The Obsidian Society

by Keshara Moore

Genres: Dystopian

Synopsis

To turn within is to survive.

After the collapse of humanity in 2211, Lettie Valentine, her family, and the rest of Washington D.C.’s Black upper class sought refuge in the ruins of Salt Lake City. As the Founders of the Obsidian Society, they turned inward, protecting their own against the remaining Colonies on Earth.

Now, after years of hard-won peace and growth under the Valentines’ helm, cracks begin to surface. Their father, the colony’s predecessor, is gone, and Lettie’s older brother conspires against their mother for power. Waves of hostile Colonists suddenly bombard their home, seemingly steered by the mysterious Renewed Citizen’s Front, who fled the galaxy over a decade ago.

But when the Front returns to Earth under a banner of peace, Lettie is no longer able to alleviate her community’s rifts, especially when her growing attraction to one of its emissaries causes her allegiances to waver. New bonds and unexpected leadership find Lettie turning outward in search of the answer to saving Salt Lake, at a cost.

 

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Release date: April 25, 2023

Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing

Print pages: 409

Sample

PROLOGUE

Dramatics and false pretenses aside, the worst part about drowning isn’t the actual action of drowning. No, it’s the innate betrayal of one’s body that really leaves a lasting impression. Most people go their entire lives without questioning a thing as simple as breathing, going through the motions subconsciously, completing the life-preserving act more than twenty thousand times a day.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

And so forth.

There are few things in the world that come as natural as breathing does. Every living organism does it, irrefutably. It is never taught; it goes unquestioned. That is, until you realize that you may be drawing your last. Then, it’s all you can think about. Don’t believe me? Reread that last part again. I bet you’re counting your breaths right now, aren’t ya?

Now take that heightened awareness and compound it with water closing in, engulfing any and all space around you. A rapid heartbeat thundering in your head, the only sign that it isn’t some sick nightmare and you are indeed—ever fleetingly—still alive.

The real kicker though is when the drowning begins. When the body’s natural reflex to breathe, inhale, its demanding desire to reach that twenty-thousand standard, is its ultimate undoing. Each of your senses stands acutely aware of the dire situation you’re in, such that your brain repeatedly stutters over the action of taking that first sip of water, and everything in you understands the inevitable fatalistic outcome. An anatomical paradox, your brain ignores your body’s instinct and shouts, “Breathe!” And you do. And it burns like lava traveling up your nose, down your throat, and through your veins.

I would later discover that it in fact takes several minutes for a person to completely croak from drowning, most of which you’re unconscious for. But for those 120 seconds when you are awake, mind racing, trying to think of just how the hell you got yourself into such a situation and how you’re going to get out of it, those moments are a living hell.  I know this because it’s how I died.

CHAPTER
1

“Mija, I admit, my expectations—completely blown!”

Squared in front of Lettie, the man gripped her chin hard, his face inches away. A small incandescent light bulb above the duo cast dark savage shadows over her aggressor. Despite the dim glow, Lettie could make out the long unkempt hairs that comprised his scraggly beard and thinning mustache to match. Breath like rancid tuna hit her face wave after wave as the man inhaled and exhaled deeply.

“It took some real huevos breaking in here by yourself, or I guess, in your case, cómo se dice…‘ovaries’? Oh, but this,” he motioned toward her up and down, “now this, I gotta give you props on.”

The speaker smiled wide, exposing all his teeth, several silver caps glinting harshly in the light.

“Matteo here has sent fishes bigger than you to meet their dead relatives in la tierra de la muerta.” His grip tightened along her chin, eyes trailing up and down her torso. “But here you sit, calm, cool, and, mostly, still together. Maybe he been going easy on you, muy fácil. Maybe he got a little crush on you, ah? Shit, who could blame him?”

Conveniently, he’d failed to mention that his captive had taken out half a dozen of his men before anyone even knew she was in the building, but even Lettie knew it wasn’t the time to boast.

A hard shake of her head forced his sweaty palm off her face. Before the long-winded speaker could recover, Lettie mustered the biggest loogie she could form and hawked it smack dab in the middle of his forehead.

