sia

move

s a stark white

d a single, buzzing flu

towel and a bottle of

e a mess," she

t, polite tears. They were gut-wrenching, soul-tearing sounds-the

then a phrase that made the b

... my boy...

orway, a file in her hand.

siness," she said, her voice

on the poison the Scorpion

ut, but the woman's c

closing around the tarnished silver compass that h

old me years ago, her voice a soft whisper a

s in it now. D

t her funeral. He'd insi

s," he'd said, his voice thick with a

he been

t. My nail caught on a tiny, almost invisible seam near the

res

than a sigh. A hidden

ed of faded velvet, wa

e, wasn't an escape. It wa

s hammer overhead. My mother was callin

corpion... El Jef

against my ribs. Her words from the dre

o talk

rs shaking as I went to his

er me. I wasn't just a lo

thing they did

, the number from their corporate websi

gs, how may I d

unding strange and distant even to my own ear