As we drove slowly under the ancien

As we drove slowly under the ancient and dilapidated Westside Heights sign—the shitty rectangular red metal hanging off its hinges at one side—ominous dark clouds rolled above us in the sky. Spots of rain began to splatter sporadically on the windscreen of the Prius, the wipers screeching as they automatically tried to clear them out of the way.
As I clutched my mamma’s meds in the white paper bag, I glanced across at Lexi. Her green eyes widened with horror as she took in the shitty, stunning sights of my childhood home.
A crack of thunder boomed above us, sounding like a bomb hitting the ground. Lexi jumped, her breath hitching, and, white-knuckled, she gripped onto the steering wheel with all the strength she had.
All I felt was a huge sense of shame at what she was seeing: rusting and shoddy doublewides lined up side by side, beat-up trucks in their masses, and old tireless muscle cars from the sixties up on concrete blocks. And just to finish off this dystopian paradise, used needles, syringes, and empty beer cans were strewn on the graveled ground, some floating in the muddy streams now flowing through the park. This place was a fuckin’ shithole, and I cursed myself for letting Lexi anywhere near this godforsaken dump.
Clearing my throat, I said, “Take a right up here. It’s the old cream trailer at the end, number twenty-three.”
Lexi’s eyes darted to mine in nerves, and I went back to scouring the site for any of signs of the crew. I wanted to get Lexi in and out of this place before Axel or Gio reared their ugly heads and saw she was here. It would only cause trouble. I was sure Axel had told Gio by now of the little Goth student who’d witnessed the campus deal, the rat that had been hauled in for questioning by the dean. Axel never kept vital information from Gio for long.
The usually busy east sector was a desert town—well, the outside was a desert. Several sets of curtains at the broken-down trailers’ windows were twitching with people nervously checking outside—the usual M.O. for the aftermath of a King’s drive-by. My heart was slamming in my chest as we approached my childhood home, but like everywhere else, it was silent and still.
“Stop here,” I instructed Lexi, and she pulled up alongside the trailer. Axel’s car was gone from out front. Grazie a Dio!
As the engine cut and the wipers stopped, the heavens opened and the rain began pelting down against the metal of the car. Flashbacks of my youth slammed into my mind. As a kid, I used to love being inside a car when it came to a storm. Someone had told me when I was six that the safest place to be in a storm was a car. Apparently, the tires act as an insulator from lighting, so even if you were struck, you’d be safe.
Whenever I felt scared as a kid—from the Heighters’ deals gone wrong, from the drunks littering the park and shouting angry slurs at the top of their lungs, or a drive-by—I would climb into the seats of my daddy’s old engineless Chevy out back and curl up, listening to the rain bouncing off its roof, shutting my eyes, trying to block out the pain.
It was weird being back here at the beginning of another storm, and with Lexington Hart beside me, of all people… My little emo pixie.
Wait… my emo pixie?
“Are we gonna go in or you planning to sit out here all night?” Lexi suddenly asked, pulling me back from my memories, from my shock at the possession I felt for her. Her voice was a little shaky as she tried to joke, only serving to fuel my protective instincts.
“Yeah,” I replied and faced Lexi as she sat in the driver’s seat, her face almost pressed against the glass of the door, her sleeves pulled down over her palms as she chewed nervously on the nail of her thumb.
“Take off, Pix. I’ll find my own way back,” I told her.
Lexi snapped her head to me and frowned. “No, I’ll wait for you. There’s a helluva storm happening right above our heads in case you haven’t noticed.”
Sighing at her sarcasm, I opened the car door and got out, leaning down to say, “Get out of the car, Pix. You’ll be safer inside. Out here…” I trailed off, flicking my chin in the direction of the park, leaving her to make her own assumptions about what I was trying to say.
Turning to the front door of the trailer, I heard her hurried feet behind me and smirked at how quickly she’d moved. She may’ve been sarcastic and dry just a minute ago, but all that front was gone the minute she was left alone.
As I reached for the doorknob, the door burst open. Levi stood before me, darting his wide eyes around the empty trailer park, rushing me inside with a wave.
That immediately got my hackles up. The kid was shit scared.
“Lev,” I said tightly as I pushed past him through the door. When I looked at his face, I stilled.
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” I bit out, my voice sounding as fiery as hell itself. Sitting on the left side of his cheek was a fresh tattooed stidda, the small black Sicilian star of the Westside Heighters. All Heighters were Sicilian in heritage. The stidda was a nod of respect to the Stiddari. A branch of the Sicilian Mafia.
Grabbing Levi’s shirt, I wrenched him closer, demanding, “Did the guy live or did you kill him?”
