Queen Lyra

She was about to put away her set up. Take down her sign and fold up her blanket. It was almost past midnight and soon the drunks that would give her business would turn to shitfaced tourists that caused more trouble than they were worth. She didn’t want that sort of attention. She opened her little tackle box with the money in the drawer beneath the top and started neatly putting her tarot cards away. 

She was in the french quarter but off the beaten path a bit. Near a square with the other starving artists that sold their works. Most had already headed home. She looked at the small stack of cash and smiled. It was a good day. Always a good day for fate. And she had more money in her account. A credit card swiper was worth the investment. One had to keep with the times. All good Voodoo practitioners knew that. Or at least the ones that welcomed capitalism into their beliefs. 

Fred Staten was a prophet. 

She sighed and placed the cards in their velvet case. 

“I wouldn’t put those away.” A deep burbling voice said. With enough of a drawl to pique her interest. Somewhere behind her a cat hissed. It was probably Jeremiah the cat of the quarter. A big fierce alley cat. If it made Jeremiah hiss... well it meant trouble. 

Pulling her head back up she saw a man sitting in front of her. One she knew intimately. She covered her arms with her shawl to not show her goosebumps. Holding herself tight she subconsciously tried to put anything in between her and the figure sitting at her table. She tried not to show how unnerved she was. She held her jaw firm and raised it with a scowl. She had talked to many murderers in her day. Cursed them or cured them. But he was something else. 

“Bah.” She said, “You come for me here and now? Can’t you let an old woman put her cash away and get cozy in bed?”

He laughed. Bashfully, he pressed back his greasy black hair and covered it with a white tophat, but it was all a ruse, he was never nervous. His obnoxious hat matched a suit jacket and his pinstriped pants. His tie was red as blood and it firmly surrounded his narrow neck. Like a noose. It scraped over his Adam's apple like a razor blade as he laughed. It made Lyra want to hold a hand against her own neck. But she didn’t. Against the grossness of his cackle she just held herself tighter. 

“I don’t come for you Mama. I come to give you business.” He smiled with silver teeth and looked at the sign in front of the table. His dark eyes lapped at the painted lettering. “I’m sorry. The Great Voodoo Queen Lyra? Is that right?”

The square had emptied suddenly and she was very alone. Now it was just the cobblestones and the ghastly statues that kept them company. All painted with more shadows and looking sallow like it was the lighting of alleyways. The jazz songs even faded away. Her hand went to her charm around her neck. 

“Does that gris-gris help mama?” He asked. Almost ashamed that she touched it in his presence. 

“Aye, it helps me,” she smiled.

“It stop bullets? It stops ripping and tearing of the flesh?” He asked, his head going crooked. Like a curious kitten being cute. But she knew tales of cats and curiosity. They always ended in misfortune. And whatever was under that look of his was certainly that. Misfortune.

“It stops things worse than those, it stops ill fates.” She replied.

He narrowed his beady sunken eyes. “Maybe Mama. Maybe. It’s good work, I've seen it before. But it has never stopped me and my works. Just made me use other angles.”

“Do not call me that you… You, who is Made of Shade. Or I will use your true name. Beast.” She clutched her leather wrapped charm. 

He smiled a dead smile, never letting his eyes dips from hers. “Then I will call you Henrietta Watson. Your Christian name. How would you like that?” He pursed his lips that barely covered his teeth and clicked his tongue a couple times. “Not a very Voodoo name. If you ask me.” He fake whimpered when he said the word voodoo but fell serious again with a smile. He drummed the table. “Tarot cards aren’t either. What would your ancestors say? You making a buck off a thing like this? Calling yourself a Voodoo Queen? Come on, that’s funny, how far you’ve fallen.”

She smirked. Plopping the cards down on the plastic table. “Voodoo comes from all over. It incorporates all things that work for it. As long as it’s touched by the spirits and their song...” She sighed. “But you are right. Tarot cards aren’t Voodoo.” She tilted her head. Eyeing him. She felt now that he truly wasn’t here for her. He wouldn’t talk as much if he was. “But they are recognizable. It’s about branding, you should know that. Especially with how ridiculous you look. Besides, I'm not allowed to bite heads off of chickens in the square.” She said sarcastically. “And I still practice. I’m respected in those circles.”

“What about the circles of the dead?” He leaned forward and long shadows were drawn across his sunken cheeks. “What about your Hatian relatives? Eh? Watching you from the otherworld. I’d be ashamed. After they fought and died and killed!” He slapped the table hard enough the cards jumped in the air. They slumped across the table like a dealer was fanning them out. 

