 of Psychotic Faith
The community center's metal door groans as I push inside. Same smell as always: industrial disinfectant fighting a losing battle against mildew, sweat, and that particular sweet-fear scent children emit when traumatized. Same flickering fluorescent that needs replacing. Same cracked linoleum that's seen too many feet running from too many tragedies.
Damon arrives first, as usual. Fourteen, already six feet, shoulders starting to fill out with muscle that poverty will try to waste. His father died in a drive-by meant for someone else. Statistical probability he'll be dead or incarcerated within four years: sixty-seven percent.
"Mr.L," he nods, helping me pull mats from the storage closet. The cheap foam sticks to my palms, already damp with humidity. Never asks why I look like death. These kids know exhaustion intimately.
Maria comes next, eleven years old with eyes that have seen too much. Her mother shot her father, then herself, while Maria hid in the closet. Probability of developing violent tendencies: fucking inevitable. Then Jerome, nine, whose mother overdosed after his father was killed by cops who said he matched a description.
Seven children total today. Seven potential outcomes, seven futures I'm shaping with every lesson. The irony would be funny if I had any humor left in me.
"Same partners as last week," I tell them, watching them pair off with the efficiency of soldiers. Two exits visible, four windows, emergency phone in the office. Always mapping, always calculating.
I don't smile at them. Don't offer empty encouragement or false hope. They prefer my honesty to the social workers'rehearsed sympathy. We recognize each other, broken things trying to function in a world that keeps breaking.
My phone buzzes. Marco.
"The Detroit situation escalated. Tonight. Midnight. Final resolution required."
I text back confirmation, then pocket the phone. It'll have to be after I meet with my Faith at the Ritz-Carlton. In ten hours, I'll be with my woman. In sixteen hours, I'll be in my basement with tools and someone who thought crossing the Rosettis was survivable. The urgency that's been building for weeks finally coming to a head. But first, this.
"Today we're working on escape holds," I announce, demonstrating on Damon. His wrist in my grip, showing the angle needed to break free. The same grip I'll use tonight, except I won't be teaching escape. "Remember, you're not trying to win a fight. You're trying to get away."
They practice in pairs, and I correct form with the same precision I use when selecting tools for interrogation. Both involve understanding how bodies break, where they're weak, how pressure creates compliance or freedom. I modulate my voice the way I do during interrogations: controlled, calculated, effective.
Then Keisha screams.
Not loud. The broken don't scream loud. But that high, thin sound of someone disappearing into memory. Jerome has her wrist for the demonstration, and suddenly she's not here anymore. She's back there, wherever her trauma lives.
"Let go," I tell Jerome, who releases immediately. The other kids form a circle, recognizing what they've all experienced. My own vision fractures for a second. Blood on marble floors, my father's eyes going empty. But I force it down.
Keisha hyperventilates, trapped between now and then. "His hands, his hands," she whispers, and I know she means heruncle. The one who killed her parents two years ago. The one I killed six months later, made him suffer for six hours while he begged, though she'll never know that.
I kneel, careful not to touch. Touch makes it worse when you're drowning in memory. I know from experience.
"Keisha." My voice drops low. "You're at the center. Monday morning. November. Count the mats with me. One, two, three…"
Her eyes dart, unfocused, but slowly she surfaces. The hyperventilation eases. Tears track down her cheeks, but she doesn't wipe them.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"Never apologize for survival," I say, harsher than intended. "Your body remembered danger. That's not wrong."
She nods, understanding in a way most eight-year-olds wouldn't.
"You okay to continue?"
She nods again, fierce despite the tears. "Show me again."
So I do. Patient as I am during an interrogation's delicate phases. These children will grow up hypervigilant, seeing threat in every shadow. I'm not saving them. I'm creating future me's.
"You look sick, Mr.L."
Maria's observation cuts through my focus. She doesn't stop practicing while she interrogates, muscle memory taking over.
"When's the last time you slept?"
"Recently enough."
"That's not an answer." She executes the escape perfectly. "My mom stopped sleeping before she…"
