Instinct

34. Coming Back to Haunt You

“I didn’t join the Peace Corps or anything, I just didn’t want to go to university, you know?” Kirsten explained as the three of them walked down the night-darkened street. “My parents were disappointed, and basically they said I had to know what I was going to do if I was going to make the choice not to go to university right away.”

Stephanie nodded, glancing over at Eric who was walking beside her in silence. She couldn’t help but feel tense around him. The last couple of years she’d spent time remembering him as the person who had threatened to kill her the next time he saw her. That kind of thing couldn’t just disappear with a few well-spoken words, even though she knew he meant it.

"So I thought about it, and actually it was my dad that suggested I do some charity work. Both my parents thought it could teach me a lot, and I agreed. I joined a group going to Bolivia with Habitat for Humanity and I loved it. The travel, meeting new people, trying to learn a little bit of a new language… so when I got back I got crappy little jobs to help finance the trips I wanted to do. I think my parents were just glad I had found something I wanted to pursue, to be honest, so they helped me out.

“After a couple of trips with different organizations, I realized that there are opportunities to help people here, so I started doing regular community work in a couple of different states, and then this werewolf thing blew up and I thought it was so unfair, what was happening to you all.”

Kirsten shrugged and kicked at a stone, watching it tumble across the pavement and into the road. Her face contorted for a second in what Stephanie thought was anger.

“It’s still not right, what’s going on. So I got involved with helping people, doing peaceful protests, trying to bring some media attention to wrongful persecutions,” she said. “But it was a rigged game from the start. My last protest was in San Francisco – the amount of people that came to support it was amazing.”

Kirsten shook her head and looked down, throat convulsing as she swallowed. From beside Stephanie, Eric cursed under his breath.

“Bastards, the lot of them.”

Stephanie tried to push Kirsten to go on with her eyes, searching for what came next.

“But then some of the opposition started getting violent, and someone called the police. They lied when they said we’d attacked people, trespassed and damaged property. The riot police came and they beat people down. It was awful and terrifying being caught in that, having to watch people defend themselves and get struck down and hauled off for that. I ended up in holding for a little while too, and that was the end of that.”

Stephanie exhaled. She’d heard stories of all of these awful things happening, but she’d been able to watch and listen with a certain amount of detachment. But now that she was faced with a friend who had been affected by it, now that she saw the angry hurt in her eyes, there wasn’t any way to keep separate from it. It made Stephanie’s heart hurt and she realized how removed from it all she had been.

How could she, her family and the Halls help, while they sat here in New York and tried to explain away events they didn’t understand?

Then Kirsten looked up and shot a grin towards Eric.

“Then again, I guess once you start, you can never really stop,” she said. “And I thought maybe protests weren’t enough. Maybe media attention and testimonies and giving people shelter and protection just wasn’t enough.”

Stephanie wasn’t sure where Kirsten was going with that train of thought. And actually, she wasn’t even sure where they were anymore. They’d walked far enough to leave behind the bustle of the city and the clamour of climbing buildings around them. The pavement beneath her feet was cracked, littered with cigarettes and litter.