“They did the unthinkable. They threw their masta’s into the ocean. Only for their great great grandchild to end up here. Here in the greatest hub of slavery a state could be. Making a buck off Hoodoo gimmicks. Buying into the system that oppressed them even after they became free. A freedom no one gave them,” He pointed at her. “A freedom truly earned.” He smiled again. “But that’s how it goes, huh? Winning the war is only half the battle. What comes after is always more painful. Ain’t no country gonna trade with slaves running around thinking they are citizens of their own country now. Ain’t no one gonna give them a seat at the table. That's not the capitalistic way, now is it? Can’t have upstarts respected. That’s still true to this day.”

“I wish you were here for business.” She leaned in and laughed. “You talk too much. And say very little. My relatives like me were survivors.”

“Uh huh,” He affirmed.

“I’m surviving.” She said, glancing around the square. 

“They didn’t just survive, Mama. They died so that their children could live. So my question is, are you living?”

“You call me that one more time Mister and I am warning you. You say, you came for business and all you have given me are insults. Now I can see you. I see you truly. You aren’t always this vicious. What's ruffled you? What ails you? I can get rid of that, for you.”

He leaned back at that. “Maybe… You are a doctor after all. My medicine woman, trying to help me even? Hmmph.”

“Well helping others makes me feel like I'm not just scraping by. Not just surviving.” Her words dripped with venom but they were true. “Helping all things, even those undeserved. Even those in other realms.”

“I don’t want your tinctures.” 

“I have words and rituals that go with those tinctures and cure-alls, you want those?”

“No.” He seemed so deadly serious now. His eyes were standing still. Like he was looking though the woman in front of her. “Sorry, I’ve been buying time. Do you see the man that just entered the square over on my right?” 

She did. There weren’t lots of people around. The artists were all but gone now and the stream of drunks had dwindled down. Maybe because this square was too shadowy at the moment or they could feel the chill. If they were here they stayed close to the lights on the edges and quickly found their turn and left. But not this one. He stumbled up to a closed shop and took a moment. He was tall and thick, but the jiggly kind. A stout belly with a balding head, with some south american lineage to his skin which wasn’t tan just darker. Unfortunate to look at if you were the judgmental type. But he was off his ass on something. He walked in a zig zag further into the darkness that lined this square. Stumbling their way. 

“Aye I see the fool.”

 “I want you to do your job. Give him a fortune. On me.”

“A standard one? But why? That’s all?”

“Easy there. Easy Lyra.” He said her name so sarcastically. “I want you to tell him I stopped by. Tell him where he can find me.”

“Why?” She asked with a furrowed brow. “Do it yourself! I don’t wanna curse a man on your behalf.” 

He shook his head. “No, it has to come from you. It already has, you see? And no curse. At first I thought he was… annoying. A pest. One that doesn’t just go back to their little hole and die. That doesn’t just…”

“Survive,” She finished.

“Aye! One that doesn’t just count their days and be gone and done with it.” Disdain echoed after each word in his sentences like a pianist lingered on chords. “I’ve tried to be rid of him, I confronted him in the middle of nowhere.” He sighed. “But incompetence abounds us. Doesn’t it?” He took a second to think. His skeleton fingers drummed off the plastic table. “He thinks he’s following me, but I've been following him. He is leading me to an explanation. Plus, he’s now kind of endearing. I want to pay special attention to him. He’d kill me if he could. So why don’t you do as you’re told? Help him. Do it with peace of mind, he’s no longer a blemish, more of a stray cat I accidentally fed. But… But he’s also a bit of an idiot. So I'd like you to push him towards me some more. Tell him where I'm going. Let him finish our story.” He grimaced. 

She was silent for a while. “And at the end of this story? It’s not going to end well. Not for him, is it?”

He shrugged and smiled in the coyest way. Henrietta knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth to her. “We’ll see… Things rarely end well. Almost never.” He paused, and then leaned in like he was telling her a secret. “That only matters if you believe the ending of something is the most important part.”

New Orleans III

Chewy was excited to see me again. He kept coming up on the center console to lick my cheek. Officer Shades did not like that.

“That’s fucking genuine leather you dumb fuck. He’s gonna scratch it up.”

“Well I don’t know what you expected. You’re the one who picked him back up.”

