Empire of Shadows / Season 1, Episode 10
Midnight on Linwood
The engine of the '68 Dodge Charger growled low, a beast crouched in the dark, as Leon Mercer gripped the steering wheel with one hand, the other resting on the gearshift, ready to move. The air inside the car was thick with the scent of old leather and cigarette smoke, the windows cracked just enough to let in the November chill off Linwood Avenue. Streetlights flickered above, casting jagged yellow streaks across the vacant lot where he and Reggie had been parked for over an hour. His eyes, sharp as cut glass, stayed locked on the shadows beyond the chain-link fence, where last night he'd nearly been made after that damn bottle rolled underfoot. The memory of it—the scrape of glass on asphalt, the sudden turn of Carver’s head—still tightened his chest. “Man, we been sittin’ here too long,” Reggie muttered from the passenger seat, his voice a low rasp, like he was scared the dark itself might hear him. He shifted, his knee bouncing, the denim of his jeans scraping against the seat. “They ain’t comin’. Not after last night. They spooked, Leon. We spooked ‘em.” Leon didn’t turn his head. His jaw worked slow, chewing on nothing but the weight of the moment. “They comin’,” he said, each word deliberate, heavy with the certainty of a man who’d...