“You coulda killed him,” he added after he got no response from her. He had the nerve to say it because it was dark and he couldn’t see her. Essie’s quick inhalation startled him. She must have intended for him to feel the scolding in it. The words he knew she left behind her lips: You coulda, too. The next morning, in the picking field, his hands had curved into the position ripe for killing (it wouldn’t be murder because the laws saw no humanity in his kind). He saw how his fingertips touched and bled from the spines, but never had his hands been so strong. With a little gumption, he could
...more