“Yeah, well we are gonna need backup. Here, put this on him.” He pulled out a black collar with godly big chrome spikes around it. Chewy calmed down and retreated back to the jumpseat behind us in the little two door miami vice police car. 

“I don’t think this is gonna be super intimidating on Chewy.”

Officer Shades barely took notice, his dark eyes were out and about scanning the block we drove on. We were trolling around somewhere past the Seventh Ward. All I knew was we had taken a highway from the French Quarter to somewhere on the fringes of town and the sun was truly down now. The darkness hindered these neighborhoods more than other places. Here it lost much of the New Orleans charm. But it made it a more recognizable place to me. This was an area of town you could find in most metropolises, one with crooked houses and boarded up doors every other home. Moss was eating away the sides of the tiny homes. Fences were almost falling over with beware of dog signs. You could tell flooding happened in these neighborhoods too. A dirty waterline seemed tattooed on them. The flaking paint jobs couldn’t hide it, it was in the soul of these buildings, it was warped wood and broken windows that couldn’t let you forget about how quick things can change when water comes crashing down. One bad day. One piece of rotten luck. One stray shot, being in a bad place at the wrong time. All of it. Bad luck. 

Sure, luck. 

What a stupid word. 

It’s all rigged from the jump.  

This area was like almost every other poor district in every other city but the street names, the architecture, and that weather’s touch that was like calligraphy over everything was the only thing that gave away we were in Louisiana. My captor (Or maybe Partner now?) pinched his nose and sniffed, he was almost licking his chops like a dog looking at a T-bone steak. He shoved the collar into my lap. “We are gonna need it on him. Lil Pablo has like four pitbulls. He’s a big dog fighter. This will help Chewy’s neck not be torn out. And it’s gonna be badass looking.” He paused and reached a hand back to pat him on the head but Chewy just growled at him. That got his attention. 

“Good boy put on that mean face. We're gonna need it.” He was cackling like a maniac as he turned up the radio. 

“I’m not sure I feel comfortable taking him in there. He’s not really a fighter. I mean a pitbull…” I imagined a slew of wide-set muscular dogs tearing into Chewy as he yelped and screamed. It made my stomach squirm. “We can’t take him in.”  I shouted over the tunes. He reluctantly stopped his air drumming and took his eyes off the neighborhood to focus on me.   

“Look, he’ll be on a leash. You’ll hold onto him outside. All you gotta do is look intimidating and official and shit. Like I got serious back up. I’m going in, and I'll be out before you know it.”

“With this Pablo kid?” I asked.

“Yeah sure.”

He couldn't be serious, I was in shorts and flip flops. Not really official police garb. 

Do I have a choice though? 

He turned left down a side road that I didn't catch the name of. Over the air was pulsing music coming from somewhere outside. Ahead and to the left was a litany of cars lined up. Red brake lights gave an aura of light to the festivities as all the streetlamps were broken or flickering.  Headlight beams shone on a small gathering of folks in a yard and that gave away where the music was coming from. A party was happening in the front yard. Grills were piping out smoke and I saw a barrel of crawfish get dumped onto a table. Teenagers biked by on bmx bikes that looked like they belonged to toddlers.

The one in the back meandered, stared. He flicked up his chin in a “what up” fashion. I kept quiet  hoping the tint of this ridiculous car would not give us away. Shades ignored the circling teenager. His attention on the street numbers opposite the party. It looked like a boarded up house ready for tearing down. But I read off the numbers on the porch. Or the area where numbers would be but now only was just a patch of discolored dirt: 2929. 

 My lungs tightened like that first drag of smoke and my skin prickled. 

“This is the place.” Officer Shades said smiling. “You ready?” His yellow grin against the dark window made him look devilish. And my heart was picking up as the teenager kept circling the car. Like a shark circling prey. I would see him again passing in front of us every couple of minutes. Quicker and quicker, closer and closer. Soon I knew he was gonna stop and peer in. Especially now that we were no longer winding through this neighborhood ourselves. We had stopped on the opposite side of the road. More heads turned to us. I could feel them. Their eyes looking past the beams of their cars. Looking at a car that was most certainly not invited.

“This is bad,” I was breathing faster. I tried to wipe the sweat from my palms on my cutoffs. “There’s a party going on. Everyone is gonna see us.”

It wasn’t just my inner voice telling me not to do this. It was hers too. “You aren’t thinking things through dear. You tend to get carried away.” 

It was the ghost of Zekes “You think Tim’s in there? Working for a small-time gang banger? You just trust this police man who won’t even tell you his name?”