“Maldita puta!” The man jerked his small wiry frame backward and swatted at his face, a roar of expletives that even Lettie could understand ringing out.

A sudden breeze from the left tipped Lettie off to the incoming strike before its impact. A meaty fist smashed into the side of her face and then another in

quick succession. Both blows struck her squarely upon the temple. The impact rocked her so hard that her chair toppled over, slamming her strapped body into the concrete ground with it. Lettie balled her fists, straining against the tight rope bindings. Blackness threatened to overtake her vision. Biting down hard on her bottom lip, she drew blood. The taste of iron sent a waking shock through her body. It took a few moments for her eyes to return to normal and once they had, two pairs of boots stared back, menacingly. Continuing the barrage, a swift kick to the ribs beckoned the blackness to return, and a newfound uneasy wave of nausea clutched her stomach. Bile threatened to surface.

“Siéntenla! And get me something to wipe this shit off!”

The chair and Lettie with it were roughly lurched back to an upright position. This time the man whose fists she’d grown unluckily close to, Matteo, remained inches away. His dark glare dared her to make another move. Reorienting herself, Lettie studied her surroundings once more. Aside from Matteo and Silas, the group’s underwhelming leader, several other men and women gathered around the small room, illuminated by hastily assembled portable floodlights. Ceremoniously, they all donned the same cut-off leather vests, but where Silas’s vest fell over him like an oversized T-shirt, Matteo’s barely squeezed over his massive forearms. Similar to the rest of the group, though, both men were covered in an equally impressive number of tattoos. Lettie’s dad would have called them illegals or degenerates, voice thick with venom as he barked that they were a people with no code. She shook her head free of the memory.

Their party was situated in the basement of a run-down house fifty-four miles outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. From previously studied blueprints, Lettie knew that the little wooden door to her right was the only way in or out of the unfinished basement. Though she’d grown used to the smell, the constant musty odor of standing water was barely a step above that of Silas’s hot breath.

“You got some nerve showing up here, causing trouble. You’re a little far from home, no?” Silas reverted to the same line of questioning he’d been prodding her with, to no avail, all afternoon. “Por qué estás aquí?…Why are you here?”

Lettie spoke, exercising every effort to avoid betraying the very real pain that pulsed through

her body with every breath. “I told you yesterday, I was sent to find out why you and your gang of misfits are headed straight toward our borders. You’ve been moving closer and closer to the colony every week this month, and it’s a little concerning to say the least.”

“Mentirosa!” His patience was waning as he paced back and forth over the dusty floor, occasionally acknowledging the expectant glares of their audience. “You want me to believe that Regina fucking Valentine just up and sent you of all people on a suicide mission with no backup, all to find out why I tell my people what I do?”

Lettie mustered a sly grin, achingly stretching the skin of her busted top lip. “What do I gain from lying to you, Silas? I’m sure big boy here is itching to find a reason to give me another go, and as you already pointed out, I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side.”

Just for that, Matteo chucked a quick jab to her previously injured ribs and the air momentarily escaped Lettie’s lungs. When it returned thirty seconds later, Lettie hung her head, finding it easy to sell her defeat for the whole room. Despite her experience and training, she was finding it increasingly difficult to control her emotions, pain and anger at the forefront.

A minute of silence passed before anyone spoke.

“Your supplier.” The words came as a mumble.

“Qué dijiste?” Silas’s interest in her sudden talkativeness finally gave him the courage to come within arm’s length of her again.

“We know you’re getting additional supplies from someone, someone outfitting you guys. I was sent here to find out who and what it has to do with OS.”

For a moment, he looked as if he was going to deny the accusation or was bewildered about how she’d obtained the information; either way,

it was difficult to tell. Blood had begun to seep slowly into Lettie’s eye, obscuring her vision. Briefly, she questioned whether Matteo’s strike had also blown her eardrum because suddenly she registered Silas break out into a wheezing fit of laughter.

