all the rumors and innuendos about my being the breath of the devil. I’m not human. I don’t know what I am exactly, but I do know there is a part of me that is no more human than Dutch is.
I’m also learning a lot, thanks to my abilities to venture into the world unchecked. It’s not like the bars of a prison can hold me. I can go anywhere. Once I realized Dutch was real, that I was literally leaving my body to see her, to seek her out, I realized I could go anywhere.
They think I’m having seizures. They do tests, but they will do only so much on the state’s dime. Probably a good thing, since I don’t think they’re really seizures. Not in the medical sense.
Sometimes I’m lured away and I seize. It’s inconvenient. Seen as a weakness. When I’m in that state, anyone could come at me. I could be dead because a certain reaper with a penchant for getting into as much shit as she possibly can is about to be killed.
It’s during one inopportune time that another realization hits me. One second, I’m on my bunk reading; the next, I’m in front of Dutch. She is on a college campus, UNM, and is being attacked. Naturally. Anger flashes inside me so hot and bright, I don’t even think before wielding my sword and severing his spine.
That’s not the surprising part. She’d called me to her. She’d literally summoned me. Had she always done so? Have I been seeking her out all this time or was she summoning me?
I figure it’s a toss-up. I brush my lips across her mouth before leaving her to deal with campus security. When I get back, I’m being stabbed by a Syndicate recruit. And here I thought we’d come to an accord. At the very least, a mutual understanding.
I don’t kill the kid. I don’t want the hassle. But it does bring into glaring Technicolor how detrimental Dutch’s near-death experiences can be. For me. Not her.
I rough up the kid a bit. Break his nose. Possibly his larynx. Then I hand deliver him to the Syndicate. Sadly, the hit wasn’t ordered. The kid acted on his own. An upstart wannabe out to make a name for himself. He died that night in a puddle of his own blood. A puddle that was not of my making.
A little over two years in, I get a visit from Amador. He comes at least once a month, actually, but this visit is special. This visit will go down in the history books as the day I almost break my best friend’s neck.
“I’ve been arrested for aggravated assault,” he tells me. “It’s pretty much a given I’ll go to prison.”
I stare at him, astonished. He is about to get married. His fiancée is pregnant. He’s never been so happy.
He clears his throat. Taps his fingers on the table.
“Why?” I ask him.
“Because I assaulted a police officer.”
“No, why would you risk everything—?”
“He’s a fucking cop, Rey. A human just like you and me.”
He was wrong on that count.
“Only this guy is an absolute piece of shit. He’s been stalking Bianca, and when she reports it—instead of telling me—he plants a stolen bottle of Oxy on her and has her arrested.”
His hands curl into fists and his eyes water with emotion.
I bite down, frustrated for him.
“They think because they wear a fucking badge, they’re above the law. ¡Cabrones, hijos de puta! Policías como ellos deben morir en un baño de sangre.”
While he vents in his native tongue, I can’t help but feel this is partly my fault. If Amador knew what I was capable of—really knew—he might have come to me instead of taking the matter into his own hands. I could certainly understand his desire for blood, though. I was feeling a little thirsty myself.
“The only reason I was able to get in to see you today,” he says, calming down a bit, “is because all this just went down last night. It hasn’t hit their system yet. But I don’t think I’ll be able to come see you anymore. Not for a while.”
That was the least of my concerns.
“I don’t know where they’ll send me. Hopefully here,” he says with a bitter chuckle, aware of the irony of his hope to get sent to a specific maximum security prison.
“I’ll take care of the cop,” I say.
“And how you gonna do that locked up in here?”
A slow grin spreads across my face, so