I heard the laugh of that man. Tim. Taunting me. “You think you’ll find me in this trap house? You think my business is this low? Only thing here is drugs and crawfish. You were supposed to take control of your destiny but you are still being taken for a ride.”

I snapped back to the interior when out of the glove box Shades pulled out folded balaclavas. “I got us masks.” He said.

“Masks?” I asked exasperated. “Aren’t we police?”

“Oh we police alright. That’s why ain’t no one gonna fuck with us.” The teenager outside whistled to some others and he got off his bike and approached. He stopped and squinted at us almost ten feet away. Trying to peer through the blackened windshield. Inside the car Shades pulled out his ungodly big gun from in between his seat and door. It was shiny metal with a pearly grip. 

“Fuck.” I voiced.

Chewy tucked his tail between his legs. 

He pulled me in close enough to see his bloodshot eyes over the rims of his aviator glasses. His stubble was graying on his reddened cheeks. He looked like a broken down hawaii-five-o you'd find on the side of the road trying to bum a smoke. “We ARE the police. They aren’t gonna fuck with us! We got this. Here.” He reached back behind our seats and pushed over my double-bagged goodies from the Vagabond king’s camp. I had won so much at shooting dice that Thomas and Bones had bet other things. I had won a bottle of moonshine, an embroidered beanie, Pelican tickets for a game that had already passed and some paint thinner. But he didn’t flinch at the clinking together of bottles in the grocery store plastic and excitedly pulled out a small black duffle bag from under it. 

He opened it like a kid opens Christmas presents. Inside was my little revolver. He cracked it open and showed me it was bulletless. “Think I'll give a junkie a loaded gun? Fuck you.” He said and laughed to himself. Then he pulled out some can looking contraptions with a narrow handle along the side. Like the size of a coke can. “I got a couple of flash bangs.”

“What?” I asked. 

Chewy started barking as the teenager approached. He was only really a boy. Wearing a long sleeve shirt that covered his hands. But he was on the phone now and walking up tentatively. 

“Shut up!” Shades yelled back but Chewy kept hopping back and forth in the small half-seat. Nervously barking with his hair prickled straight up along his spine. “You ever play Call of duty? It’s a grenade! You throw it and it explodes. Blinds people, make their ears bleed.” He laughed. “It’s fucking great. The crowd gives you a hard time. You pull the pin and throw one at them. It will make them scatter like roaches.” 

The teenager tapped on the driver's window. “You here for the business or the cookout? Or something else?” He pulled up his shirt showing the handle of a pistol. 

“Business!” Shades shouted back, he still held onto my collar. He placed the two flashbangs on the center console. “Take one! Come on, let's rock this man.” My gun still sat on my lap like a cold hunk of worthless shit. 

“I. I. I.” I was stammering, eyes going wild. Racing to think of a way to get out of here. I should have stayed with my new friends playing dice. Stayed in the shadow of the Louisiana Superdome.  

That still sounded wrong.

People were starting to ask the teengager what was going on. He was shrugging waiting on us to do something stupid. Which Shades was eager to accomplish. Outside it seemed people didn’t want any trouble. Not tonight. They just wanted to have a good time. I really didn’t wanna ruin this party. 

That wasn’t what my compatriot was thinking. He shook me by the collar. Anxious that more eyes were on us. I gathered that seeing his seal team six operation slipping away pissed him off. He turned the big gun on me. Placing it to my forehead. I felt the cold prick of it. I thought the seat warmer was on but it was just pee pooling in my seat. The gun looked much bigger up close. “You fucking do what I say. You take a flashbang. You watch my back. You throw them if any of those fuckers get too close and curious.”

“What you want?” The boy said outside after waiting an awkward amount of time for a reply. He tapped again eagerly. Shrugging to his friends not too far off. I heard shouts. “Don't trouble yourself with it!” Some said.

“Fuck that ride!” Another shouted. 

“Get out of here!” A bald man said to us as he came around a SUV with chrome rims. 

But my eyes kept coming back to the muzzle on my forehead. 

“Okay. Okay.” I said, I grabbed one with a shaking hand.  

“Good.” He let me go but still leaned in. Smiling like he did me a favor. “I’ll even give you all the crank we find. I’m keeping the cash though.” He gave my cheek a slap. “Buckle up your boy.” I did so, putting a frantic Chewy in his collar and leash. He was turning in small circles in the backseat still whining and letting out small barks and growls. He was as much on edge as I was. 