When he finally managed to compose himself once again, he replied in his heavily accented tone, “You tall and mighty monos have no idea what’s coming for you. Pobrecita, El Diablo es—”

Matteo and Lettie saw the flash-bang skid across the room at the same time, and she slammed her eyes closed tightly in the hopes of limiting the effects. Time froze as a multitude of screams and voices started up to her right, then three quick gunshots, and then silence.

Lettie blinked several times, gathering her bearings, before a hand grabbed her shoulder tightly.

“No!” She thrust her head in every direction, attempting to defend herself against her attacker anyway she could.

“Aye, Lettie…calm down! It’s me.” The honeyed accented voice hinted at the speaker’s identity, but their headgear muddled their words. They quickly snatched the protective goggles off, and Lettie’s body immediately went limp, relaxed.

“Tristan.”

The woman’s hair fell around her face, locs so long that in her crouched position in front of Lettie, they almost hit the floor beneath them, the worry in her dark brown eyes palpable. Gently, Tristan placed a hand on each side of Lettie’s face and forced them into a focused stare off.

“So, you are still in there. You had me worried for a second.”

“What took you so long?”

“Oh, ya know—thought we’d stop and shoot the shit with the jackrabbits and chuckwallas.”

Tristan proceeded to pull out a sharp hunting knife from her waistband and began to cut through the restraints at Lettie’s wrists and ankles, paying extra care not to pull the material too tautly against the raw skin. Once freed from her restraints, Lettie had a chance to take in the fallout around them. Matteo’s body lay exceptionally still, just a foot from where she stood. He bore two bullet holes, that she could see, in his thick neck and bright blood continued to dribble out of the wounds. In the cold, a singular hole that resided directly in the middle of his chest, and the one Lettie estimated had resulted in his immediate demise, still smoked slightly and her gaze focused in on the gun that lay idle in his hand. She hadn’t witnessed him

pull it, but nonetheless reached down and grabbed it out of his large fist, chalking the momentary tremor in her hand up to adrenaline. Checking to make sure it was loaded, she slipped the weapon into the waistband of her jeans. Lettie turned toward the rest of the room: her team had secured the remaining Lobos, their weapons stockpiled in a duffel bag off to the side and their hands secured with reinforced zip ties.

“Are there any more upstairs?” she asked Tristan, brushing her hand through her hair, attempting to pat down the wild, curly tufts that were undeniably sticking up at various angles.

“Mostly dead. There were a few runners, but I sent the twins after them. Other than that, it’s just these baddies down here.” Tristan motioned to Silas, who cowered in the corner with the rest of his men, eyes glaring at them. Lettie counted eighteen in total.

With Tristan following closely behind her, Lettie led them to the corner of the room where a small kitchenette set held Lettie’s seized gear.

“Once you get a total head count with Nico and Nyla, secure this area and transport them back to headquarters. Leave two of our people here in case any stragglers decide to return.” Lettie grimaced as she made her way through the dingy basement, back up the single set of rickety stairs, and toward the front door.

Outside, the sun had almost fully set behind the outcropping of the Wasatch Mountains in the distance. A gust of wind hit her immediately, forcing her to pull the brown bomber jacket tightly together. Across the desolate front yard, several bikes lined up in a neat two-by-two row caught Lettie’s eye. Unlike the salvaged bikes Lettie was accustomed to, these beasts were in a league of their own, their unique paint jobs displaying the level of care and attention put into them. Lettie took a deep breath in and limped over to the stationary motorcade, knowing the Lobos inside wouldn’t need them any longer. As she delicately swung her legs over the custom leather seat, positioning herself carefully but expertly onto the bike, Tristan emerged from behind and placed her hands on the bars, blocking Lettie’s path.

“And where the hell do you think you’re going?” She took up a position of defiance in fr

ont of the handlebars. “The chopper’s been sent out for recovery on this one and you need to get back to the clinic like yesterday.” She motioned to the blood still dribbling down from Lettie’s eyebrow.

