times at the end of the street.
‘You’re Leon Sway, right?’ one of them asked. ‘No way, this is dope! My mom said you used to live round here!’
‘Tell your mom I said hi.’
‘No shit, I will. You hanging for a while?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You’re the coolest, man. How’d you get to be so fast?’
‘Practice. Discipline.’
‘Doesn’t it get boring?’
‘Never.’
‘If you raced a bike who’d win?’
‘Me.’
‘If you raced a car who’d win?’
‘Me.’
‘If you raced a lion who’d win?’
‘Me.’
The kid laughed uncertainly. ‘You’re funny.’
‘See you around.’
The boys rode off. The one who’d spoken did a wheelie and thumped the arm of the other kid, calling him a wuss for staying quiet.
Leon put his key in the lock, stopping to ready himself against the ghosts of the past. In another life Marlon would be on the other side, his arms wide open.
Hey, little bro. Want to shoot some hoops?
But it was this life that counted. And his brother wasn’t here any more.
Marlon Sway had been nineteen when he’d died. As one of the most promising athletes on the circuit, he had been destined for greatness, the Sydney Games locked in his sights. He’d been returning from the club one night when a street fight had broken out. Somehow he had got mixed up…a gang conflict spun out of control…a stray bullet…a wrong place, wrong time…Perhaps he had tried to intervene, ever the peacemaker, but wasn’t that worse? He had been caught in the crossfire. Marlon had staggered home with a punctured lung. Yards from his front door, he had collapsed on the road and his heart had stopped beating.
It had been twelve years and still Leon couldn’t pick at the scab, afraid it would bleed as easily as it had when the wound was first made.
He remembered it as if it were yesterday. A deafening sound that split the world in two; the unmistakeable crack of ammo tearing the sky. Instinct had compelled him to run from their home, out on to the street, a feeling in his gut that this was bad. He hadn’t known what it was to run until that moment. Time had fallen away quicker than water as his brother’s body, slumped and lifeless, had lurched closer. Be faster…be faster…
Each and every race he ran, in Tucson, in London, in Athens, in whatever competition and wherever it was, he was there, on that rainy night in Compton when his brother was lost. The splinter of the starting pistol was all he needed. Instead of the line, he’d see Marlon. He’d hear his mom screaming, a violent, feral sound. His brother’s eyes, empty. Marlon hadn’t looked asleep, he hadn’t looked peaceful; none of the things people said were true.
If I’d been quicker, I could have beaten this. I could have stopped it.
It was the need to always be faster, to make it in time that powered Leon’s sprint from that day and in all the days to come. For as long as he came in second, he wasn’t fast enough. He was too late. He was tormented by the idea that had he reached Marlon sooner there could have been a chance at life, a flickering ember he could have roused…
Or at least to have been there when his brother died, so that he hadn’t been alone.
Before he turned the key to his family home, Leon rested his forehead against the door. Twelve years, and it might as well be twelve days. Closing his eyes, he let the memory settle, waiting for it to scatter like light on water. He missed his brother so much.
Marlon was the reason he ran. For him he would run and run until he couldn’t run any more, he would run till his heart gave up and his strength gave in. That was his destiny.
If anyone stood in his way, they would be taken down. Jax Jackson included.
‘Leon, honey, is that you?’
The door clicked open and his mother emerged from the kitchen.
‘Hello, Ma,’ he said, squeezing her tight. ‘I’m home.’
12
‘Gorgeous.’ The photographer clicked away as a stylist rushed to adjust the hem of Kristin’s gown. ‘And lift your arms one more time? That’s it! Beautiful.’
She was shooting cover art for her new album, Heaven, which involved being suspended from the rafters of a studio warehouse with stirrups digging in under her arms. A shimmering halo was bolted to the back of her head and the robes had to be twenty feet long at least, pooling to the floor in swathes of frosted ivory that were meant to look celestially sylphlike but were in fact dragging her down like a lead anchor.
So this was what it felt like being an angel for the afternoon…uncomfortable.
‘Smile, then, Kristin!’ her mother barked from the floor.
‘I am.’
‘Not from where we’re sitting.’ Ramona White was cross-legged at the wardrobe girl’s table, busy applying lipstick. ‘Think of the fans. Do you think they want to see you looking miserable? You’re selling a lifestyle, remember, not just a handful of ditties.’
Kristin hated when her mother insisted on coming to shoots and interviews and anything else she was perfectly capable of handling alone. She’d been years in the industry now and didn’t need Ramona to hold her hand. It was humiliating; it undermined her reputation and made her appear weak and unable to make decisions, hauling Mommy along to look out for her. Doubly challenging when her mother insisted on criticising everything she did, which made Kristin invariably revert to the role of frustrated teenager storming off and slamming her bedroom door. For the sake of today, she bit her tongue.
‘Almost done,’ the photographer lied. Kristin knew it would be an hour at least before she could be brought back to earth and the stills hit the can. ‘Everything OK up there?’
She was determined to retain her professionalism despite her mother’s carping. ‘Fine.’
‘If we could have you gazing up, eyes nice and wide, that’s it…Let’s try one with hands together, in prayer…Loving it, sweetheart, that’s awesome…’
‘I don’t like it,’ snapped Ramona. ‘She looks too whimsical.’
‘That’s what we’re going for, Mrs White.’
‘It’s Mz.’
‘Sure.’
‘What about those poor kids, saving up their allowance to spend on this? They want
