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The dream came back to led to put it all in context Samantha EarlyHad she lived near me? Was I from northern California?

Oh, God Did I know Samantha? Did I know Kayla?

The coffee machine sputtered its final drops and I poured the coffee into two cups, handing one to Messenger and looking for sugar for my own

Messenger took a sip It was the best confirht have, he was in the end, human

“Toast?”

“To what?”

“No, Itoast Want some?”

“Thank you, no,” he said

I dropped two slices of whole wheat bread into the toaster I tookbutter and jaer yet I didn’t kno to relate to hiht be human, was human, but he was like no human I had ever met

I wondered whether he had a place, like this one, a refuge where he went at the end of a hard day of torturing people in the cause of justice I wanted to ask hi so, first because I thought it likely he would shut me doith his usual taciturn non-response But also because part of ht open up, tell me more than I wanted to know about him, and thus confuse even further my emotional reaction to him

The odd thing, the thing that made me smile a bit wistfully to myself, was the realization that had he not been who and what he was, but just been a boy with that face and those eyes, sitting here drinking my coffee, I would probably still have been t

ongue-tied I remembered so little about my own story, but I was certain that whoever I was, I had never been very good atsmall talk with boys

And then, as I spread butter onto a piece of toast, I saw it

“What is this?” I stared aghast at the ink, blue and red, yellow and green, on ht arm, just above the end of my blouse sleeve

I had caught only a hint of color peeking out, and noithout setting down the butter knife, I pushed my sleeve up to see it fully