Levi swayed awkwardly on his feet and muttered, “Lived. Only got hit through his shoulder.”
Releasing Levi’s shirt, I slammed my flat palm against the wall behind his head. “Fuck!”
“That star means you’ve killed or shot someone?” Lexi’s shocked voice sounded beside me, and I almost cussed again. I’d forgotten I’d left out that part of the explanation. Forgotten she knew nothing about this life.
Staring at her shell-shocked face, I admitted, “You get it when you shoot your first member of the Kings. Don’t matter if he survives or dies. It’s about taking the shot for the crew. Proving you’re in this life one hundred percent.”
Lexi’s sleeve-covered palm lifted over her mouth and her eyes grew to the size of the moon. “Have… have you… killed anyone?” Her focus was all on the stidda on my cheek, like she could see the answer if she stared long enough.
Closing my eyes, I tried to stay calm by breathing in real slow through my nose. “I shot someone in the chest. Never knew if it woulda killed him or not.”
“You didn’t stick around to find out?” she whispered anxiously.
I glimpsed at Levi watching me for my answer too, and I shrugged. “Didn’t have to. Axe shot him between the eyes before I ever found out. He was a key member of their crew and he needed to be taken out.”
Water filled Lexi’s eyes, and I felt Levi hang his head. In shame, disappointment? I didn’t wanna know.
“Hello, you must be Levi,” Lexi said, moving on from what I’d just revealed and addressed my brother. I watched Lexi smile at him in easy acceptance. Levi blushed and nodded his head. As Lexi shook his hand, the edge of Levi’s bottom lip sucked in like he always did when he was nervous.
I bent down to Lexi and laid a grateful kiss on her head. I was thankful she was being kind to my brother, but more thankful to God that knowing another element of my fucked-up past, she hadn’t cut her losses and run.
“Yeah, I am. Who… who are you?” Levi asked Lexi quietly, and I moved out of the way to shut us in the privacy of the trailer and away from prying eyes.
As I watched my fourteen-year-old brother stumble and sputter his introduction, my chest filled with regret. This kid before me was dealing coke. This nervous, bumbling kid was out on the streets, selling snow to junkies. Putting his young life on the line so Mamma could live pain free.
Everything about his life, this life, was so fuckin’ wrong, and I had no idea how the hell to fix it for him.
“My name’s Lexi,” Pix answered and let go of his hand.
Levi looked over Pix’s head to me, then back again, that same damn blush coating his cheeks. Levi wasn’t like Axel. He wasn’t full of confidence, arrogant or rude, thinking he could take on anyone no matter how strong. He wasn’t like me, all jaded, angry at the whole fuckin’ world, and pessimistic to the nth degree. Levi was a thinker; he was quiet, barely saying a word if he wasn’t forced to. Preferred to listen and learn than be the center of attention. He had more natural athletic ability than anyone I’d ever known. And he was smart. Real fuckin’ smart. And because we needed coin for Mamma to live the rest of her days in relative comfort, he was forced to work the streets and put himself in harm’s way.
“Are you… Austin’s girlfriend?”
My breath paused at Levi’s sudden question as I waited for what Pix would say. When only silence followed, I felt my stomach fall into that empty pit of disappointment.
Levi looked to me. “Is she, Aust? She your girl?”
Walking toward the two, I placed my hands on Levi’s shoulders and said, “She’s my Pix. That’s all you need to know.”
I saw Levi frown in confusion at my answer but heard the quick inhale of Lexi’s breath behind me, and I turned to see a sweet, stunned expression on her face.
That satisfied whisper of happiness right there made my whole fuckin’ life. Chest cracked, heart exposed—whole fuckin’ life.
“Austin?” My mamma’s barely-there voice drifted from the direction of the bedroom, and as always, I instantly felt weak. I wasn’t a twenty-one-year-old gangbanger and potential NFL player at this moment. I was a helpless young kid whose mamma was slowly dying. Seeing Mamma worsen by the day was completely killing me.
“Si, Mamma. Sono qui. I’ll be through with your meds in just a minute,” I shouted back, then lowered my voice once again. “What the hell happened tonight, Lev? You’re a fuckin’ mess.”
For the first time since we walked in, I took a real look at all of Levi’s face. Gritting my teeth, I put my fingers below his chin and lifted his lowered head. His whole right cheek was red and grazed, his skin caked with dried blood.
Anger infused my body.

