-Sasuke- "Are you crazy?"
Soledad's hollering sounds very unprofessional. I can't tell what's going on in Kakashi's office because he's not yelling back at her. "Captain, with all due respect, that's a suicide mission! I know that Colombia's number one export to the United States is cocaine and El Salvador's number one export is illegal military weapons, but THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE'LL GET ALONG." She storms out of the office a few minutes later. "I'm being pulled for undercover work." Damn!
"Come back with a sound mind and body."
"I'll try."

"Sasuke. My office, now." Kakashi's mask has been a source of mystery and speculation for decades. I've never seen him without it. "What's Soledad doing?"
"That's none of your concern. Sit down." I read the title of the book on his desk. The loud orange hurts my eyes. –Icha Icha Paradise- has been typed in Kanji. I wonder what the book is about. "You'll be without your partner for awhile, three months at most. In the meantime, you'll work with me. We will also be aided by Iruka Umino."
"The captain of the Gang Unit? Why?"
"He knows how gangs work, and he helped Soledad infiltrate one. A woman with ties to the Mara has been beaten by her boyfriend, a member of the gang, for years. She was recently raped. She says he did it and has repeatedly raped other women with ties to the gang's members here in Seattle." Each case here in the Sexual Assault/Child Abuse Unit is slightly more horrific than the last.
"Who's the Mara?"
"The MS-13."
"Captain, I know very little about gangs."
"Iruka will be here in ten minutes to explain them to you. Then we'll figure out how this is going to work."

I tag more than I usually do. I tag new designs whenever there's a new case, and Soledad's being pulled brings forth negative emotions in me, which lead to more tagging. My high helped me only briefly. I want more. If I start doing more I might become an addict or a hotshot. Neither of those can happen. I want to keep this job for the rest of my life and ignore the fact that I'm defecting and swerving my community. I pause in my tagging to roll my eyes at the memory of the old joke about dirty cops. The crescent moon provides me ample light to admire my tag. A dark-haired woman sucks on her index fingertip and smirks at those who might look at her. 'Wolf grrl' is scrawled as a tattoo into her calf. I tag feminine designs so I can be mistaken for a woman. I put the spray cans back in the bag and walk the six blocks to my apartment. It is dark and closed. I turn up the heat after turning the bedroom light on. It's a studio apartment.

I live within three blocks of the Spanish ghetto. South Seattle, so I've been told, is the poorest section of Seattle. I like it here, though. Soledad lives in the Spanish ghetto because she chooses to. She feels more at home, she says. I wonder where she's moved, if she's moved. What's it like to be part of MS-13? Iruka she won't have to kill anyone to get in, but she will be kicked and punched—beaten—for thirteen seconds as part of her initiation. Then, the six strongest members of the gang will rape her.

I walk into work the next morning irritable and grumpy from a night of sleeplessness and worry. Why did Kakashi send her on this mission?