Winslow rifles through his backpack and finds one last box of Hot Tamales. The weed made him hungry and he's already scarfed down all his food for what was supposed to be two days of camping though it's still day one. He lopes up the switchback, chewing, panting. Scraggly firs stoop over him, dripping yesterdays rain onto his bare head. Every yard or so, a candy slips from between his fingers like a drop of blood and rolls into the scrub lining the trail.

 

When he reaches the first viewpoint he stops to light up again and clambers to the top of a rusted railroad car wedged into the mountainside—the ancient casualty of an avalanche. He's never been up high enough to touch the snow, even with the mountains so close by. Now it seems like the only way to avoid Jim. He turns in a circle, taking in the white peaks all around, and thinks of the cleft of his mom's upper lip, swollen and purple.

 

She's been begging him, "Winslow, please. Please, show Jim some respect."

 

He slides off the rail car and plunges between the trees, scrambling uphill, away from the trail. The wet ferns whip his exposed ankles and brambles catch at his fleece. Still, it's a faster way to get to the top, where he's gonna shoot up for the first time, high above the whole freaking valley, looking down like a god at the cracked concrete of the old railway tunnel, the threading roads and dull black rooftops.

 

His own roof's leaking in four places. Drip, drip, dripping—this morning too— the water hitting the back of Serena's shirt while she straddled the creaky kitchen chair, counting his money and singing, "Every little thing, gonna be all right." When she finished counting, she handed over the baggies and laughed, "It's a good thing I'm your wicked step-sister." She raised her eyebrows, fluttering her rhinestoned fingernails over her creamy cleavage. She knew it was his Mom's money

 

"So what?" he grumbled. "Wasn't Jim gonna steal it anyway?"

 

Jim's meaty arms hang off his shoulders like a pair of chicken legs and narrow into hard, knobbly hands. Winslow's mom thinks Jim knows life better than Nicki Minaj knows implants. Before leaving, Winslow told her Jim's only big on swinging around his iron pipe because he's got nothing in his pants. Serena laughed at that, too.

 

"Who cares," Winslow says out loud, to no one. He tosses the empty Tamales packet into the ferns and finds a dry-looking stump to sit on. He pulls out the needle and gets the camp stove going, while the song Serena sang bounces around his brains on repeat, "Don' worry, bout a thing (worry bouta thing)." Marley—the man was a freaking genius!

 

He tries to keep his eyes open as he slips the needle in, the sliver of metal tugging like the frame of a tent under his skin. Serena promised it would be quick, but it's not feeling quick enough. He hates needles.

 

He's wondering whether he really hit the vein—or whether he needs to pump in even more—when here comes a bird, taller than Jim. And another one. Tall as the firs. And another. Blue wings bright as summer. Black lacquer eyes.

 

The first bird's beak gapes. "You," she squawks. "Boy." Jim's words, but not like Jim. Her voice is golden.

 

"You. Boy. Boy," the other's echo, stretching the words like honey off a spoon.

 

Winslow opens his mouth to speak, and out comes fire—the fire he's been stoking for forever. The birds spread their enormous wings, and flap, once, twice. The wind of it blows Winslow off his stump.

 

Sprawled on the detritus of old trees, he squints upward through smoke and flame. The birds bend in close, beaks glistening. The golden voices fall on him like scattered scree: "Every little thing. Little thing." And Winslow watches sunlight strike rainbows off their blue feathers as the birds peck out his lungs.