Free Lucretia and the Kroons by Victor LaValle Page A

girl was standing not twelve inches from them.
    Sunny raised one very small, thin hand. She pointed at the playground. “If you’re in there they can get you. And if they get you you’re dead. But out here they have no power. The rats rule the playground. The Kroons rule the park.”
    “Why?” Loochie asked, finally getting to her feet. Slowly, very slowly, taking steps toward Sunny and the hole in the fence.
    Sunny shrugged. “That’s just how it is.” She dropped the racket and it clattered on the concrete but the rats, now sniffing right in front of the hole, didn’t look over. They didn’t even seem to hear it.
    “So we’re safe?” Loochie asked.
    “I didn’t say that.”
    Now Loochie stood by Sunny’s side. She touched Sunny’s shoulder. Sunny was there with Loochie. Sunny was there.
    “I almost started to believe you were …” Loochie couldn’t even finish the sentence.
    Sunny turned from the fence and looked up at her best friend, but didn’t seem to hear what Loochie had been trying to say. Didn’t even register the grief on Loochie’s face. Instead, Sunny pointed at the top of Loochie’s head.
    “Why are you wearing your mom’s wig?”
    Loochie pressed one hand on her head. “I was playing dress-up,” she said. “While I waited for you to come down.”
    Sunny nodded and looked at her feet. She put her arms out and Loochie held her and they hugged. Sunny felt so frail that Loochie didn’t want to grab her too hard. Sunny wore the same pajamas Loochie had seen her in that morning. ROCK, ROCK, ROCK. But they looked dirtier now. Stained and worn. Like she’d been wearing them for weeks or months, not hours.
    “I wanted to come down,” Sunny said.
    Loochie felt her face getting hot. Was she feeling angry or sad? Hurt? How about all three. “So why didn’t you?” she asked.
    “You really don’t know?” Sunny asked quietly.
    Sunny wore a pair of purple rain boots with white polka dots, which only looked more crazy when paired with those pajamas. Though they still seemed a hell of a lot better than Loochie’s stocking feet. Sunny smiled and pointed at the rain boots.
    “It all happened so fast,” Sunny said. “I had to leave in a hurry. These were the shoes I grabbed.”
    “What happened fast?” Loochie asked. “Did the Kroons get you?”
    Sunny looked away from Loochie and didn’t answer her.
    Loochie was still confused, but she was just so happy to have found her friend. She almost couldn’t believe the luck of it, in a park as big as this. But then it was like the way they’d become friends in the first place: They found each other.
    “We have to get back,” Loochie said. “I saw your grandmother crying. She’s going to be so happy to see you again. Maybe I’ll actually see her smile for once!” Loochie laughed.
    Sunny backed away from Loochie and almost tripped over the tennis racket on the ground. She wasn’t offended by what Loochie had said about her grandmother. She was looking over Loochie’s shoulder. Her attention held. Her gaze rose higher, until she was staring right above Loochie’s head.
    But before Loochie could turn around, she saw something moving a little ways behind
Sunny
. First a head, bobbing, coming into view slowly, as if the person—the thing—was trudging up a hill. And as more of it appeared she felt a terrible grip in her stomach. It was a man, skinny and severe, his clothes sagging on his body, his left arm dangling useless at his side. He was a hundred feet behind Sunny but would soon be closer. He was running toward them. They were outside of the playground, where the Kroons ruled once again. Lefty’s brothers wouldn’t be far behind.
    Loochie grabbed the tennis racket from the ground. “Behind you,” she said.
    But Sunny hadn’t stopped staring at a point just behind Loochie yet. Maybe Lefty was coming from one direction and Pit, or the Twins, or Chuck from the other. Loochie had a terrible feeling—dread rumbling in the