At full height, Tristan stood just about 5’4”, exactly five inches shorter than her, and where Lettie was all lines and rigid edges, her second-in-command was shapely and had curves that would make the holiest individual sweat. Her skin was the color of deep mocha, accompanied by full lips and wide hips that made her look all the more pleasing. From the retelling of stories about her family, Lettie knew Tristan prided herself highly on her Kingston roots and status as a second-generation immigrant. Coupled with her short stature, yet imposing demeanor, was a small golden nose ring that she never took out and a perfectly applied coat of signature plum purple lipstick.

Leaning in toward the shorter woman, Lettie nonchalantly borrowed the scarf wrapped around her neck and pressed it against the open wound. “You know how I feel about flying. Plus, I’ve been cramped in that room for three days. I’m not trying to trade one confined space for another just yet.” Handing the saturated bloody cloth back to Tristan, she shoved the helmet at the back of the bike over her head. Before she could conjure up another attempt to dissuade, Lettie put her hand out, waiting.

Tristan’s stare faltered first before pulling the confiscated keys out of her vest and dropping them into the other woman’s palm. Before she could jerk it back, Lettie playfully grabbed the hand, planted an extra sloppy kiss on it, and sped away.

***

Midnight was not far off when Lettie finally pulled up to the outskirts of downtown. Most of the suburbs in and around the city were free reign, but the entire downtown area was controlled by her people, the Obsidian Society. Despite the crowds of people waiting to gain entry, with a brief flash of her face, Lettie was quickly waved through all the armed checkpoints. Soon enough her route would intersect with I-215, the structural border that separated OS territory from the outskirts of Salt Lake’s greater area.

Reaching her destination,

, Lettie removed the helmet and gave the guards on duty the friendliest nod she could muster, trying not to betray the utter exhaustion that seeped into every bone of her body. As she walked the bike past the receding chain-link blockade, one of them piped up. The boy couldn’t have been any older than seventeen but could probably take down a person twice his age. He made zero attempt at hiding his bewilderment at her disarrayed appearance.

“Uhh, we’ve been instructed to get a message to you upon your arrival. Command’s waiting for you at the convention center.”

There was little point in volunteering to him that she wouldn’t be headed that way, so she simply nodded in acknowledgment and continued to walk down the overgrown sidewalk.

The security station sat sandwiched between a derelict bookstore, where she’d personally found many a rare find, and the apartment building where she lived. The Westgate Lofts towered over its neighboring buildings by a few stories and was longer than it was tall, giving the building a funny squat look. The red bricked arches stopped at the fifth floor, the top floor contrasting the previous levels in that it looked like a gray, single-story condo had been plopped on top of the rest of the building. The outside was certainly nothing special anymore, having lost its former architectural beauty long ago, but it was home.

As soon as Lettie passed the entryway’s threshold, she went rigid. There was another’s presence in the apartment. She removed the recently deceased Matteo’s gun from her waist, and her ribs punished her for the quick movement. After the past days’ events, she was in no condition to fight off whoever had intruded but had little choice at that point. Silently, Lettie made her way down the pitch dark but familiar hallway. One foot in front of the other, she expertly checked and cleared the smaller guest room and bathroom along the way. The rest of the dwelling cleared, Lettie crept into her bedroom. There on the edge of the bed sat the head of Command, admiring a book of pictures Lettie kept stuffed away in the nightstand, a single handheld lantern illuminating her motions. A large Australian shepherd dashed off the bed and ran to greet Lettie, bestowing several wet kisses upon her.

“Hey there, boob. Mi

ss me?” Lettie gave the brown-and-white spotted dog scratches behind the ear just like she liked and then stood back up. The uninvited guest was unmoving and placid, unfazed by Lettie’s mere presence. “Please, make yourself at home,” she muttered, sarcastically.

Regina Valentine took one last long look at one of the pictures and returned the book to the drawer. Max loped after Lettie into the living room as she plopped down into one of the armchairs and started to remove her dusty boots. She could feel the woman take a seat across from her, patiently and quietly waiting for Lettie to make eye contact.

