text: location of one of our strongholds to be tortured out of you." The last is said with a wink as he hands you a dark cloth. You put it on and continue the ride in silence.
  
  After a while the vehicle comes to a stop. Gurinder removes the blindfold. You're on a small grassy hill, and three men in robes stand on top looking at the SUV. Beyond them, at lower points on the hill, are several armed men and women. Jones turns back to you and says, "We're here. I'm not sure what they'll do, but I suspect they'll have a proposition to offer you." Jones steps out and opens the door for you.
  
  > Proposition
  One of the men in black robes motions for you to come to him. He wears a black turban with a ruby set at the forehead. Your new companions wait by the SUV, letting you walk to him alone. He turns away from you and begins walking. "Follow me," he says without looking back.
  
  As you walk, he says, "My name is Arjan. Named after the Sikh Guru himself. The first martyr. I used to be a Sikh, you know. We of the Veil Watchers wear the robes to identify rank, but the turban is just an old habit from those days." He shrugs. "It looks nice, no?" You nod, even though he's not looking at you. "I no longer believe as I once did, or at least, what I believe has been greatly modified. Never mind that. Who we are before we learn the truth doesn't matter. Come."
  
  He leads you down the hill to the trees before stopping at a small stream. Sunlight barely filters through, creating beautiful shafts through the trees. "Listen," he says. "What do you hear?" The stream sounds almost like a xylophone, its high pitched tinkling making a sort of harmonic contrast to the birds and leaves rustling in the breeze. "I don't know," you say. "I just hear Nature."
  
  He looks at you approvingly. "Yes, Nature. What you hear is the Natural Order of the Universe. The very thing we of the Veil Watchers are trying to preserve." He bends down and picks up a rock. He hands the wet rock to you and says, "Such a thing is lifeless to you, no? But I tell you the truth, this rock is exploding with life! From the microorganisms upon and within it, to the dancing protons, neutrons and electrons it is made of, to the quarks and leptons that in turn make up them. Energy constantly flowing, changing." He holds out his hand and you return to the rock to him. "It is moving. It is evolving. It is alive."
  
  He turns away from you, and in a sad tone he says, "I tell you this because today our paths will part, but if you are who we hope, you must be made aware of the stakes we all face. Soon the Veil will be pierced, and The Lost will invade our world. They are creatures of an inscrutable nature, made of a foreign matter. Some believe them to be made of Strange Matter, a hypothetical material physicists believe may exist in some neutron stars. Regardless, what you need to know is that if they succeed they will turn all living matter, from those birds to this rock, into a lifeless from of maximum disorder. Energy variance will be minimized, entropy maximized. The pockets of order that allow everything from living organisms to the galaxies themselves will be torn asunder. This cannot be!
  
  "Unfortunately," he continues, "You will not be able to help us directly just yet. Nevertheless, we will do our best to give you the power to make sure your family is safe when the time comes, and we'll see to it that the men chasing you disappear from your life permanently. Under one condition."
  
  "What?" you reply. "Anything. I'll do anything. Please don't kill me." He smiles at you. "We will not kill you. However, since we saved your life, you do owe us a debt." He smiles self-deprecatingly. "We of the Veil Watchers do more than wage clandestine war against shadow organizations hell bent on the destruction of this world." He laughs and smiles at you a moment, then his face turns serious once more. "We also fight for justice against more mundane evil. And in your very neighborhood a truly great evil resides. We need you to put an end to it."
  
  "What evil?" you ask. "And how to I 'put an end to it?'" Arjan sighs. "The evil I speak of is the worst kind an individual can do. A man, no. He is no man. A predator in your neighborhood has been abusing his own children for years. He's abused other children as well, including one who became one of our ranks. He has harmed the most innocent, and for the sake of those children, and the one among us he has harmed, we need this man to face justice."
  
  You shudder at this. "Do I turn him in? I'm not sure what you're asking." Arjan looks at you with a piercing gaze. "You know exactly what I'm asking. Kill this man. If you do this, not only will you be saving at least two children from more abuse, you'll also be gaining the means to save your own family when the Veil is finally pierced. Furthermore, you will show us you are truly trustworthy and aligned with righteousness enough to be with us when the time comes. We chose you for a reason, but we cannot bring you into our inner sanctum, train you, and equip you without this test of character and loyalty. Who we truly are is only revealed in the crucible of life and death.
  
  "Will you accept this burden and bring justice to a vile man?"
  
