Free Purpose by Andrew Q Gordon

buildings empty. While they’re focused on the destruction caused by one of their own, I tell them to ignore me. I enjoyed this too much. Someone could get hurt.
    Her soul tugs at me. He’s come out. I wonder if he knows I’m coming for him. Doubtful. One of the owners runs by me toward her totaled car, and the pull is clear.
    Standing with two friends, he is oblivious to my presence. So simple, just smash him once and it’s over. Yet….
    “Why did you rape her, Andre?” Each thinks my voice is one of the other two.
    “Wh… what?”
    “You raped Tarnisha Sims, then killed her.”
    Now his friends look uneasy.
    “No I didn’t.” Even he wouldn’t believe the denial.
    More people cluster when I project curiosity.
    “You were bragging about it to Tayvon. I heard you.”
    No one questions who is speaking. They each hear someone they trust.
    “What?” Fear and a nervous twitch only help convince the still-growing crowd of his guilt. “No I didn’t!”
    She was only nine. Even among those who peddle poison to their own people, the death of a small, innocent girl is a tragedy. They want to believe. It doesn’t take much to give them “proof.”
    “You took the chain her grandmother gave her for Christmas. It’s in your pocket.”
    His head whips around, searching for the speaker, his mind reeling. How can anyone know that?
    Hands, big, angry hands, grab him before he flees. “Right front pant pocket,” I announce.
    “Get ’Nisha’s mom!”
    “He has it!”
    I hear bone on flesh, followed by a howl of pain. “No! I didn’t do it.”
    I let him see me. “Yes, you did. She cries out to me, asking for vengeance.”
    His captors want to beat him, but I hold them back. Not yet, not before the mother can confirm what I know: the necklace was her daughter’s.
    Distraught, angry, shaking, the mother arrives. To her, I appear to be an angel, vengeful and terrible.
    “He’s the one who hurt your daughter.” My whisper is for her ears only.
    “You?” Disbelief and rage.
    “Is this ’Nisha’s?” Someone thrusts the small gold chain with a tiny pink giraffe dangling sadly.
    Words fail her, and only my arm prevents her sobbing body from collapsing. A moment more and rage takes over. A scream of anguish breaks the silence. None are left unaffected by her grief.
    With no prodding, she plants a booted foot in his groin.
    Through the tears and spittle, he sees me smile. “Vengeance will hurt.”
    Held fast, he can’t escape the rain of blows and kicks. Mom’s sorrow takes her beyond what any could imagine. A black steel-tipped boot strikes Andre’s spine. The man who wears it was a relative. A vertebra cracks, and the body goes limp.
    Sirens fill the air, and I take control of the crowd. They need to tell the police what he did, but not who did this to him. I erase from everyone’s memory the image of her uncle breaking his back. No one will remember that the mom beat him up in a fit of grief.
    People drift away before the first police cruiser arrives. Alone, I kneel in front of him.
    “I know you can hear me.” His eyes meet mine. There is no pain, too bad. “She was only nine. Even like this, you have more life than you left her. I’d take that, but she is satisfied. Now she can rest.”
    Two cars, lights swirling, sirens blaring, race into the block. From a safe place, I watch. No one runs. For once, they are going to tell the police what happened. Their stories will match and will be damning.
    Dozens more cops, detectives, police officials, and two ambulances. Intrigued, I wait.
    The guilty don’t survive. Vengeance requires the guilty die. And yet….
    She was only nine. Her killer lives. Vengeance is satisfied.

9

     
    G AR opened the closet door and paused, noting a new addition. His orderly, uniform existence, where he always had the same number of coats in his closet, was shattered. From the bare bedroom, Ryan’s breathing came slow, steady. He was sleeping.
    Tonight, Gar didn’t smell of