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 1:

As we drove slowly under the ancient and dilapidated Westside Heights sign—the shitty rectangular red metal hanging off its hinges at one side—ominous dark clouds rolled above us in the sky. Spots of rain began to splatter sporadically on the windscreen of the Prius, the wipers screeching as they automatically tried to clear them out of the way.As I clutched my mamma’s meds in the white paper bag, I glanced across at Lexi. Her green eyes widened with horror as she took in the shitty, stunning sights of my childhood home.A crack of thunder boomed above us, sounding like a bomb hitting the ground. Lexi jumped, her breath hitching, and, white-knuckled, she gripped onto the steering wheel with all the strength she had.All I felt was a huge sense of shame at what she was seeing: rusting and shoddy doublewides lined up side by side, beat-up trucks in their masses, and old tireless muscle cars from the sixties up on concrete blocks. And just to finish off this dystopian paradise, used needles, syringes, and empty beer cans were strewn on the graveled ground, some floating in the muddy streams now flowing through the park. This place was a fuckin’ shithole, and I cursed myself for letting Lexi anywhere near this godforsaken dump.Clearing my throat, I said, “Take a right up here. It’s the old cream trailer at the end, number twenty-three.”Lexi’s eyes darted to mine in nerves, and I went back to scouring the site for any of signs of the crew. I wanted to get Lexi in and out of this place before Axel or Gio reared their ugly heads and saw she was here. It would only cause trouble. I was sure Axel had told Gio by now of the little Goth student who’d witnessed the campus deal, the rat that had been hauled in for questioning by the dean. Axel never kept vital information from Gio for long.The usually busy east sector was a desert town—well, the outside was a desert. Several sets of curtains at the broken-down trailers’ windows were twitching with people nervously checking outside—the usual M.O. for the aftermath of a King’s drive-by. My heart was slamming in my chest as we approached my childhood home, but like everywhere else, it was silent and still.“Stop here,” I instructed Lexi, and she pulled up alongside the trailer. Axel’s car was gone from out front. Grazie a Dio!As the engine cut and the wipers stopped, the heavens opened and the rain began pelting down against the metal of the car. Flashbacks of my youth slammed into my mind. As a kid, I used to love being inside a car when it came to a storm. Someone had told me when I was six that the safest place to be in a storm was a car. Apparently, the tires act as an insulator from lighting, so even if you were struck, you’d be safe.Whenever I felt scared as a kid—from the Heighters’ deals gone wrong, from the drunks littering the park and shouting angry slurs at the top of their lungs, or a drive-by—I would climb into the seats of my daddy’s old engineless Chevy out back and curl up, listening to the rain bouncing off its roof, shutting my eyes, trying to block out the pain.It was weird being back here at the beginning of another storm, and with Lexington Hart beside me, of all people… My little emo pixie.Wait… my emo pixie?“Are we gonna go in or you planning to sit out here all night?” Lexi suddenly asked, pulling me back from my memories, from my shock at the possession I felt for her. Her voice was a little shaky as she tried to joke, only serving to fuel my protective instincts.“Yeah,” I replied and faced Lexi as she sat in the driver’s seat, her face almost pressed against the glass of the door, her sleeves pulled down over her palms as she chewed nervously on the nail of her thumb.“Take off, Pix. I’ll find my own way back,” I told her.Lexi snapped her head to me and frowned. “No, I’ll wait for you. There’s a helluva storm happening right above our heads in case you haven’t noticed.”Sighing at her sarcasm, I opened the car door and got out, leaning down to say, “Get out of the car, Pix. You’ll be safer inside. Out here…” I trailed off, flicking my chin in the direction of the park, leaving her to make her own assumptions about what I was trying to say.Turning to the front door of the trailer, I heard her hurried feet behind me and smirked at how quickly she’d moved. She may’ve been sarcastic and dry just a minute ago, but all that front was gone the minute she was left alone.As I reached for the doorknob, the door burst open. Levi stood before me, darting his wide eyes around the empty trailer park, rushing me inside with a wave.That immediately got my hackles up. The kid was shit scared.“Lev,” I said tightly as I pushed past him through the door. When I looked at his face, I stilled.