Reeves finished adjusting the microphone, jogged back down the steps, and positioned himself about six feet from Maya.
"President," he said quietly, "would you like a chair? A table? I could have someone bring tea—if you get thirsty during the address, you'd have something to drink. We can't have you working yourself to exhaustion up there."
Maya waved him off. "Don't bother. I just have a few things to say."
Andrew's expression didn't waver. His voice was completely earnest. "With respect, President, everything you do matters. Nothing about serving you is a bother."
He really does know how to read the room. Andrew Reeves, former top enforcer, had not wasted the years working under her.
"It's too much fuss. I'm short on time today."
"Then I'll compromise—I'll hold your cup for you."
He produced a teacup on a small tray, stood just behind her left shoulder, and that was that.
Maya stepped up to the microphone. Over five hundred students spread out across the athletic field below her—elementary, middle school, high school, all packed together in the afternoon sun. Reeves stood just behind her, smiling broadly, holding the teacup with both hands.
In the back of the crowd, the lanky white kid from earlier was still fuming. "Seriously—that little bitch. Who gave her permission to stand up there and lecture high school students? She's an elementary schooler. She has no jurisdiction."
"Then say it out loud, if you've got the guts," his companion muttered. "You see Reeves up there? Standing next to her like an Ottoman palace eunuch serving an empress? There's a reason for that. And you were at the fight last month—Morris and his boys went after her on the way home and spent the next two weeks in bed."
"...Morris went after her and lost?"
"Max was there. He drove them to the hospital himself."
The white kid looked at the tiny girl at the microphone. Then at the teacup Andrew was holding. Then back.
"...Okay. I'll shut up."
Maya let the silence grow. Five hundred students, and within a minute the noise had tapered to almost nothing.
March in Manhattan meant Atlantic winds and warming temperatures. Maya had dressed for it: white cotton button-down under a tan wool vest, red-and-white plaid skirt to the knee, black flats, white knee socks. Her long dark hair was pulled back loosely, framing a smooth forehead and an almond-shaped face with two spots of color in the afternoon sun, her phoenix eyes carrying a faint, cool aloofness.
She stood without speaking for a moment longer. Then:
"I expect most of you in the high school division remember me. Normally, high school affairs are managed by the high school student council. Today is different. Today we're talking about matters involving the lives of several—possibly dozens—of your classmates. So I'm stepping in."
Whispers ran through the crowd.
What does that mean?
Lives?
Oh no—is this about me and Paulie? Even if I got her pregnant, that's only one person—
Morris elbowed his friend. "Hey. Is it you?"
"What? What did I do?"
"Marion—39th Street. I heard you've been... you know what they say about that crew. Those boys catch all kinds of diseases. And you and Paul, Hall, Ryan—I know about all of it. Those are a lot of lives on the line—"
"Hey! Keep it down—"
"Then stop hitting me—"
Maya tapped the microphone. Boom. Static feedback rolled across the field and the chatter died.
"Most of you are aware that last Friday, New York crime boss Frank died under unusual circumstances."
She said it completely straight-faced.
"Without a clear successor, every ambitious criminal in Hell's Kitchen has gone into a feeding frenzy. And some of those criminals have decided to use our students—your classmates—as expendable pawns."
Her voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.
"To those of you who've been approached: think carefully. The distance between you and one of these gang bosses is the same as the distance between your grades and mine. You cannot close that gap by trying hard for one night."
...Did she just use a pep talk to insult us? Several of the recruited students thought this exact thought, separately.
"I know some of you brought sniper rifles to school today. I know you're planning to go out tonight and earn yourselves a future. I'll be direct: you won't. You have no chance. You are not armed for what's waiting out there—those men carry AK-47s at minimum. Your little piece of junk won't do a thing. The only thing you'd be contributing is absorbing bullets that would otherwise miss somebody important."
William Baker, who was indeed carrying, felt this land uncomfortably close to home. Maybe, he thought, I should think about getting something bigger. Some of those Chinese surplus AKs are supposed to be—
"Think carefully. Think about your fathers, your brothers, your relatives—the ones who've already been through this. The bullet holes like a honeycomb. The blood pouring out. The screams going hoarse. The fear of death in their eyes, the desperate clinging to life, the regret for ever having been so reckless."
Think about—
Baker stopped.
An image surfaced unbidden: his father's last moments. The wet sound. The light going out. The hands that had stopped moving.
He felt cold. ...This can wait. This can definitely wait.
"These gang bosses don't know your names. I promise you that. They couldn't pick you out of a crowd. You are a resource to them—nothing more, nothing less. And while you bleed out in the street tomorrow night, your mother will be hunched over what's left of you, and your friends will forget you in a month, and your girlfriend will be in someone else's arms before the season ends—"
"No—no, Ellie, please, don't—" A coffee-skinned South American kid in the crowd let out a strangled sound, clutching his own jacket, apparently seeing something only he could see.
Maya didn't pause.
"I understand what you're looking for. You want one big night that changes everything. I'm telling you it won't work—not even a little. The math doesn't work in your favor, and the only finish line you'll reach is one that doesn't come back from."
She let that sit.