Breed

Chapter Forty-four

Mahmoud took in Rox's small dormitory room. "I guess I knew you didn't live with your parents," he said, "but this is so... dormy." The room was made all the smaller by the amount of people crammed inside it, but the trade-off for privacy was worth it.

"It's way more dormal than she would have led me to believe," Rui said.

"I know it's exciting being in a girl's room for the first time," Rox said, taking a stuffed Panda from Cris and setting it back on her pillow, "but we came here to focus."

"Seriously," Sonya said, "down boys."

"I didn't," Cris said. "I came here to do the opposite."

"Have a good time screwing off?" Ben offered.

"I came here to talk you out of it."

"Pete got to you," Rox said.

"We talked. He didn't get to me."

"Way to play hard to get," Sonya said.

"No. I threw myself at him. The age difference is an issue, at least for now, and, I can respect that. But more importantly, we talked about my future- including what we were planning to do."

"Were?" Rox asked.

"It's a mistake," he said. "My priest found out what I could do. He told my church that my powers weren't from God. And they shunned me. It got so bad that I couldn't leave the house on Sundays, without people trying to stone me. I don't mean a few crappy kids throwing rocks. I mean adults, some tossing stones as big as my head, again and again and again, even picking up the ones they'd already thrown if they ran out. So on Sundays I spent the whole day praying, fasting. I didn't ask for vengeance, I asked for acceptance.

"One day, the priest's niece was hurt. I never got the whole story, but either she was beaten pretty severely or in a terrible kind of car accident. The hospital was too far. So he took the girl to me. He thought he was making a deal with the devil for her life. I had him pray with me, and we asked that if it was his God's will, she be made whole. That was how I thought it worked, then; I thought it was divine power worked through me. Maybe it is... but it's not prayer activated, is what I meant.

"It didn't happen overnight. But as word spread, as the priest refused to lie about what happened, people softened. I stopped being a pariah, and started being just another parishioner.

"And they're wrong, people who fear us, and especially those who hate us. I know they're wrong, just like the people at my old church were wrong to hate me. But I also know that you can't force them to understand they're wrong. You have to wait until they're ready, until their reachable. Violence- even this preemptive strike- will only validate their fears, further entrench those who are just looking for an excuse to treat us like we're less than human.

"Maybe it's just... I know I'm more religious than the rest of you, and that's fine. I don't expect you to make the same decision based on faith. But I'm not just appealing to you as a Christian. This isn't the way to do it. This is... it's black militancy removed from all the good that groups like the Black Panthers were also able to do. We could be striking the match that lights the powder keg most of us have been sitting on since we first realized we were different.

"Registration scares me, down to my core. But you don't right wrongs with violence. You don't correct injuries with vengeance. That way lies perpetual war."

"I think not going would be a mistake," Rox said. "But I'm not going to try and evangelize that point. If you agree, I want you at my back. If not, I don't. Who's in?"