Weekend Freewrite -12/28/2019 - Single Prompt Option: Breed

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When you know you are Virginia's own Angel of Death – that is, when you know you are of that rare breed of men gifted for killing – you know that in every interaction, you have to be careful.

Robert E. Lee had not known it about himself until it was too late, of course, but, the Civil War came and went in his old age. The mild-mannered old general with 100,000 lives on his conscience for the sake of slavery surrendered, and was in defeat thus able to put his potentials back to sleep after 1865.

Yet for his great-great-great-nephew Henry Fitzhugh Lee, it had been too late from the time he was bullied at five years old by a much bigger five-year-old. Poor little Braxton Beauregard Bragg, who paid in a stunningly bruised head and bite marks shockingly near his jugular for pushing much-littler Harry Lee down, and thus waking up the deadly gift in him (check that out right here on Steemit in Black, White, and RED ALL Over, chapter 12 OR, get the whole story in its new home on Amazon and get ALL the details)!

Captain H.F. Lee of the Big Loft, VA police lived in the 21st century, the age of perpetual war – he had put in nearly 24 years in the Army, serving in its conflicts around the world, and then came home to Lofton County to find its deadly struggles even penetrating to his quiet desk job as head of the police force's new cold case division, even plucking him out of there to take the lead of a police station hiding yet another deadly, explosive secret.

Captain Lee rolled with the punches … but he knew who he was, and what he was capable of, and that made meeting with Mr. Nathan Turner of the Lofton County Free Voice extra complicated.

Of lesser importance: Mr. Turner was very passionate, and could become animated. However, Mr. Turner understood Captain Lee's PTSD by this point. He knew that it would not be personal if the Green Beret-wearing veteran from Special Forces was triggered by a perceived threat and leaped up and destroyed him, but even though it wouldn't be personal, being no 187 on that particular kill list was not Mr. Turner's ambition. So: he knew he had to stay calm.

Of greater importance: no matter how calm Mr. Turner stayed, he was going to get the information he came for … and that, alone, would be enough to roll his eyes all the way back into his head when he got it. Captain Lee worried that if he delivered the information wrong, Mr. Turner might be the second man his mere words and manner had killed that day.

The second man. Not even the first. No. 186 had been carried out seven hours earlier.

When you are the Angel of Death, of that rare and terrible breed, sometimes, all you can do is try to limit the damage.

Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash