Motorcycle engines.
His body tensed instinctively.
He limped toward the window.
Three motorcycles stood in the driveway.
For half a second, Cody thought Jackson had called the club to discuss retaliation.
Then he noticed what the men were carrying.
Furniture.
One had a dresser strapped to the bed of a pickup following them.
Another carried a boxed television.
Mercer came through the front door holding a lamp.
He saw Cody.
"Morning."
Cody looked confused.
"What is all this?"
"Housewarming."
Jackson appeared behind him.
"I told them not to."
Mercer ignored him.
"Nobody asked you."
A huge man Cody knew only as Tiny carried a bookshelf down the hall.
"Where's this go?"
Cody pointed.
"My room?"
Tiny nodded.
"Good choice."
Jackson folded his arms.
"You guys don't have jobs?"
Mercer said, "It's Saturday."
"You own a tattoo shop."
"Closed."
"For this?"
Mercer looked at Cody.
"Kid needed furniture."
Cody did not know what to say.
The men did not make speeches.
They did not ask about the bruises.
Nobody called him weak.
They assembled furniture badly.
Argued about instructions.
Ordered pizza.
One of them put a shelf upside down and refused to admit it for forty minutes.
By afternoon, Cody's room looked lived in.
Jackson took him back to Brenda's house with a county caseworker and Officer Reyes.
Cody packed everything he owned into three bags.
Clothes.
Schoolbooks.
A cheap laptop.
Football cleats.
A framed photograph of himself and Jackson taken when Cody was five.
That was almost all.
Brenda stood in the doorway.
She looked exhausted rather than cruel.
"I didn't know."
Cody kept packing.
"You should have told me."
He stopped.
Then turned.
"I tried."
Brenda's face changed.
"About school?"
"Not everything."
"Cody..."
"You told me you had too much going on."
She lowered her eyes.
"I did."
"I know."
That answer hurt more than anger might have.
Brenda began crying.
"I am sorry."
Cody looked at her.
He believed she meant it.
But apologies did not repair every failure.
Sometimes they only named it.
"Okay."
He picked up his bag.
Jackson waited outside.
He never entered the house.
That mattered to Cody.
The old Jackson would have wanted somebody to blame.
This version understood that Cody needed the goodbye more than he needed a confrontation.
Monday morning, Oak Creek High looked different.
News traveled faster than official announcements.
Students had posted video from Friday.
Parents had demanded meetings.
The superintendent placed Principal Wallace on administrative leave pending an investigation into previous bullying complaints.
Trent Harris and Weston Cole were suspended from campus.
Both faced juvenile criminal proceedings related to assault and extortion.
Bill Harris issued no public defense of his son.
Instead, through an attorney, the family stated that Trent would cooperate with the investigation.
Students debated whether Bill's response came from guilt, fear of Jackson, concern for his business, or genuine horror at what his son had done.
Jackson did not care.
For once, the reason mattered less than the result.
At nine thirty Monday morning, Jackson and Cody sat inside county family court.
Jackson wore a white button-down shirt.
Cody stared at him.
"What?"
"You look weird."
Jackson looked down.
"It's a shirt."
"With buttons."
"Most shirts have buttons."
"Not yours."
Elena told them both to be quiet.
The hearing lasted forty-seven minutes.
The judge reviewed Jackson's housing.
Employment.