  > Yes, you will kill the predator
  You think it over for a moment. You are not the type who would kill even a vicious predator. Violence simply isn't something you are predisposed to. Still, killing this man may be the only way to save your own family, not to mention the children he's abusing. It's a difficult choice, but weighing the pros and cons, it's clear that killing this man is the lesser of two evils.
  
  You turn to Arjan and say, "I don't want to be responsible for someone's death, but it's clear to me that it's the lesser evil. I don't know if I can do it, but I will try. Tell me what to do." Arjan smiles approvingly. "Sometimes we must indeed commit one evil to prevent a greater evil. You have chosen wisely. Agents Amy, Jones and Gurinder will explain what you must do. Return to them, but before you go, let me say this:
  
  "I hope that whatever happens, you will remember that we are fighting for something more important than our own happiness, our own families, and our own lives. And I hope that you see beyond mere appearances to the greater realities, that you will see the truth that hides in the lies." With that he waves for you to return to the SUV.
  
  Just as you reach the bottom of the hill, he shouts to you one last thing. "Remember, young man. When there seems to be no answer, when you're conflicted about what to do, trust your heart. If you forget everything else from our meeting, remember that! You have a special gift. Do not waste it!" Arjan turns back to the Western sky, leaving you to walk up the hill, alone with your thoughts.
  
  > Murder
  The gun feels ice cold in your hand. You stand in the shadow behind a convenience store, the street light across the alley the only illumination besides the interior lighting of the store itself. After discussing with Amy, Jones and Gurinder, you were given several guns to test their feel in your hand. You selected a SIG Sauer P220. You were told to walk into the building and pull the trigger at ten PM, whether there were witnesses or not.
  
  The plan was to walk in the doors, make sure that the man at the desk was the target, a man named Reiner, and then at precisely ten, shoot him in the head. After that, the Veil Watchers left your escape to your own devices, but they assured you if you made it the two blocks to 2nd Street without being apprehended, they'd make sure no one ever found out it was you.
  
  You wipe sweat away from your eyes and look at your watch. Nine fifty-eight. There was no going back now. You take a few seconds to calm your breathing, then you walk into the store. Immediately your stomach drops; a single shopper is browsing items toward the back. The Veil Watchers said to do it whether or not there were witnesses, but knowing another set of eyes could clearly identify you to the police turns your legs to lead as you walk toward the counter.
  
  At the front desk you see a balding man behind the register, looking at pictures on his phone. His name tag reads "Lance Reiner." He's the one. Suddenly the question of whether or not this man actually did what he was accused of pops into your head. You have to know.
  
  "Excuse me, Mr. Reiner?" He looks up. "Do I know you?" You take a deep breath. "No. But I know you, and I know what you've done. And you know what you've done." His face betrays shock and fear. In a softer, less certain voice, he says, "Hey man, I don't know what you're talking about," but now you know. He wouldn't have appeared so afraid if he was innocent. You pull out the gun and yell at him. "Your daughters, Reiner. I know all about it. Admit it, Reiner. Did you abuse them?"
  
  The man seems to wilt. He starts sobbing, saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I do love them, but I need help. God I'm so sorry." He sinks to the floor. You look at the wall clock. Two after ten. You're already behind the schedule set by the Veil Watchers. Now is the moment of truth.
  
  You know he deserves death, but are you the one who should be dealing it out? Your head tells you this man must die, both to save those two little girls and to possibly save your own family, if what Arjan told you is true. But your heart tells you it is wrong to carry out vigilante justice like this. This man should face a trial and a jury of his peers. Your mind is a torrent of confusion and conflicting impulses.
  
  Can you kill this man?
  
  > pull the trigger
  You take a deep breath and mutter "I'm sorry" before squeezing the trigger. The man's head whips backwards, and a deep crimson hole appears in his forehead. Your hand trembles to the point that you drop the gun. Terrified, you look side to side, desperately trying to think of a way to escape. Just as you step toward the door, you feel a blow to the back of the head and fall.
  
  As you begin to stir on the floor, you hear the single witness in the convenience store talking on the phone. "Yes! He shot him in the face! I've knocked him out, but please hurry!" The man hangs up the phone and looks at you impassively before stepping toward you and kicking you in the face.
  
  > Interrogation
  The detective paces the floor. "So tell me again, you say you came to the store with a SIG Sauer P220, planned to shoot him because he was a pedophile, but someone else shot him?" You sigh. "Yes, I've told you a thousand times," you say again. The detective puts his hands on the table.
  
