Breaking the Rules
Prologue
I've always dreamed big. I've wanted to be an intergalactic princess my entire life, not to mention my long time dream of flying or being Wonder Woman. Everyone always told me it wasn't possible, that I couldn't be anything special – anything out of the ordinary. I was born in the Burg, I would grow up in the burg and I would marry and have children in the burg. That was to be my lot in life.
It's a good thing I hate playing by the rules.
The first time I broke the rules, I was twenty five and found my husband flagrante-delicto on my dining room table with my arch-nemesis, Joyce Barnhardt. I got a divorce. The loudest and most disapproved of divorce in the history of the burg. I didn't do very well, my husband was a lawyer for a reason, but at least I got my divorce.
The second time I broke the rules, I was thirty two and had lost my job. I picked up a job, somewhat accidentally, as a Bounty Hunter for my cousin. In the eyes of the burg, everything went downhill from there.
My first skip was a rogue cop, Joseph Anthony Morelli, who was accused of murdering someone. He and I had what was loosely termed 'a history'. At six, I'd been invited in for a game of 'choo choo'. At sixteen, he'd stolen my virginity behind a pastry case at the local Tasty Pastry. At twenty one, I'd run him over with my Buick and broken his leg. He was lucky I hadn't backed over him. He was far more experienced at the whole 'justice' lifestyle and I was having serious trouble finding him, so I called in some… knowledgeable guidance from a friend of a friend. The guidance came in the form of a so-called 'Henry Higgins' by the name of Ricardo Carlos Manoso – Ranger to most. He guided me through the process and after I got Morelli back into the system, became a great friend and guide.
When I delivered Morelli to the station, most people thought I'd done my dash and I'd go back to being the good little hometown girl. Oh how wrong they were. Instead, I took more and more jobs. I even became reasonably successful. I always got my man. Unfortunately, in the process, I had a tendency to leave a trail of destruction in my wake.
Morelli and I became friends, and then lovers. Ranger started 'applying pressure' as he put it. I started to cave. At one point it looked like Joe and I were going to get hitched. That didn't happen. Another point it looked like it was all over between us. I got a particularly rough skip – well, more like… Challenging – and called Ranger in for help. He offered me a deal; one night of my company, for his help. In a moment of weakness, I agreed.
I've always broken the rules.
A while after the event, Ranger and I got together for one amazing night, and then he told me to patch things up with Morelli because he and I couldn't ever be together – his lifestyle 'didn't lend itself to relationships'. I loosely did as he told me, but with no great enthusiasm. What Morelli and I had was a bad habit. A while later, my life took a turn for the worst – both emotionally and physically – when one of my skips turned out to be a member of the prominent local street gang, the Slayers. I became the focus of all the bad vibes between the Slayers and the local law enforcement.
That particular instance in my long line of psycho's and destruction resulted in a near-rape-and-death experience, from which I was saved by a Uzi-wielding school bus driver who ran over the entire group and saved my life, destroying the Trenton faction of the Slayers – well, at least lowering their numbers to such a point that they weren't a major influence anymore.
Ranger and Morelli declared that I was safe as Slayer territory was taken over by another dangerous group and all the Slayers were sent packing. Morelli was called out of town for a job of some description, and Ranger just up and disappeared one day. I've seen neither hide nor hair of either since and nobody in the Burg has either.
That was eighteen months ago.
They were wrong, however, in that the Slayers had not lost interest in me – not by a long shot. If anything, I'd shot up to first priority on their list of people-to-kill. They took out a professional hit on me. It was lucky that some of the RangeMan team had their ears out on their streets and took it upon themselves to forewarn me and teach me to protect myself. My infamous 'luck' held out and I took out two of the people targeting me without copping more than a bruise.
Unfortunately, friends and family became too scared to associate with me, for fear of retaliation from the New York Slayers. You can't run from a Slayer hit. It will follow you wherever you go. The RangeMan team weren't scared, however – probably because they were second on the Slayer's shit list – and as a result I spent most of my time with them, training and fulfilling my social needs. They were great guys and they didn't give a damn that there was a hit out on me; they'd been trying to prove to me that it didn't make me a different person in any way. I sometimes struggled with that belief, but they'd become such good friends over the past eighteen months that I wasn't going to question their calls. I wasn't going to throw away such friendships.
I knew first hand how much it hurt to have people betray you, or abandon you, or plain old forget about you. I swore to myself not to do to anyone, what had been done to me. About the time I realized things weren't going to get better any time soon, I swore that I was going to stop letting what other people did hurt me so much.
Damn but it was hard work.