Blood Republic by James Duncan

Author:James Duncan [Duncan, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Primal Light Press
Published: 2016-07-03T23:00:00+00:00

Approximately 24 Hours Until Electoral Vote

(New Orleans, Louisiana: Sunday, 9:17 a.m. PST / 12:17 p.m. EST)

A s they jostled through air pockets on the way to her New Orleans interview with the shooting cop, mocha-skinned Shay’s thoughts drifted back to Amos in high school, the cowlick of light-brown hair, the wide smile. She brushed strands of her own long black hair out of her sight, and reached for the tonic water on the seatback’s tray. Part of her wondered if there was any chance that all could be forgiven, if they could start over again. I still love him , she admitted to herself, but she felt an immediate pang of dread entwined with the flush of euphoria. She set the plastic cup back down on the tray, and her emerald eyes drifted over the cabin wondering what her life might have been like.

Amos had a good reason to never forgive her. She had slept with his older sister, Annie. Amos had always apparently thought Annie had purposefully seduced Shay, but Shay had been young, curious and terrified that he was going to leave for the Army and never come back. Somehow she never thought one drunken night could change her entire future. Stupid , she thought about herself for the millionth time. It was just stupid .

No matter how much you’d fucked up though, life forced you to keep choosing.

***

While waiting for her luggage in the New Orleans airport, Shay didn’t find the normal half-sloshed bead-wearing tourists, but a tense simmer in the airport’s chilled air. Everyone smiled, but strained and overtly polite, as if the entire state were suddenly in a very important interview and faking ease. Shay’s editor had connections to the New Orleans Chief of Police, and had convinced them to let Shay get an exclusive with the shooting officer of the elector on the premise of needing to get their side of the story out as quickly as possible.

Shay knew the truth of Lawrence Gatreaux’s death would have a ripple effect into the election’s end and across the country for years, whatever angle she ended up writing in her article. There were multiple possibilities of how it could turn out though. Officer Sonny Benson could simply be the next in a long line of racist white men abusing authority against the disenfranchised, racism pure and simple. But it could also be a Republican plot to influence the election. Or a Democratic one. Or maybe the claims coming out of New Orleans, as well as other cities, of the private prison industry’s money increasingly causing people to get unjustifiably locked up and shot from aggressive, false arrests, had legs? Wasn’t it always about money? But then again, maybe this shooting something completely different and unexpected—like a good cop using reasonable force against a bad guy, regardless of anyone’s skin color? Whatever the truth was, of an elector’s shooting just before the end of the election, it would have consequences. Large ones.

The taxi driver, an elderly Afghani

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