“Hello? You passed out or something?” The teenager outside hollered at us. He cupped the window with his hands. Looking in like it was a periscope.

Shades shot the door open with his boot. It crashed against the boy’s head and a shot of blood tinted the windshield. “Ow fuck,” he shouted. It came out as ‘Aw fudchhh’ as Officer Shades sprung after him and shoved the barrel of his gun into the poor kid's bloody mouth. Now this got the crowd's attention. I could see myself dying in a hail of gunfire. But the young man with a gun in his mouth was being used as a human shield.

“Alright you coming with me!”  He said as he pulled the pistol free from his hostage’s beltline and tossed it under the car. “Police business. You mother fuckers stay back.” He started shuffling forward. This scattered some of the crowd. Two out of the three of the boys on bikes dropped their rides and ran through an alley. 

 Chewy scooted forward into the drivers seat kicking one flashbang into the back seat, the other I still had in one hand. His howling was blocking out the music, or maybe they stopped playing it altogether now that this commotion was happening. I was still in place. I felt just a little bit safer in the car. 

Shades spun the teenager around and gave him a nice thwack across the temple. 

“Ow what the fuck” He responded and spat blood out. 

“What about masks?” I asked, leaning over and pulling Chewy back. 

“You fucked that up!” He shouted back. “Come on!” As people poured out onto the street I realized it must be two dozen. More were coming from the house too. They were hollering at the scene. Bonded together by the idiotic interruption. Ready to defend the young boy who was held firm against the big man saying he was a cop. I didn’t blame them. They had the numbers to do so. Some of them had bats or bottles in hand coming out between the line of cars. They were shouting out. Confusion spilt through them. Some were hurling obscenities, others were asking what was going on. The hostage situation didn’t seem to scare them. 

None were scared away by Shades shouting about police business. 

“Alright I warned you!” He shouted at them. But he didn’t dare turn the club he held for a gun to the crowd. They had guns of their own. Flashing them out of cover behind the wheel wells. More house porch lights were lighting up down the road. People flooded out trying to get a good view of the commotion.

“Throw one you dipshit.” Shades hollered back to me.

One hand was holding Chewy by the big spiked collar, as he barked at the crowd through the half open door, with the other I clutched the grenade by the top, trying to work it out. At least I thought it was the top. I didn't have a clue how to work it. I reached out to him. “Here you go.” He looked over his shoulder to my outstretched hand. “Fucking a.” He turned to his hostage. “You move I pull the fucking trigger.” He grunted into the boy's ear.

He let go of his half-nelson he had him in and with his empty hand he reached back.

“Please don’t.” The boy said shakily. 

Chewy settled down seeing the grenade in my hand. His eyes affixed to it, like it was some hallowed object. He stopped whining and latched onto it, growling.

“We are not playing right now!” I wiggled it but it was still firm in his snarling jaws. His tail wagged behind him. “NO. Give! Give! NO!” I yelled at him. 

Instead of my hand Officer shades felt a furry butt. “Fucking dog.” He groaned. He gripped Chewy’s tail and yanked on him. Chewy cried out in pain. It was a loud yelp but he still gripped firm on the flashbang. He growled deeper like we were playing and didn’t budge with any commands. Finally, with a pull that turned Chewy up and over into the air he was pulled free from the car. He landed chin down and scurried to get his feet under him. He backed up from the scene a bit to the middle of the road. Everyone stared at the dog wagging his tail. Chewy dropped the grenade and it rolled around his feet all with a smile on his face. I looked at the pin in my hand. 

A brick thudded and skated across the hood of the car, bouncing over the windshield cracking it into a spider’s web. That was all it took. Bottles rained down all around the car. A bottle shattered across the hostage's head and broke into Shades... well shades. He hollered and screamed. The kid slumped a bit and blood spilt from not only his mouth but his scalp now.

“You're gonna regret that!” Shades yelled, turning the gun on the crowd. 

I know the loose basics of how grenades work. So I was semi-sure my poor dog was going to explode soon. I shot across the seats. My fat belly squished over the genuine leather console. 

“CHEWY! DROP THAT! COME!” He gave me a curious head tilt and a single pant, before he ran and jumped over my head. His feet dug and scratched into my neck. I slammed the door behind him.

Outside it went off.

The passenger side windows exploded. Glass shot everywhere. It was like a mortar went off outside. Like we were sky high, point blank, watching fireworks go off on new years eve. The people closest around it including Shades sputtered then crumpled down like gunfire was spilling out. They gripped their ears or covered their eyes. Some ran. All I heard was ringing. It sounded like mosquitos buzzing around my head.