The colony’s matriarch sat at a little over 5’ 3”, but from the presence that she took up in a room, one wouldn’t know it right away. The way she held herself led many to the realization that they’d never met a person more comfortable in their skin, possessing none of the nervous tics and personal habits that most people used to cover up their own insecurities. Even the way her broad forehead narrowed down to a point, completing the heart shape of her face, seemed to welcome others in, the threat underneath hidden covertly until ready to be released. These characteristics did not transfer to Lettie. She had inherited her father’s strong nose, his plump lips, and the familial Valentine top tooth gap instead. The sole physical trait the women did share, though, was their dark chestnut hair with accompanying auburn undertones, whose curl pattern consisted of kinky, loose coils. While Lettie appreciated the functionality her own curly, tapered fade afforded her, her mother took pride in a rotation of sculpted hairstyles—braided updos, tight bun pieces, twist outs bouncing just above her shoulder—all accompanied by ritually attended manicured nails. Altogether, the older woman’s polished beauty added another layer to the regal vibe that accompanied her role, both as the leader of OS and the only overbearing parent Lettie had left.

“I’m going to assume that the guards were somehow incapable of delivering my message. That you didn’t purposefully disregard a direct order from me.” The question wasn’t actually intended to be answered and both of them knew it; just as they both knew that Lettie would reply anyway.

“I’m exhausted.”

“As you should be.”

Nonchalantly, Regina crossed her legs and brushed a few stray dog hairs off her pant leg. She’d brought along the lantern from the bedroom, the luminescent light causing shadows to play across the otherwise dark room. Eerie, refracted glimpses of their reflections caught Lettie’s eye in the glass panels of the patio entrance.

“But someone has to explain to the others why our head intelligence officer decided to take point on a minor recon mission without permission, putting not only herself in needless danger, but the entire operation itself.”

“Minor recon mission?” Lettie narrowed her eyes. “You sent Tristan in there with barely any intel, and half that unit was made up of new recruits!”

Except for Tristan and the twins, everyone on scene earlier had been training with reconnaissance for less than a year, a limitation that could have easily jeopardized the entire mission with one untimely mistake. And her mother knew that.

The same pair of medium brown eyes stared back at Lettie, betraying little emotion.

“Tristan and the others would have been fully prepared for whatever was thrown at them. It was careless of you to take such an unnecessary risk by volunteering to put yourself in that situation.”

“I’ve been in hundreds of those situations,” Lettie snapped, “and you didn’t question my role during those.”

The older woman was quick to respond, her tone never peaking above its normal alto range. “Those were key missions, this was not. Just because Tristan is your girlfriend doesn’t mean—”

“She’s not my girlfriend!”

Lettie paused, her hand wavering in its attention to Max in the moment of frustration. She watched her companion as Max plopped into the doggie bed. Lettie recalled personally fastening it together out of a cardboard box, old pillows, and a bedsheet covered in little cartoon fruits. When Lettie had first found Max limping out in the woods on her first night in Salt Lake, the Aussie pup was swallowed up by the bed, her body gaunt. Quickly, she grew into the now weathered, ragged pallet and could often be found there when she wasn’t at the foot of Lettie’s own bed.

“I suggest you lower your voice.” Regina paused, allowing both wom

en to come back to themselves. “Whatever you’re calling yourselves these days, don’t let your feelings for each other cloud your judgment, or worse.”

Lettie didn’t answer, which immediately prompted Regina to move from her seat on the couch to a kneeling position in front of her daughter. The smallest hint of myrrh entered Lettie’s nostrils as Regina covered her hands with her own and held them in Lettie’s lap; she’d not done that since Lettie was a child. When she finally spoke again, Regina’s voice had softened, the glacier veil melting slightly.

“I know it doesn’t always come out the right way, but at the end of the day you are my baby girl before anything else, and I worry about you.” She gave Lettie’s hands a firm squeeze, continuing, “I may not have a say in the fact that you risk your life, but I damn sure will do everything in my power to make sure you don’t do so unnecessarily.”

