War in Me by Amaterasu Rising
Prologue
She hunched over in her seat on the boat. She reached into the pocket of her stolen windbreaker to count the remaining bills and coins, also stolen. She hadn't bothered to count the bills she'd shoved at the deckhand when she tried to board the boat in El Bluff. She knew it was a lot of money, enough to buy her way north and the deckhand's silence. The small vessel made its way north in the Caribbean. She tried to keep herself from standing out. She was nobody now that she was bobbing along in the middle of the temperate sea, but where she was from she was a cult princess. She didn't allow herself to think of the life she left behind, saying to herself, "No mire detrás," over and over. Instead she focused on fleeing the moment they hit the mainland. Any mainland. She was shooting for the shores of the United States but anything other than Nicaragua would do.
Night fell before the Yucatan peninsula was visible; they pulled into the port under a gloriously clear black sky. It seemed all the stars in the world were shining that night. She didn't pause to admire their beauty; instead she tried to find an inn that would take that one pesky gold coin. She'd stolen handfuls of gold and bills from her father's cache, and that hateful coin with the snake was no good, no matter where she went. No merchant would accept it, nor was it tender for a bribe. At that point she wanted to get rid of it, but not badly enough to give it away or toss it aside. Years ago she had been taught that currency was precious, even as it was through tainted money. She figured somewhere, somehow it would be profitable.
This proved to be a difficult task, perhaps parallel in difficulty to escaping her homeland. As she made her way north to Mexico's capital city to buy a new identity, the snake coin stayed with her. But once the papers were in her hand, establishing herself as Violet Paloma Sanz, the coin's apparent lack of value meant nothing to her. She was only one step away from her ultimate goal.
Prologue
She hunched over in her seat on the boat. She reached into the pocket of her stolen windbreaker to count the remaining bills and coins, also stolen. She hadn't bothered to count the bills she'd shoved at the deckhand when she tried to board the boat in El Bluff. She knew it was a lot of money, enough to buy her way north and the deckhand's silence. The small vessel made its way north in the Caribbean. She tried to keep herself from standing out. She was nobody now that she was bobbing along in the middle of the temperate sea, but where she was from she was a cult princess. She didn't allow herself to think of the life she left behind, saying to herself, "No mire detrás," over and over. Instead she focused on fleeing the moment they hit the mainland. Any mainland. She was shooting for the shores of the United States but anything other than Nicaragua would do.
Night fell before the Yucatan peninsula was visible; they pulled into the port under a gloriously clear black sky. It seemed all the stars in the world were shining that night. She didn't pause to admire their beauty; instead she tried to find an inn that would take that one pesky gold coin. She'd stolen handfuls of gold and bills from her father's cache, and that hateful coin with the snake was no good, no matter where she went. No merchant would accept it, nor was it tender for a bribe. At that point she wanted to get rid of it, but not badly enough to give it away or toss it aside. Years ago she had been taught that currency was precious, even as it was through tainted money. She figured somewhere, somehow it would be profitable.
This proved to be a difficult task, perhaps parallel in difficulty to escaping her homeland. As she made her way north to Mexico's capital city to buy a new identity, the snake coin stayed with her. But once the papers were in her hand, establishing herself as Violet Paloma Sanz, the coin's apparent lack of value meant nothing to her. She was only one step away from her ultimate goal.