I pulled myself to the driver's side. Pushed it into drive and floored it. Shades meaty forearm gripped the doorwell. He said something through gritted teeth as I screamed in his face. I could not make out what it was but it sounded like a question. And he called me Junkie. I'm pretty sure. His legs skittered across the ground as we picked up speed. His hostage and gun laid somewhere behind him. He yelled and threw his other hand through the broken windshield, gripping the steering wheel. 

Out of the night I saw what looked like a pool noodle spring through the air. It wiggled and warped and looked yellow. That seemed like pool noodle behavior to me. But as it whipped towards us I saw it was a two-by-four piece of wood. The antics of the flashbang had received a standing ovation. A renewed hail of trash was being beamed at us. Even as I sped past the party. More glass shattered and I was sure bullets leapt at us too. I could make out loud bangs over the buzzing in my ears. Maybe it was the car back-firing. I didn’t know. I just wanted out of here. With this meathead off the side door.

The two-by-four whipped at us and broke off the side mirror. It hit Shades in the shoulder and the arm. He yelled in pain and his grip loosened. I was tearing through the street and it was too much for him as I swerved left. His grip fell away. The car shuddered. I regained control of it and whipped it around the corner of the block

I turned around and saw that he was rolling to a stop behind us, people already on him. 

~

“I’m so sorry boy.” I said as the wind whipped by us through the open windows on my left side. I was on the freeway and going fast. I had to remind myself that I wasn't out of the woods yet. I still had a beat up, now stolen car that the police were probably looking for. It was recognizable too all cracked and covered in debris. 

Chewy was shotgun. Turning in little tight circles on his leather seat. He liked it up front. With the wind in his fur. We were both semi-alright. Thank god. Shaken up from the flashbang but intact. I myself was having an existential crisis as near death experiences are prone to trigger. Even more-so when you were about to die a dumbass violent death. 

“Oh my god, do you think they killed him?” I asked my dog knowing that by doing so I was being a bit of a lunatic. “I hope they didn’t. Fuck!”

First I killed a man in the New Mexican desert and now I left a man to die in Louisiana. 

All within a week. 

Stupid, I’m so fucking stupid. 

Getting pushed around like that. Dragged like that. 

When I started this trek I thought only two people were gonna get hurt. 

Shades deserved whatever happened to him. Sure. He was trying to practically blackmail me. And he was definitely misusing his authority. He might have also killed this Pablo fella. I didn’t rightly know. There was something in his eyes. Anger. Excitement. It made me wince to think about it. His face now had no hint of that. It was probably beaten purple and swelled like a doughnut. That’s if he was lucky. 

Good. I kept telling myself that. Good. But still, I could have stopped it. I didn’t need to get taken advantage of like that. Used. I could have stopped us from even entering that neighborhood. It just felt like I was behind my eyes the whole time. Not really able to grasp my life and guide it. 

I clenched my jaw so tight I didn’t realize my foot was also like iron. We were going over a hundred miles an hour on the highway. 

Fuck, slow down you idiot. 

Slow down you worthless fuck. I slapped my head to snap myself out of it, to slow the speed and  the vitriol that I couldn’t balance between myself and the man who arrested me this morning. What I was most angry at was the fact I was not anywhere close to figuring out where I should go in this city. If I should even be here? I had gotten wrapped up and dragged in the wrong direction. I knew it, the whole time, I knew it. I felt it in my bones. The trail was dead, so maybe only the dead could help me? 

Chewy planted his two front feet on the middle console and started licking my brow. I guess some glass had nicked me. Blood trailed down the side of my face. I thought it was tears. I also realized I wasn’t just leaking from my face. I was sitting in piss. 

If I ditched the car they could figure out who I was from that, right? 

I have to find a good place to ditch it. Maybe set it on fire? 

Bleach it? 

I had to get MY car back and get out of this state. “Damn. Pee is DNA right Chewy?” I asked. 

He didn’t know. 

I didn’t either. 

But I tried to rack my brain through all the CSI shows I had watched. “I don’t know. I thought it was just spunk. But maybe not. Sweat has DNA in it too, right? If it’s sweat then pee definitely has DNA in it.” I felt my sticky fingers, seeing blood over the steering wheel too. “Blood is definitely DNA. Fuck.” 

I thought for a second. “I know what we gotta do. Where we gotta go.”