Free The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Pérez

grunt. I guess he saw that I didn’t eat my dinner last night.
    “You all right, son?” he calls from the hall.
    I don’t move. I have the blanket over my head and I’m not planning on doing anything but lie here for the rest of the day.
    “You sick?” he tries again. When I still don’t say anything, he starts to walk away. A second later he stops. “If you make me come in and check on you, I might have to search your cell, too. For contraband.”
    Shit, now Gabe’s blackmailing me? I make a lot of noise sitting up on the cot so he’ll know I heard him. Last thing I need is more trouble.
    I guess he’s satisfied because he starts walking down the hall. He’s humming again, and I could swear I know the song. Screw him, messing with my head.
    I make myself get up off the cot. I don’t want to think about Becca, but I can’t help it. I pull out the papers and sit back against the wall, right under where it says WELCUM HOME FOOL.
    I’m scared shitless of what I’ll find out, but I’ve got to know what they say I did. What was so bad that even Becca quit on me? I lay out two pages cut from newspapers. At least I guess they’re from newspapers. It’s that kind of super-thin paper, but one piece is totally blank except for the name of the newspaper and a date, June 16, 2011.
    The other page is whacked, too. I can tell it’s an article about the rumble in Montrose, but whole chunks are blacked out with a fat marker. I turn the page all different ways, even look at it from the back, but I can’t see what the marked-out words say. What I can read is enough to make my stomach flip.

    It don’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on here. The paper’s dated June 12, the day after they must’ve brought me in here. Somebody’s dead, and they think I have something to do with it. Becca must believe it, too, the way she was talking in that letter.
    I can’t remember how the rumble ended. Everything goes to fog in my memory. But I know I’d know if I killed somebody. I’d be different inside, like after what happened with Pájaro. I’d know it for sure.
    Something real messed up is going on, because they been holding me here for maybe two weeks, and I ain’t been charged with a damn thing. That’s some illegal shit. But then, everybody knows that the government breaks whatever rules it wants to. Just because I dropped out don’t mean I’m stupid. I’ve heard of Guantánamo Bay.
    I ought to tell Gabe that they owe me a phone call, but who am I going to call anyway? No way Becca’s going to talk to my stupid ass, not after everything in that letter. Tío Beto doesn’t want nothing to do with me; he warned me off when I skipped out on him and my tía .
    And I can’t call Pelón or Eddie or Javi because I got to protect them. I don’t want to send the cops their way. If what’s in the article is even half true, if somebody on the other side got offed, then my boys are probably already getting hit up by these Crazy Crew pussies. Pisses me off to imagine those brown-and-red raggers messing with my homies, disrespecting my hood. “ La Eme Ese controla ,” I say out loud, like that makes any difference.
    I didn’t kill nobody in that fight. I know I didn’t. But still, shit. It can’t get worse than getting pinned with murder.
    Only then I remember that it can. Eddie. Pinche huevón , Eddie. What if they think he did it, and they’re trying to get to him through me? Taking their damn time, for sure, but that don’t mean it ain’t what they’re up to. They might have him locked up somewhere else, trying to keep us separated.
    I didn’t kill nobody, but right now I’m pissed enough that I could. Too pissed to think or draw. Too pissed to lie down. Too pissed to sit still.
    I yank the mattress and blanket off the cot and stand the frame up on one end so that the legs are sticking out. I shove it back into the corner, then I pull myself up by the bar between the legs. Down, up, down, up. I’ve