Excerpt from All Them Dogs by Djamel White, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Excerpt
All Them Dogs

I had a John Player Blue and milkless tea with about eight sugars for breakfast. My stomach was in knots, fingers all shaky. And that feeling of doom you wake up with, it comes out of nowhere. It's like shell‑shock every time. I felt like the sole survivor of a tragedy I couldn't remember. The tea and the smoke didn't help the stomach, but I needed something to stop the shakes. It'd be a day of trade‑offs. I was a hag sat at the table, my left nostril was whistling through the cack caked up the walls of it. I could hear the low hum of Kenny's voice coming from upstairs. Lizzie usually woke him up by jumping on the bed.

I'd had a useless few hours' sleep and woke up to the lump in the mattress and the fear of God when I remembered I was sleeping on a gun. Shot up out of the bed then, just in time for the skag to kick in and send me onto the floor. I hadn't checked the clip for rounds or made sure the safety was on when I'd stashed it. I wouldn't have had a fucking clue how to anyway, not without watching a YouTube video first. It was still in its paper bag and all. I'd crawled into bed not even thinking about it. Now I needed to get that thing out of here.

Kenny barged into the kitchen, barefoot and untrimmed, wearing only his boxers and a white cotton vest. Lizzie thundered in behind him in her school tracksuit.

"You're up early," said Kenny. He started doing out two bowls of Coco Pops on the counter. He gave the milk a sniff before he poured it over and then the two of them were with me at the table. I looked at the brown mulch floating in both their bowls and felt sick.

"Barely slept," I said. The chair screeched against the tiles as I stood up.

"You around this evening to bring me and Liz to boxing after school?"

I groaned. "I dunno where I'll be, I'm not hanging around here all day." Although the state of me, I might have to. I started toward the door.

"Well, come back and get us. That was the deal."

"What if I'm busy?"

I heard him turn his chair around. "Well, don't be. We need you."

I showed him the back of my hand without turning on my way out into the hall. He could be a bitter cunt about last night all he wanted. Once back in my room I locked the door, took the paper bag with the gun in it out from under the mattress, and put it on the bedside locker for now. I climbed back into the bed, face down on the pillow. I didn't sleep. The memory of Flute's fingers sent signals up the highways of my nervous system, like there was a gap forming between the two. I tried not to think about any of yesterday, but one thing stood out that had to be dealt with.

I heard Lizzie leave for school. Now where could I stash this poxy gun? My ma's crossed my mind, but Archie was there. I knew well enough, stuff as red‑hot as these, they couldn't go unguarded. They needed to be watched, usually by someone who under no account would ever be raided by the Guards. Someone who couldn't afford to say no. I rolled over on my back and tried to gather the energy.

Kenny was in his usual spot skinning up in the sitting room. He called out to me as I was about to leave, the bag of gun stuffed down the back of my trackies. I made sure to keep my front facing him as I came around the sitting‑room door.

"Do you want to go into town or something, if you're not doing anything?" he said.

"And do what?"

"I dunno. Get an Eddie Rockets, float around."

"Get an Eddie Rockets and float around?"

"Yeah."

I looked at him, in his favorite dip of the couch he made with his own fat arse. Me old pal just wanting to kick it, eat chicken tenders, shoot the breeze.

"What are you, sixteen?" I said. "I've shit to do." His face dropped back to the joint he was making.

"Don't forget about later," he said. I didn't answer. I stepped backward through the door and grabbed my parka from the banister. The wind started slapping me around the minute I went out the front door. I held my breath for want of screaming into the air at it. The fucking weather of all things sending me snapping. I needed to keep a cool head right now. I hopped in the Opel and drove the short distance to that lovely little private estate from yesterday.

Excerpted from All Them Dogs by Djamel White. Copyright © 2026 by Djamel White. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.