Lettie let out a resigned sigh and delivered her mom a lazy grin. Just like that, everything between them was defused and Regina let her hands go, Command mode snapping back into place over the momentary maternal affection.

“I’m still receiving the others’ reports, but what information were you able to gather?”

Lettie spent the next hour giving her mom a rundown of the last three days from start to finish. Her findings confirmed that Los Lobos were indeed headed their way, but for what reason was still unknown. More importantly, the interception of the shabby gang had confirmed they were indeed getting dispensed supplies from someone well connected, but it remained undisclosed from who. The gears turning in Regina’s head were practically visible as she listened silently, trying to piece all the information together. She’d only admit such to a small circle of individuals, but Lettie knew from the small frown that overtook her mouth that her mom was worried they still had no real answers regarding the recent increase in gang expeditions to the

 city.

As Lettie’s account came to an end, Regina stood and, with one last pat to a passed-out Max, made her way to the front door.

“Some of your unit is still outside the city tracking a few of the Lobos; Junior and Malachi will personally see to the questioning of our new guests come first light.”

They stood in the dimly lit foyer and Regina pulled her in for a quick but firm hug. Pulling back, she stared at her only daughter’s face, studying the damage there.

“Get yourself to the clinic first thing in the morning; that eye’s going to need stitches. If you’re not there before breakfast, this time I’ll send Malachi to physically retrieve you.”

She let out a small chuckle, but Lettie knew she wasn’t joking.

“And for heaven’s sake, start locking your door.”

Alone at last, Lettie closed the door behind her, ensuring to bolt both locks tight. Before returning to the bedroom, she lit the dying nub of a stray candle and grimaced as she was accosted by the sight of herself in the vanity mirror. On the left side of her face, dried blood trailed from her eyebrow and below that, the swelling under her eye socket rose at an exponential rate. She pulled her shirt up and pressed gently against her ribs with two fingers; the area was tender but not broken. Her lip was split and stung every time she licked it.

Damage assessed, she splashed water over her face, fashioned a cold compress for her eye, and continued to her room. Max jumped onto the bed as Lettie stripped the dirty multiple days–old clothes off and plopped onto the mattress. Making room for herself next to her owner, the shepherd kicked a pile of stuff off the bed and curled into Lettie’s side.

Having been abandoned by the warm glow of the lantern and her mother along with it, Lettie couldn’t be bothered to lift herself once more from the bed. Moonlight poured in through the bedroom’s bare windows, and it was enough for Lettie to see by. Hesitating for only a moment, Lettie found the photo album tucked away in her side drawer, still slightly warm to the touch. Inside, the contents ranged from creased sepia photos of ancestors she couldn’t begin to name to various family holiday shoots throughout the years. Flipping through to the last pho

to, Lettie’s fingers traveled along a selfie of her family shot in front of Salt Lake’s skyline. In the forefront of the photo Lettie and her brothers beam directly into the lens while in the background her mom and dad look down distractedly at a map. Followed by her sudden loss of the valuable camera, Lettie’s last photo documented the day her family arrived in their new home.

Utah was never her first pick for places to spend the rest of her life, but Lettie hadn’t had much of a choice. None of them did, really—freedom to live wherever one desired was a concept of the past. All stereotypes aside, no eleven-year-old Black kid from DC, having known nothing but the busy, bustling streets of the now sunken capital, dreamt of living in the Beehive State. After a pandemic virus ripped through countries, sickness gave way to famine and famine gave way to world wars, culminating in the launch of a wave of nuclear bombs worldwide. It’d been almost twelve years since humankind succeeded in ensuring their only viable planet was made uninhabitable, or so they thought. Luckily, a few areas remained unscathed by the bombs’ blast radiuses, the last livable land on Earth, Salt Lake included. These divided havens became known as the Colonies. This prompted several hotshot scientists and high-up government officials to explore and eventually successfully colonize an intergalactic planet before everything on Earth went to shit. That planet bore the name Cypheria, and those rich enough to afford it now lived and thrived off-world. The rest of them remained on Earth and were stuck fighting to survive and praying not to die a grisly death. In short, calling Utah home was about as unexpected as the world imploding. But implode it did.

