PROLOGUE

Nate calculated how long it would be before he’d be sick again. He was safe because he had money, and he was on his way to the block. He only saved a bit of medicine for the morning, barely enough to feel well, but there was some psychological and physical comfort in knowing he would soon have all he needed to ensure a peaceful couple of days. The calculations were always overestimations, but that didn’t matter. Nate knew peace was coming.

It was early morning, and there were only a couple of people on the bus, mostly Mormons going to work to provide for their families. He was always fascinated with the Mormons, since they seemed to have somehow found some way to live simply. Whether on the surface or not, they had found something that he hadn’t. Considering he saw them so much, he often thought about what life would have been like if he were born into a Mormon family. It would probably be the same, as he would still be himself, flaws and all.

The bus pulled up to his stop, and as he disembarked, he scanned his old school ID that still worked. Weeks ago, he had made this discovery, and it meant that he never had to pay for the bus, which was crucial since he needed every dollar for his medicine. Although it was inconvenient, he exited the bus two blocks away so he could evaluate the dangerous area before he set foot in it.

The block was not much of a neighborhood. Everyone knew it to be four square blocks, but only two of them encountered any action. It was eerily close to the basketball arena and, even worse, the temple. Most of the Mormons had no idea what went on there, and if they did, it was doubtful they would know how to handle it. Regardless, those four blocks were all Nate cared about as his doctors were there, his medicine was there, and his peace was there.

The drug dealers were all called Hondos because the open-air drug market in Salt Lake had been set up by Honduran gangs decades ago, but Nate was convinced that that was just an overgeneralization. He had set to memory the drug scenes of several towns in his time, and the guys in Salt Lake reminded him of the typical cartel Mexicans in Houston or Los Angeles. It didn’t matter—they all sold him his medicine—but he was always thinking of these insignificant details. Unless he was at peace, thoughts constantly ricochet through his head. They could be good or bad, and in some perverted way, the good was just as painful as the bad. Only one thing shut the thoughts up, and it was right around the corner.

He tried to buy from the same Hondo every time because that was the safest way to obtain the medicine. One of the possessions he had left was a phone, but the only number he had made him take a bus to the west side, which was incredibly inconvenient. Ultimately, he just depended on his intuition at the block.

The second anyone turned the corner at the block, they were verbally bombarded by the Hondos. They had not been in the country very long, and the only English they knew were numbers and “black” and “white,” black for heroin and white for cocaine. Upon turning the corner onto the block, that was all he would hear. Most people just bought their medicine from the first person they made eye contact with, and that was the cas