HER VENGEANCE

Vengeance is for the Lord, but guess who was made in the image and likeness of God... me!

I don't say that to be cocky. It's simply the truth. If the Lord reserves the right to mete out justice, to weigh hearts and cut down the wicked, and if I am crafted in His likeness-well, it only makes sense that some of those tendencies might just trickle down.

It started on a Wednesday.

Rain battered the sidewalks like fists pounding on a locked door. I hunched my shoulders against it, coat drawn tight, mind spinning. The call had come an hour earlier: my sister was dead. My only sister.

Not a car accident.

Not an illness.

Murder.

The word lodged in my chest like a splinter. No matter how many times I coughed or swallowed, it stayed there, prickling, itching,burning.

At the station, the detective-Rama, badge shining too cleanly-gave me the look. You know the one: a downward slant of the mouth, a soft, practiced sorrow in the eyes. A sympathy manufactured for daily use.

"We're doing everything we can, Ms. Clay," he said.