Kevlar to My Vest

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Fisting them both in my hand, I walked out of the house, directly between the TV and the man playing his war game. He snarled, but didn’t say anything as I hurried back outside, finding the woman on her hands and knees, trying her hardest to take a deep breath.

  “Red or brown?” I asked as I dropped down to my knees beside her.

  Her answer was to grab the brown one, uncap it, and take two puffs.

  Long moments later, her breathing began to slow, and she pulled a long, deep pull of air into her lungs. She repeated this two more times as she looked at the grass. On her third deep inhale, her head finally lifted, and her eyes locked on my own. Then she froze.

  Yeah, that was normally the reaction I got out of people. At least lately.

  I was undercover for the Benton Police Department trying to take down Varian Strong. Strong was a ‘suspected’ rapist, and dealer in the area. I said ‘suspected’ very loosely. We all knew he did it, we just couldn’t prove it. The BPD had six women come forward with their suspicions, yet not one single shred of evidence could point towards him. He’d been questioned, warrants had been served, and wiretaps were put on his phone. Which had been monitored nearly 24/7 for three months before they made the decision to put someone undercover in his construction business.

  What better way to do that than making someone look like a druggie wanting his next hit of Meth? Someone desperate. Someone who’d look the other way when their boss did something shady.

  Yeah, that’s what I looked like. Long, shaggy hair down to my shoulders. Bruises and needle sticks from sterilized needles at the bends of my elbows and in the webbing of my fingers. Shitty clothes that hung off my form. I was big though, no doubt about it. I couldn’t hide the muscle with anything else but baggy clothes.

  I looked like a vagrant.

  Then her eyes locked on the scar on my neck. The one I’d gotten at sixteen, when a gang member from my hometown slit my throat for his initiation into the gang. A gang that I was trying to get out of. A gang that didn’t let people just leave.

  I’d survived having my throat sliced open because of a police officer. The local gang officer that’d cruised the gang’s territory trying to keep gang activity to a minimum. He’d saved me with his quick thinking, and kept an eye on me for the duration of my high school years.

  Oh, and married my single mother, and was now my stepfather.

  Trying to do him proud, I’d joined the Coast Guard, and went to school to get my paramedic degree. After six years in the coast guard, I got out when my mom got sick, and got triple certified as a firefighter, paramedic, and police officer.

  I moved to Benton because of its nearly nonexistent gang activity. I didn’t want to deal with gangs. But I did want to make the town, and the surrounding area, better.

  Going undercover wasn’t my original goal; but, overtime, it was certainly a bonus. I became good at being a different person. Or maybe I was just that person, trying not to be me. I mean I was in a gang for five years. I lived on the streets while my mother worked her ass off at a diner, working the night shift. I was most definitely not supervised, which is what led to my destruction at the ripe old age of eleven.

  “T-thank you,” she said after a while, finally finding her voice.

  “No problem,” I said and walked away, leaving her there in the grass.

  Her eyes were terror filled, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to walk with me that close.

  She was in a vulnerable position: sick and scared. I gave her the only reassurance I could. My back.