Kill the Messenger by Tami Hoag

swimming.

                             9
    Jace hobbled slowly down the stairs from the apartment in his socks, boots tied together and slung over his shoulder. He had slept maybe a total of an hour and a half. He had just drifted off again around four when Tyler had crawled onto the futon with him and whispered that he was scared. Jace told him it was okay, and to go to sleep.
    Tyler was still young enough to believe him about things he wanted to believe. Jace couldn’t remember ever having been that young. He’d never had the luxury of a buffer. Alicia may have wanted to protect him but hadn’t believed she should. Instead, she had given him the best gift she thought she had to give: survival skills.
    She had always told him not to waste valuable time panicking. There was no point in it, no benefit to be gained. Still, it was partly panic—and pain—that had kept his brain running like a hamster in a wheel those few precious hours he should have been sleeping. At four-thirty he slipped out of bed, onto the floor on his hands and knees, taking stock of what hurt most.
    The ankle felt thick and difficult to move. He had packed it in ice bags overnight, trying to bring down the swelling, hoping he could get by with taping it, that he hadn’t done more damage to the ligaments than he thought. Slowly, slowly, he braced a hand on the Chinese stool, took a deep breath, and struggled to stand.
    Even a normal, hectic day on the job could come back the next morning like a bad hangover. Back hurting, hamstrings tight, Achilles tendons hard as rocks. Bruises, cuts, scrapes. Lungs aching from breathing exhaust. Eyes stinging, fingers frozen in a curl from gripping the handlebars.
    Today seemed no worse than any bad day after a wreck, except for the idea that someone wanted to kill him.
    He went into the bathroom, took a quick cold shower to clear his pounding head, then taped the ankle as tight as he dared. It was half again the size it should have been, but he could put weight on it, and that was all that counted.
    At the bottom of the stairs he sat down and worked his boot on, clenching his jaw at the discomfort. Small beads of sweat popped on his forehead. He could hear the ice delivery truck idling outside the big door of the loading dock. The first call of morning in Chinatown, and most other ethnic neighborhoods Jace knew: deliveries to the small family grocers, the meat markets, the restaurants. Once a week the butcher across the street received crates of live chickens and ducks, adding to the wake-up call. Jace found the noise and routine comforting, the way he imagined he would feel if he had been born into a big family.
    The rattle of a chain. The grinding of the motor that lifted the overhead door. The voice of Madame Chen’s nephew, Chi, barking orders to third cousin Boo Zhu. The scrape of metal against the concrete as Boo Zhu hopped off the dock and dragged his shovel with him.
    Jace pulled in a deep breath of damp, fish-scented air, and went to work. He said nothing to Chi about being injured. Chi didn’t ask. Chi, who ran the day-to-day business of the fish market, disliked Jace and disapproved of his aunt’s decision to take the Damon brothers in. In six years he had not changed his mind.
    Jace didn’t care about Chi. He did his job and gave Chi no reason to complain about anything other than the fact that Jace wasn’t Chinese and didn’t speak Chinese. Something Chi found impossible to tolerate despite the fact that he had been born in Pasadena and spoke English as well as anyone.
    Madame Chen had very bluntly pointed out to Chi that bilingual skills were not a requirement for shoveling shaved ice from one place to the next. Boo Zhu, who was twenty-seven and mentally handicapped, barely spoke any language at all, and managed to get through his work without a problem.
    The rain had become a thick, cold drizzle. Still, Jace was sweating like a workhorse, feeling nauseous and weak as