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Book Two!!!

So, here is a little snippet of what I have written so far of book two. It's short and my first draft, but I am finally getting started. Let me know what you think!


The Skeleton Girls

Sometimes I still dream about sirens. The echo of them—bouncing against houses, reverberating off of sidewalks and asphalt streets—a melody on repeat. The corresponding colors, the memory of them dancing, penetrating the black city sky, play like a series of disjointed home movies on the insides of my eyelids, haunting my sleep with the weight of melancholic nostalgia. I usually wake with a cool sweat dappling my forehead, names of lost friends on my lips, the vision of blood spatter dancing in my head. But, not tonight. Tonight there will be little sleep. And the sound of sirens will be reality, police and emergency vehicles rushing to another scene of another crime in this city. The blood spatter that will stain the streets will be fresh and fragrant, the body it came from still very much warm. 
This city is full of homicide—gunshot wounds and ruthless beatings, initiations and executions. And I am deployed into the fray to point out how these killings happen, whether the cops should add another name in red to the long list of names filling their murder room murder boards. I am a medico-legal investigator—a woman charged with the responsibility of the dead. I’ve abandoned the world of the living and spend my days studying liver, rigor, bloating, and blood. I observe their bodies, assist in their autopsies, and inform their families of their passing. Often, I have to track down who they were. Often, there isn’t a straight answer to that question. In this city, this bloodied city, I am the conduit between the living and the dead. 
I wonder sometimes if my view of this city from my position in the morgue has tainted my opinion of this place. It’s a new city to me, still, though I’ve been here more than two years. It remains unfamiliar in many ways, uncomfortable and unfitted to my personality. I keep waiting for Chicago to grow on me and, as much as I like the snow, the city hangs around me daunting and heavy. Death comes every night, haunts every neighborhood, stalking with his scythe, his hood pulled tight against the cold. 
Tonight is no different. It’s past midnight in Chicago and the war is on.

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