Chapter 1
Rick Hicks pulled up to Martina Lopez’s house in a van held together mostly by duct tape and reckless optimism.
He didn’t bother to honk or even text but turned off the rumbling engine and slunk in the quiet dark of the morning up to the Lopezes’ cheery front door.
It was painted a bright, improbable yellow and topped off with a welcome wreath made to look like fall leaves.
In contrast, the front mat Rick used before stepping through their door said Come Back with a Warrant in bold black script. Martina’s mother was a lawyer with a sense of humor.
Rick let himself in, not bothering to knock.
No one would hear him. The Lopez household in the morning was nothing but unbridled chaos delivered at high decibels.
Rick had gotten his little sister ready for school this morning in dead silence because he didn’t want to wake his mother, who had worked the night shift at the diner.
He would cut out his own heart for his mother and sister, but that didn’t stop the familiar pang of jealousy when he stepped into the Lopez kitchen.
Technically, the Lopez household was made up of Martina, her parents, her two younger siblings, her grandmother, and the family dog.
In reality, there were always extra people about because not only did Martina have two aunts who lived nearby with their families, but the Lopezes were the kind of family that seemed to pull other people lovingly into their orbit.
People like Rick. So this morning he was unsurprised to walk into the kitchen and find four kids, Martina’s parents, grandmother, and aunt, and two small dogs all competing with one another for attention as they grabbed breakfast and/or backpacks.
Rick thought that if coming home could be made into a sound, this was it.
None of the kids stopped their bickering or looked up from their cereal bowls to acknowledge him, treating him the same as they would anyone else in the family.
“Rick.” Mr. Lopez greeted him from his place over by the coffee maker, the only deep voice in the chorus of the room. He handed Rick a to-go mug of coffee as well as a cloth napkin tucked around a tortilla, which itself held the eggs and potatoes left over from yesterday’s breakfast.
Rick looked pointedly at the neon-colored dregs of milk in the Lopez children’s bowls. A toaster pastry popped up, which he knew was Martina’s. Rick crossed his arms.
“I’m just happy they’re eating,” Mr. Lopez said. “It’s not a hill I’m willing to die on this early in the morning. But you, I know, won’t fight me.”
Rick sighed.
Mr. Lopez grinned over his coffee. “If you can look me in the eye and tell me you fed yourself when you fed your sister, I won’t make you take it.”
Rick glowered at him and took a reluctant bite of the burrito, making Mr. Lopez laugh. “That’s what I thought.”
“I was going to get breakfast at school,” Rick mumbled. Breakfasts at school were free for him, and even though the food wasn’t very good and there usually wasn’t enough for him to actually feel full, it saved his mom money. “If I had time.”
“Sure you were,” Mr. Lopez said with a smile, sipping his coffee.
Martina stomped up, her jacket and backpack dangling off of one shoulder, her winged eyeliner just a shade darker than the hair she had pulled back into two braids. “Papi making you eat again?”
Rick grunted, because really, he didn’t need to answer that question. He motioned to the new streaks in her hair. “I like the purple, Teeny.”
Martina preened, turning her head to the side, making her gold earrings flash in the light. “It turned out good, right?”
“That’s because your tía is amaaaazing,” her aunt Gabrielle singsonged from her side of the table. She pointed one bloodred fingernail at Rick. “You need a cut. When you coming in?”
“What,” Rick said, jerking his chin at her, “the tousled look isn’t working for me?”
“There’s tousled and then there’s unkempt.” Gabrielle rolled her eyes at him. “Come in after Dani gets home. I can do you both.”
Rick nodded sharply, giving in to the steamroller that was the Lopez family. It was then that the raptor gaze of Martina’s grandmother landed on a torn pocket of his hoodie. She clucked her tongue.
Before Rick could say anything, Gabrielle had taken the food out of his hands, while Martina unzipped his hoodie, shucking him out of it with the speed and ease of someone used to dressing small, flailing children. Rick blinked as his breakfast was deposited back into his empty hands.
Martina gave the hoodie over to her grandmother. “It’s just faster this way,” she muttered, grabbing her toaster pastry before herding him toward the door. “Okay, that’s enough. We’re going to be late. Bye!”
She gave him a final shove, slamming the door behind them.
The front stoop was blessedly silent.
“If your family had been in control of Napoleon’s armies, he would have conquered all of Europe,” Rick said into the quiet morning air.
Martina snorted. “They know that if they let you get a word in, you’ll argue.”
