The boy dangled his legs over the side of the dock. His toes barely registered the icy water as his mind swirled with the images he had seen an hour ago. The sound of gunshots still rang in his ears.
He should tell his mom, but he wasn’t sure if she would believe him after all the trouble he’d had. He could report it to the police, but he had little faith these small-town cops would believe anything he said. Being Black in Virginia wasn’t much different than in Mississippi. He was in a place he shouldn’t have been, hanging with a kid that violated the terms of his probation. It was a clear violation of the agreement that had kept him out of the juvenile detention center.
His teeth chewed on the remainder of a jagged fingernail. What if they find me?
The sudden blow to his head erased any potential for further thought as his body collapsed against the old, splintered wood beneath him. Concrete made the splash much bigger as his body disappeared into the dark water, settling into the thick grasses deep at the bottom.
The man uttered a sarcastic, “Sleep with the fishes, kid.”
Dante’s question had been definitively answered.