Despoina

She sat on the train clutching her purse. I'm sure she could feel the stares at her work. Every inch of her skin that wasn't bruised was tattooed. She had lines of X's from her knee to her ankle. She had green and pink and blue and yellow splattered on her body. I just had to know more. The L stopped at Argyle and she stepped off. Intrigued, I followed her. The woman pulled the sunglasses perched on her black hair over her green eyes and quickly walked down the stairs of the platform and into the throngs of people.

She slid through people like a serpent. I did my best to keep up without calling too much attention to myself. Suddenly, there was a break. I tried to conceal myself within the crowd. She was standing at the corner of a street. There were teddy bears and candy and balloons around the pole. It had a noticeable dent in it and was darker than I remembered. I heard her murmur, "I'll get the bad man, sweetie. I'll make sure he never hurts you again."

She kissed her forearm, which had a name I couldn't make out etched into it, walked on as if she hadn't even stopped. I stopped and looked at the pole. Above the stuff, there was a banner that said Rhiannon Eos Adams: October 2010-May  2015. I followed the woman around a corner. She was standing facing a wall in the middle of an alley. I stood, too dumbfounded to move. "Why are you following me?" she said.

I looked around. Who was she talking to?

She turned and looked at me. Her wet-rimmed green eyes were piercing my soul. "He killed my daughter. I have to."

"Uh... what?"

"Don't play that dumb shit with me. I don't care how privileged Mr. Manchester thinks he is. He killed my Rhiannon. She was just four years old."

A tear fell from her eyes, and I pulled out a crumpled out of tissue and offered it to her. "He took my daughter. I have to do this," she said. "No private detective is going to stop me."

She unsheathed a knife from her sleeve and I knew things had turned serious. I turned to run but before I got two steps, I was on the ground. The last things I can remember is wondering why someone spilled Kool-Aid and watching her walk away just as calmly as she walked off the train.