“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” I bit out, my voice sounding as fiery as hell itself. Sitting on the left side of his cheek was a fresh tattooed stidda, the small black Sicilian star of the Westside Heighters. All Heighters were Sicilian in heritage. The stidda was a nod of respect to the Stiddari. A branch of the Sicilian Mafia.Grabbing Levi’s shirt, I wrenched him closer, demanding, “Did the guy live or did you kill him?”Levi swayed awkwardly on his feet and muttered, “Lived. Only got hit through his shoulder.”Releasing Levi’s shirt, I slammed my flat palm against the wall behind his head. “Fuck!”“That star means you’ve killed or shot someone?” Lexi’s shocked voice sounded beside me, and I almost cussed again. I’d forgotten I’d left out that part of the explanation. Forgotten she knew nothing about this life.Menatap wajahnya terguncang, aku mengakui, "Anda mendapatkannya ketika Anda menembak Anda anggota pertama raja-raja. Tidak peduli apakah ia bertahan atau mati. Ini adalah tentang mengambil tembakan untuk kru. Membuktikan Anda dalam hidup ini seratus persen. "Lexi's tertutup lengan palm mengangkat atas mulutnya dan matanya tumbuh dengan ukuran bulan. "Memiliki... Apakah kau... membunuh orang?" Fokusnya adalah pada stidda pada pipi saya, seperti dia bisa melihat jawaban jika dia menatap cukup lama.Menutup mata saya, saya mencoba untuk tetap tenang dengan bernapas dalam nyata lambat melalui hidung. "Aku menembak seseorang di dada. Tidak pernah tahu jika itu akan membunuhnya atau tidak.""Anda tidak tetap sekitar untuk mengetahui?" dia berbisik cemas.Aku melihat sekilas di Levi menonton saya untuk jawaban saya juga, dan aku mengangkat bahu. "Tidak perlu. Kapak menembaknya antara mata sebelum saya pernah menemukan. Ia adalah anggota kunci awak dan ia perlu dibawa keluar."Air diisi Lexi di mata, dan aku merasa Lewi menggantung kepalanya. Dengan rasa malu, kekecewaan? Aku tidak ingin tahu."Halo, Anda harus Lewi," Lexi berkata, pindah dari apa yang saya akan hanya mengungkapkan dan ditangani saudara saya. Saya menyaksikan Lexi tersenyum padanya dalam penerimaan mudah. Levi tersipu dan mengangguk kepalanya. Seperti Lexi mengguncang tangannya, tepi bibir bawah Levi's tersedot seperti yang dia selalu lakukan ketika ia gugup.Aku membungkuk ke Lexi dan meletakkan berterima kasih ciuman di kepalanya. Saya bersyukur dia menjadi baik kepada adikku, tetapi lebih bersyukur kepada Jahweh yang mengetahui elemen lain saya kacau masa lalu, dia tidak memotong kerugian nya dan menjalankan.“Yeah, I am. Who… who are you?” Levi asked Lexi quietly, and I moved out of the way to shut us in the privacy of the trailer and away from prying eyes.
As I watched my fourteen-year-old brother stumble and sputter his introduction, my chest filled with regret. This kid before me was dealing coke. This nervous, bumbling kid was out on the streets, selling snow to junkies. Putting his young life on the line so Mamma could live pain free.
Everything about his life, this life, was so fuckin’ wrong, and I had no idea how the hell to fix it for him.
“My name’s Lexi,” Pix answered and let go of his hand.
Levi looked over Pix’s head to me, then back again, that same damn blush coating his cheeks. Levi wasn’t like Axel. He wasn’t full of confidence, arrogant or rude, thinking he could take on anyone no matter how strong. He wasn’t like me, all jaded, angry at the whole fuckin’ world, and pessimistic to the nth degree. Levi was a thinker; he was quiet, barely saying a word if he wasn’t forced to. Preferred to listen and learn than be the center of attention. He had more natural athletic ability than anyone I’d ever known. And he was smart. Real fuckin’ smart. And because we needed coin for Mamma to live the rest of her days in relative comfort, he was forced to work the streets and put himself in harm’s way.
“Are you… Austin’s girlfriend?”
My breath paused at Levi’s sudden question as I waited for what Pix would say. When only silence followed, I felt my stomach fall into that empty pit of disappointment.
Levi looked to me. “Is she, Aust? She your girl?”
Walking toward the two, I placed my hands on Levi’s shoulders and said, “She’s my Pix. That’s all you need to know.”
I saw Levi frown in confusion at my answer but heard the quick inhale of Lexi’s breath behind me, and I turned to see a sweet, stunned expression on her face.
That satisfied whisper of happiness right there made my whole fuckin’ life. Chest cracked, heart exposed—whole fuckin’ life.
“Austin?” My mamma’s barely-there voice drifted from the direction of the bedroom, and as always, I instantly felt weak. I wasn’t a twenty-one-year-old gangbanger and potential NFL player at this moment. I was a helpless young kid whose mamma was slowly dying. Seeing Mamma worsen by the day was completely killing me.
“Si, Mamma. Sono qui. I’ll be through with your meds in just a minute,” I shouted back, then lowered my voice once again. “What the hell happened tonight, Lev? You’re a fuckin’ mess.”
For the first time since we walked in, I took a real look at all of Levi’s face. Gritting my teeth, I put my fingers below his chin and lifted his lowered head. His whole right cheek was red and grazed, his skin caked with dried blood.
Anger infused my body.