Wary of wallowing in the past for too long, Lettie closed the weathered photo album and discarded it back into the drawer with a silent finality. Pulling Max closer, slumber did not allude Lettie for long as she closed her mind off to anything that wasn’t sleep.

CHAPTER
2

Hoping to combat the sweat that dripped down her forehead from stinging her eyes, Lettie wiped her equally drenched forearm across it. She’d been paired with one of the older boys that day. They’d been sparring for nearly an hour, and he was kicking her butt without apology. That, doubled with the scorching heat waves that poured through the windows brought on by a particularly hot summer day in Salt Lake, left Lettie feeling both exhausted and even more frustrated at her poor performance.

Catching Lettie off guard, her opponent smashed his wooden baton against her forearms, breaking her block. He then landed another quick hit at the back of her knobby knees, sending her body crumpling to the mat for the twelfth time that day.

“Focus, Lettie! You gotta anticipate your enemy’s next move.”

Her dad paced back and forth around them, critiquing stance and position methodically. Rarely did he attend his children’s sparring matches anymore, too caught up in his duties as right-hand man to OS’s first leader, Allister. But that day, he’d decided to make an appearance, and Lettie wanted nothing but to impress him with her progress. Whether it was due to her overzealous attempt at trying or nerves, she didn’t know, but her frustration at her failure to deliver a single successful tap out the entire day was finally getting to her.

“Again!”

The sparring pair assumed their individual positions across the mat. At the instruction of Lettie’s dad, they both charged forward, each hoping to deal the best blow. After several particularly good ducks and blocks, Lettie thought she saw her opening and charged, only to be disappointed. The boy, who’d clearly baited her, took advantage of her overcommitment and dodged to the side, leaving his opponent to fall over her own feet. He roared with laughter as she lay face-first on the mat, her pride irrevocably tarnished. As he turned to walk away, positively pleased with himself, Lettie peeled herself off the mat. Coolly, she brought the wooden baton up into the air, ready to deliver a

swift attack to the back of his head.

“That’s enough!”

Her father’s large hand was suddenly wrapped around the baton, jerking the weapon roughly from her grasp. Lettie’s almost victim celebrated boisterously, remaining unaware of the sneak attack on his life.

“Look at me.”

Lettie let her head continue to hang, afraid that if she looked up into her father’s eyes, the hot tears that brimmed at the edges of her own would break free.

“I said look at me, Leticia.”

Finally, she complied, her breath coming fast.

“You don’t get to throw a fit when you lose, do you understand me?”

Embarrassment turning into rage, Lettie threw a little finger in the direction of where the boy now sat with a group of other kids.

“It’s not fair! He’s older than me! And bigger!”

She was convinced she had a valid point, as she knew her dad couldn’t disagree with the truth in front of their faces. At fifteen, her partner had three years on her and side by side their frames resembled the number 10 quite closely, he the 0, her the scraggly 1.

“Life ain’t fair. You gotta learn to control your emotions now, in here, cause if you don’t, your enemies will use them against you out there. We,” he motioned between them, “we don’t get to make mistakes like that out in the real world, baby girl. Not now, not ever. I know—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the room went dead quiet. Lettie looked around to find the others, but the two were somehow the only ones that remained.

“Dad, what’s going on?”

Suddenly, her lanky frame was thrown back onto the ground, the impact knocking the breath out of her. Her vision grew blurry as she opened her eyes to try to pinpoint the direction of their attacker, but she was alone. Her father was nowhere to be found.

“Dad!”

As Lettie continued to call out, the previously controlled tears began to stream down her face. She planted her hands on the ground, ready to lift herself to her feet, and as she did, they landed in something wet.

She peered down only to realize she was sitting in a pool of blood, the scarlet geyser seeming to pump straight out of the mat. Lettie’s screams came muted, no sound escaping, fear seeming to have frozen both time and her ability to act. Before long, the blood had completely overtaken her body, her face the only part still above the surface. Resigned to her fate, ...