  "Son, we've been through this. The bullet that killed the man came from your gun. Your finger prints were all over it. You know this. Why the elaborate story?" You sigh again.
  
  You know it looks bad. You had planned to 'remain silent,' as per the Miranda Rights read to you when the interview began, but the detectives offered you to clear your name with a lie detector test, which you took and failed. Or at least they claimed you failed it, although you know they aren't admissible as evidence. You spoke nothing of the Veil Watchers. But the pressure began to get to you and you started contradicting yourself.
  
  The detective sits across from you. "Look. We know you did it," he begins. "We're prepared to offer you a deal that will keep you from Death Row. Stop playing with your life, son. It's time to own up to what you've done." A loud knock on the door interrupts the interview. The detective walks to the door and quietly talks with a woman. He turns back to you and says, "I'll leave you two alone a moment," before walking out.
  
  The woman comes up to you and lays a manila folder on the table. She clears her throat and says, "I'm your attorney. My name is Anne Watters." She looks through the file. "You should have remained silent. You've put us in a corner. Polygraphs aren't even admissible in court." You bury your head in your hands. Almost weeping, you say, "I know, but what am I supposed to do? The truth is far less believable than this any lie." She puts her hand on your shoulder. "I know it is." You look at her, and her expression is one of pure steel. "I know exactly what happened. We've arranged for a plea deal of ten years, but you won't be here that long. Do not accept the deal. We will contact you before your arraignment." With that she begins to leave.
  
  "Wait! Are you with the Veil Watchers?" She smiles and nods at you. "You probably won't need to take the deal. We'll get you out of here before your arraignment. Two PM on March seventeenth and you'll be free. Remember that." She walks out and the detective returns.
  
  "I suppose she's shown you the deal?" You look him in the eye, now feeling deep anger toward this man. "Yes. But shove it up your ass, detective. I'm not speaking to you again."
  
  You see a moment of cold fury pass over the detective's eyes, before he smiles at you. "It's your funeral, kid." The detective grabs up his brief case and leaves you handcuffed to the table. Something about what your attorney said agitates the back of your mind, but unable to figure out why, you slump in your seat and resume nervously shaking your leg underneath the table.
  
  > Chapter 3
  Several weeks passed as you waited in the community cells, but no word from the self-described attorney working with the Veil Watchers came. Another was hired by your family after it was clear she wasn't coming back. Your arraignment had already come and gone, and the preliminary hearing was days away. Your mother has been begging you to take the plea deal, and by the time the preliminary hearing arrives that opportunity will be gone.
  
  You have begun to doubt whether or not the original attorney will come through for you. Part of you thinks it might be some dubious test, but for the most part you are reasonably certain they've left you here on your own. More, you now realize what was bothering you when she left the interrogation room. The date she gave for the arraignment, March seventeenth, was way too late, or too early depending on how you look at it, by almost a year; it was barely August and the arraignment already passed. It makes no sense. She probably had no idea what was going on with your case. Which makes you wonder, why would they even send her?
  
  The more you think about it, the more you are convinced they used you as a fall guy to kill that man. Anger at their betrayal fills your days, but terror fills your nights. If they don't come through for you, you'll possibly face life in prison or worse. The plea bargain is for ten years, on a charge of voluntary manslaughter. Your new attorney argued that your belief that the victim was a child molester was enough to drive you to commit the crime in a moment of passion. The prosecution was willing to accept that narrative in exchange for a guilty plea.
  
  Faced with the prospect of life in prison or even the death penalty, you decide whether or not to take the plea deal.
  
  > take the plea deal
  You watch the fields as the bus drives past them. The tall grass gently dances in the wind, and the rolling yellow-green hills in front of the bright blue sky paints the horizon in a picturesque tableau. The beautiful scenery acts like an emotional acid to you, however. Jail was one thing. You were housed with a few psychopaths, for sure, but many were innocent or on minor charges. Maximum security prison is another matter. You'll be locked up with murderers and rapists and the worst society has to offer.
  
  You didn't have much choice but to accept the plea bargain. The Veil Watchers clearly abandoned you. You still feel anger at being used by them, but that anger now resides quietly beneath your conscious emotions. Presently all you are feeling is anxiety and terror.
  
  Your thoughts are interrupted as the prison comes into view: beginning operation only a few years ago, the newly built Inola Correctional Facility, just Northeast of Inola, Oklahoma, was a physical testament to nihilism. Improbably tall spirals of barbed wire top every meter of the twenty foot tall walls. The slate and tan brick walls of every building and tower lie without decoration, adding to the atmosphere of dread and hopelessness. Every direction looks the same, as the construction was designed to confuse inmates about their location upon the premises. A company of guards awaits the arrival of the bus full of new inmates.
  
