I stop and stare at her. “Me?”

She nods.

“What the fuck?”

She lowers her head.

“Kim. What? Did you say something?”

“No!” She rushes to assure me, and I know better than to even ask. “I swear. They just— I think a teacher saw you last week.”

I bite down. She missed three days of school because of last week. Earl got fired from his part-time job as a janitor at a warehouse, and he took it out on me. I waited three days before taking Kim to school. She refused to leave me, and I couldn’t risk being seen as torn up as I was. I thought I’d waited long enough. I thought the bruises had faded enough. Apparently not.

We hurry home. We knew what was coming anyway. Earl lost his piece-of-shit job. He couldn’t pay the rent. He would either rob someone, kill someone, or we would sneak out in the middle of the night.

Two days later, we do just that. We sneak out in the middle of the night. Sometimes it takes the landlord days to figure out we’ve gone. Vacating during the wee hours buys us time.

Earl knocks a hole in the wall and dumps all the pictures. I can breathe again when he does. These are bad. The worst we’ve had in a while. He’s going to kill me someday. I just have to hold on long enough to get Kim to a safe place. If she’s old enough, she can file for emancipation. But she has to be at least sixteen in New Mexico.

I don’t get to tell Amador that we’re gone, but I have his home phone number. I use a phone at the hotel we are staying at for the night and leave a message. I tell him that our science project has been moved. He knows what that means: I will get back in touch with him when I can. He knows not to ask why. He’s cool that way.

By the time Kim is a freshman in high school, she has grown into a beautiful young woman. She loves art and French and history. Dutch is also a freshman. She loves guys with body art, French guys, and hot guys from her history books. So they have a lot in common.

I have a job at a chop shop with Amador and take a couple of night classes on the side. But I still walk Kim to school every day. Well, most days. There are the occasional bad ones, but those are dwindling to almost nonexistent. Earl is losing his grip on me, and he knows it.

Unfortunately, Kim has figured out she is the reason I stay. The guilt eats at her. Especially on days like today.

I’m missing work and Kim is missing school. I tell her to go, but she refuses. She brings wet washcloths and has to help me into the bathtub. I’m embarrassed. I tell her I’m fine. It’s no worse than usual. She pretends to believe me, then tries to keep her sobs inside, but every once in a while her breath hitches and a tear slips from between her lashes. Her fingers shake as she slides the cloth over my back. I try not to wince. Wincing only makes her feel worse.

When I’m finished, she puts salve on the rope burns. I don’t let her know that my wrist is broken. It’ll heal in a few days anyway. She puts duct tape on the worst lacerations. That seems to help the most, and my lids are suddenly filled with lead.

I try not to slip. I try to stay there for Kim—but then I slip away anyway and seek out the light. Seek out Dutch. She’s at school and I wonder if I see her in school now because of Kim.

Their two schools are both different and the same. The walls at Dutch’s school seem brighter. The kids dressed better. I never imagined her as rich, but she has never had to wear dirty clothes. I’m glad. I wouldn’t want that for her. I would make her rich if I could, but for some reason, I can’t control this daydream.

I find her in the bathroom at her school. She is putting gloss on her lips, running the tube inside the puffy edges, and then smoothing it with her middle finger. She’s wearing a button-down, a short skirt, and boots. She’s sexy as fuck, and I wonder when I started thinking of her as sexy. It seems wrong somehow.

I realize she’s seen me. She stops her ministrations and looks at me in the mirror. I am, of course, blanketed by my robes. My hood is up, so she can’t see my face, but she stares anyway.

The bell rings and the other girls leave, but she stays glued to the spot. She still doesn’t know who she is. What she is. She only knows she helps the departed. She helps them with their problems. Then she helps them cross to the other side. She has no idea she’s the reaper. Destined to do her job for hundreds of years after she passes. It’s what they do. Reapers.

I decide to enlighten her.

I plant my feet on the ground, let my cloak settle around me, and walk toward her. She is frozen. She doesn’t know what to think of me. This girl who is afraid of nothing is scared to death of a coward hiding behind a layer of smoke.

I lean into her. She smells like strawberries and coffee and a soft perfume that barely brushes the air. She is completely motionless. Watching. Waiting.

My mouth grazes the tender tip of her ear, and I whisper, “You are the grim reaper. You will live forever. You will ferry souls to the other side for hundreds of years. And you are magnificent.”

She doesn’t acknowledge anything I’ve said. She just stares.

I realize someone else has entered the restroom. A woman. She is talking to Dutch. Snapping to get her attention. Threatening her with a pink slip, whatever the fuck that is.

I start to draw my sword, but Dutch snaps out of it. She shakes her head. Pleads.

“Miss Davidson,” the woman says. She gets in her face and Dutch slowly turns away from me and toward her. But her gaze is fixed on me. She is worried I’ll sever the woman’s spine. She should be. She’s a bitch.

Fine. I resheath my sword. She’s no fun.

“Go to the office immediately,” the woman says.

Dutch nods and looks over her shoulder at me as the woman leads her out.

I’m still not sure why she’s so scared of me. It’s my dream. But in it, she’s always in trouble. Like she’s made that way. If she’s not almost getting herself killed trying to help a departed, she’s almost getting herself killed by one of her classmates.

Even though our meeting is brief, her light does its job once again. It heals me. At least I think it does. Why else would I heal so fast? Even if it doesn’t, it keeps me sane. It keeps me from ripping the world to shreds.

14

After I confront Dutch in the restroom, I go back to my world. The days are thick and sticky. Not with heat. It’s cold out. With tension. Something has happened. Something has set Earl on edge. He wants more from me, and if I don’t give it, Kim pays the price. No amount of pain is too much to save her. She’s going to get out of here. She’s going to be someone. Even though she’s not in school at the moment, I find textbooks and make sure she reads them and does all the exercises. She may not go to Harvard, but she is going to college if it kills me.

Because of the renewed violent tendencies, I begin seeing Dutch more and more. As the vision in my dreams grows older, as Dutch ages, so does my interest. It ages. Becomes more visceral. More carnal. She is amazing, this creature I created. She is proud and strong and tenacious. She sticks her neck out too often, though. Sometimes she almost gets it cut. Since saving her from the perv who kidnapped her when she was four, I’ve had to come through for Dutch a few more times.

One of her classmates tried to run her over with an SUV. That was one of my more showy displays. The massive vehicle is shooting toward her with the pedal to the metal. She turns just in time to see me step in front of it and knock it into a store window.