BOOK ONE—REFLECTIONS

Colin snapped his fingers and the two men moved. Just a simple snap and Robin's death was a sure thing. "We're gonna do this one up good!" he said while the two dragged her arms first, her feet scraping through the residue from the spilled urine bucket. "Take this cracker bitch to that boarded up place two blocks from here and beat her till her own momma don't recognize her... Beat her till she's dead!"

"Mommy, please help me! Please, Mommy, please! I love you, Mommy! Please come here and help me and I'll be good. I promise. I'll behave. Just help me, Mommy. Mommmmyyyyy! Help me! Oh, Pleaaassseee... I'll never do anything wrong again. I promise. Oh, Mommy!"

People say when you're about to die, the past races through the conscious mind like road signs on a speedway. But Robin fought the memories: those grisly vignettes now taunting her because they'd been premonitions. This was the only way it could have ended.

“Get up, bitch, and walk!" one of the men said, pulling her roughly to her feet. "You stink so bad I wanna puke! Look at ya. Filthy, bitch!" Then he slammed her across the back of the head with an open hand, nearly knocking her unconscious. It was his job to drag a grime-covered, foul smelling, female - whose clothing was caked with human waste - two blocks to kill her. And he resented it. But he was too afraid of Colin to refuse.

Both men caught her under the arms and half-carried her now, while one gave the other hell for the head blow. "What're ya nuts?" he shouted. "Colin says we hafta wait till we're away from Maggie's."

"But, man, she smells awful! I ain't never smelled nothin' like it."

"Turn your head away and it won't be so bad! That's what I'm doin'."

Turn your head away. Robin had been doing this same thing for years. Turning her head, her thoughts, her conscience, and just about everything she could away from the realities of life. She could see her mistakes now, but now was a tad bit late.

With her head throbbing from the blow, and her mind too close to snapping to fight, Robin let go, and allowed the vignettes to take her back to the beginning. At least as far back as she could remember. Back to the time her demise began; to the night the memories of Jim Smith, and his distorted version of commitment, had come back with such vividness Robin had given up, though she couldn't see it then.

To the same night a man she imagined was a pathological liar and a fraud - and dangerously so - had reentered her mother's life. While she wasn't certain what had gone on with Amy, the two had been close enough for Robin to pretty much guess, as she could pretty much guess what had transpired in private with the rest of the characters in her one act play on the subject of dysfunction...

And so she drifted back to the night...