DAHLIA'S MOMS COME HOME the next day. Ezra and I are out of their home before their plane lands.

Early that morning, the three of us pile into Bertha, Dahlia's mini bus. Ezra navigates us to his house. It's this yellowed one-story building about fifteen minutes inland. Dahlia drops us off and we head to the front door. Given how early it is, it isn't so oppressively hot, but the heat still drips down my spine.

We just stand there waving at Dahlia until she drives off.

"So, here's the thing. I don't actually like, live here," Ezra admits to me.

"So you lied?" I ask.

"Well. I just didn't tell her the truth."

"That's what lying is. Why didn't you tell her the truth?"

"I just—I didn't want Dahlia to see where I've actually been staying. Her house is... her house is so nice, it's so perfect, everything in her life is so perfect. I didn't wanna... ruin her image of me. Can we just forget about the whole lying thing?" Ezra flails his arms around. "C'mon. My actual place is down this way."

He leads me down the block and across the street to this string of multi-level businesses. Mini buses zoom down the roadway. People mill about on the sidewalks. We go around the back of this two-story red-brick building, to this side alley. The pavement is cracked and uneven. All the while he's whipping his head about, peeking around corners before we turn, jumping at the slightest sound.

"We have to be really quiet," he tells me. "You've gotta whisper once we get inside."

"Why?"

"Because... we're not really supposed to be here, okay?"

"But it's your house."

"Well, not really."

"What do you mean?"

In front of us there's this big, dark-green box. It reeks of garbage rotting under the hot sun. With a lot of grunting and wiggling awkwardly around, Ezra pulls himself on top of it.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"Come on. It's how we get in."

Instinctively, I reach for a weapon that isn't there. I barely know the first thing about Ezra. Do I trust him? How could I?

Nevertheless, I hoist myself up onto the green thing. It takes me much less grunts and wiggles.

Our heads are now just about level with the second-story windows. Ezra pulls back this baby-blue sheet hanging in front of one of them, revealing a broken window behind it, and a large brown box on the other end.

He shoves the box inside. Grabbing onto the windowsill, and with more grunts and wiggling around, he lifts himself up inside the building. Then, he turns and extends his hand to me.

"Careful. There's glass."

I let him help me inside. The sheet falls shut behind us. Ezra pushes the box back in front of the window. I blink at the sudden darkness, my nose wrinkling at the stale, musty air.

"Where are we?" I whisper.

"The storeroom of some law firm. Don't worry. Nobody ever comes up here, and there aren't any cameras. I checked."

"You live here?"

"Temporarily."

In the dark, all I can see are the vaguest of outlines, these tall, looming shapes all around me. I fumble for Ezra and grab hold of his shoulders. He walks into the room, me blindly following behind him. A couple steps in, he stops and kneels down, rifling through something. Then a flimsy yellow light switches on. He holds it close to his face.

"What's that?"

"A lantern. Makes me feel like I'm in the apocalypse or something badass like that instead of broke."

Even with the light, my vision is still limited. I can make out that the looming shapes are a bunch of brown boxes piled up on top of each other.

Handing the lantern to me, Ezra moves the boxes around, revealing a little living space hollowed out back behind them. A yellowed mattress on the floor, piled in ragged blankets and a single pillow that's falling to pieces. On the side of it are several backpacks overflowing with junk. There's a little bit of space on the floor, and nothing much else. Just a single photo taped to one of the boxes. I raise the lantern and take a look at it.

A little boy with wild curly brown hair, bright green eyes, and an impish grin. Ezra at maybe seven or eight. Beside him is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of beautiful women. Her skin is deeply tanned and freckled, her hair long and the sort of blonde that always looks like a part of it's on fire. It's just as wild and curly and unkempt as his. She's laughing at something, her eyes closed, her tongue sticking out between her teeth.

Ezra ushers me inside of his little living space, adjusting the boxes back where they were when we came in. Effectively shutting us off from the rest of the room. He plops down on the mattress. I sit on the edge of it, resting the lantern on the floor in front of us. Dust swirls through the air.

"How is this fair?" I ask.

"How's what fair?"

"That Dahlia lives in a big, beautiful house. That you live... here."

"I have a roof over my head," Ezra says. "And a pillow underneath it. I try to be grateful for that."

"But... but you can't be happy living like this."

"I'm not. But I bet Dahlia hates her house, or her room, or her moms, or something. Nobody is ever really happy with what they've got."

There's silence for a moment. I try to wrap my head around the fact that this is where Ezra lives. Then, I ask: "How did you end up living here?"

"I aged out of the system," he explains, laying back on his back. "I didn't have any family. My friends were all—complete assholes, and dealing with their own shit. I had nowhere else to go."

"I don't understand," I say. "What do you mean?"

"My mom was—she was the only family I ever had. After she—after she passed away, I was put in the foster care system. Since I was still a child and there wasn't anyone to take care of me. No one wants to adopt an older kid, though, or a boy, so I was tossed around from temporary family to temporary family. Until I turned eighteen. That meant that I was—that I was no longer the responsibility of the state. My foster family didn't need to take care of me anymore. So they kicked me out. And no one could do anything about it."

"Ezra..."

"What?"

I don't have the words to convey what I'm feeling. That my heart breaks for him. That Apollonisi doesn't accept outsiders, but my mother and I will take him in, and we will force our society to accept him. That I had no idea how harsh and how cruel this world could be.

That I'm supposed to kill him, maybe, but I could never kill him, I could never hurt him. I would kill for him, I would die for him. I would do the same for Dahlia and Marisol. It's been, what, three days?

There's no way I can kill any of them.

So instead of saying anything about what I feel, I hug him tightly. And I hope that my actions say what my words cannot. After a while of hugging him, I point to the photo taped to the box.

"Is that your mom?"

He nods.

"How did she pass?" I ask.

"Alcohol poisoning. She—it was so sudden. It came out of nowhere. You really aren't expecting something like that to happen until—until it does."

I don't say I'm sorry. I've never understood why people say that after you've lost someone. Instead, I just nod and move on to my next question. "Was that when you started doing drugs?"

Ezra laughs—this completely off-putting, full-bellied laugh. "Nosy little fucker, aren't you?" He runs a hand over his face. "I mean, yeah, it was. I was in a really dark place, and... I mean, getting high gave me... something, when I didn't have anything. It's just—when you put it so bluntly—no one's ever asked me that so bluntly before. You really came into my house and read me for filth."

"What made you quit?"

Ezra leans forwards, propping his chin up with his clenched fist. He takes a moment. I think, at first, that he has to think of an answer, that it isn't something obvious. But then I can see it in his eyes—a memory, a realization, something heavy lurking just beneath the surface. He knows what he wants to say. He's just pausing to create a dramatic effect.

And boy, does it work. Because he takes a deep breath and says:

"The second time I almost died."