Rick shrugged, drinking a gulp of his coffee as they headed to his van. “I don’t want to take advantage. Now I’m going to have to sneak over this weekend and mow your lawn.”
“You’re family, dipshit, and we take care of family,” Martina said, dumping her stuff in the passenger seat before she climbed into the van. “Much like you take care of this POS.”
Rick gasped in mock indignation. He set down his coffee in a walnut cup holder his uncle had helped him install before using his free hand to pet the furred dash. “She didn’t mean it, baby.” Rick turned a glower on her and hissed, “Apologize, Teeny.”
Martina snorted, but obediently patted the van’s dash, because as often as she mocked it, she loved the old relic as much as he did. “My greatest and humblest apologies to the Beast, who has always been there for us.”
Rick finished off his burrito in two quick bites, tucking the napkins into his bag to bring back later, before starting up the van. “That’s more like it. Respect your elders, Teeny.”
Passed down through Rick’s family, the Beast was from 1978 and looked it.
Years before he’d given it to Rick, his uncle Victor had decided to completely line the inside with brown faux fur.
It had both an eight-track and a tape deck, which Rick had only ever seen in the Beast, meaning music choices were limited.
None of the tapes had made it, but Rick still had a shoebox full of eight-track cassettes from his uncle, ranging from KISS to Dolly Parton, as well as the soundtrack to Annie, which he thought was a bit of an outlier.
Martina dug through the box and plucked one with Dolly’s faded grin out of the box. “For your birthday, I’m either getting you a Bluetooth speaker or hitting eBay for new eight-tracks.”
Rick snorted a laugh as he adjusted his seat belt. “It’s your money.” Most of what Rick earned went either to help out his mom or into savings. Then again, most of what Rick earned wasn’t much.
Rick took a long sip from his coffee and turned the keys, bringing the Beast chugging to life.
All in all, Rick considered his van to be a tattered love letter to a different era.
The front held velour bucket seats, which swiveled like captain’s chairs and reclined back.
The rest of the van was mostly open space, with a mini fridge (also covered in fur) that smelled like old soy sauce, a back bench seat, and a tiny disco ball.
Rick spent a lot of time ignoring the fact that his uncle had probably had sex on every conceivable surface of the Beast. He had found many, many old condom wrappers when he first inherited the van.
Martina had helped him vacuum it out before they doused it in antibacterial spray and performed their own ad hoc exorcism.
Martina stroked the front dash. “Did your uncle ever tell you why he put fur everywhere?”
“No,” Rick said, releasing the brake. “But I did get a lecture on the dangers of peer pressure and how I shouldn’t do drugs.”
“Gotcha,” Martina said. “Don’t do drugs or you’ll end up with a van that can get mange.”
Rick glanced at her.
“Mange is this disease dogs can get where they lose their fur,” she explained. “I think it’s caused by mites.”
“And you know this because…”
Martina flushed, mumbling something.
Rick held up a hand, cupping it around his ear. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
Martina sighed. “Someone might have mentioned it in biology—”
“Someone?” His grin was all evil glee now. Rick was enjoying himself immensely.
“Fine,” Martina huffed. “Camryn was talking about it, okay?”
Rick nodded, a sage expression on his face. “Nothing hotter than a girl talking about parasites, huh? Didn’t know you had a fetish.”
“Knowledge is sexy,” Martina said, finally popping the cassette into the player. “Even if that knowledge is about parasites. She would be an excellent addition to our bunker when the zombie apocalypse finally happens.”
Rick placed a hand over his heart and sniffed theatrically. “Aww, you must really like her if you’re letting her into the bunker.”
She turned her head, examining him carefully. “Seriously reconsidering you, though. I might put you out in the dry moat with Mr. Stephens.”
Rick shook his head, taking a moment to pull on the spare hoodie he’d grabbed from the floor of the van. “You’ll have to wait until he gets back from vacation or whatever.”
She snorted. “Family emergency, my ass. That dude was spawned from under a rock.”
“He’s not the worst counselor at school,” Rick said. “He’s better than Ms. Macnamara.”
Martina crossed her arms over her chest, a look of disgust on her face. “You’re just saying that because Stephens doesn’t give you the sad eyes during detention while he talks about you wasting your potential.”
Rick scoffed. “That’s because he doesn’t think I have any potential.”
Martina scowled instantly, unhappy with any person other than herself taking a potshot against Rick. “You’re full of potential. He’s full of shit.”