  Regardless of what happens, right now you have only one objective: survival.
  
  > First days Inside: Fresh Fish
  Of all you thought prison would be, the noise caught you off guard the most. Constant talking, yelling, banging on doors, slamming on tables, correctional officers shouting orders, it was unending. After the humiliation of being strip searched during the Receiving and Discharge/Orientation process that all new inmates experience, you are ferried with the other new inmates into General Population. The CO in the guard shack enters a code, and the outer doors open to the common room. A guard presses a button and the final barrier is removed. Placed in your cell for the first time, all you wanted to do was hide in the corner when the doors slammed. For the first few days only Samantha's letters were keeping you sane.
  
  You have one thing going for you, however: your cellmate. The guards in charge of housing decided to cut you a break since you were convicted of killing someone you believed was a child predator. An old Mexican immigrant from Juárez, your cellmate Diego had been caught up in the gangs along the Juárez-El Paso border as a youth, and in a drug deal gone wrong shot and killed a teenager. Sentenced to life in prison, Diego had converted to Christianity a couple decades ago, and has since made it his personal mission to help out young inmates and "lead them to Christ."
  
  The first few days the doors opened to allow inmates to roam the common area, you stayed hidden in your cell on your bunk. Diego suggested you step out so other inmates don't think you're timid. "They'll think of you as a target if they sense weakness," he'd said.
  
  Taking his advice, you started hanging out outside your cell. Eventually you were invited to play cards and dominoes by some of the other inmates, but you didn't count this as anything other than necessary social interaction. There were no friends in prison, Diego had said, and trusting anyone was a mistake. Despite your talent at cards and gambling, for the first few days you allowed the other inmates to win far more than they should have, hoping to not make enemies. It was here at the table, this morning, that you first saw a tangible threat to your safety.
  
  Bald and well built, the con nicknamed "Vein" was sitting across the room at another table while you played cards. He stared at you for five straight minutes while you pretended not to notice. Diego, however, saw this interaction, and was trying to warn you as the two of you awaited Lights Out.
  
  "Him staring at you like that can only mean one thing. He wants you, Fish. He and his friends are going to come for you," says Diego from his bunk above yours. "What do I need to do, man? Should I tell the CO's?" Diego leans over his bunk and looks down at you. "Tell them what, Fish? That a guy was looking at you? No. You do not want to be labeled a snitch. They might come for you, and they might take you, but at least you'll be alive. You snitch, and you might get killed. And especially when nothing's happened. Without any evidence, the CO's aren't going to do a damn thing, except maybe get pissed off. And you don't want that."
  
  You slam your fists onto your bed. "So what the hell do I do?" Diego lays quietly for a moment before saying, "There's only one thing you can do, Fish. You have to fight with everything you have. And that still may not be enough. But if you make it difficult enough for them, maybe there's a chance they'll move on to easier prey." You ponder this for a moment and say, "Will you be able to help me, Diego?"
  
  "All I can do is pray for you. I'm commanded by Christ to avoid violence. Even if I wasn't convicted by the Lord, I wouldn't get involved. Vein and his crowd are animals, and no sane person would stand up to them for anyone. I saw a guy who crossed them once. They flung a bottle of boiling oil into his face. Heated it for a half hour before." He pauses a moment, then looks back down to again and says, "I saw his face melt, Fish. It melted right off of his bones. No. I cannot help you.
  
  "Again, I will pray, but that is all I can do. I'm an old man." He sighs. "You should pray, too, Fish. But whatever happens, remember what the Lord said in 2 Corinthians 3:17. 'Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.' You might be trapped here, but if you are with the Lord you are free." Diego lets out a yawn before saying, "Try to get some sleep. You'll need to be rested if they come for you."
  
  The guard yells for lights out, and darkness descends upon the cell block. You lay in the thin bed as tense as the first moment you stepped into this place, nails digging into your palms and foot nervously tapping. Sleep? Yeah, no. You are too high strung to sleep. As tears stream down the sides of your face, all you can think about are those malice-filled deep blue eyes staring at you from across the common room.
  
  Eventually you drift into a light and disturbed imitation of sleep, but true rest never comes. It feels like the guard was screaming for the morning count almost immediately after you closed your eyes.
  
  The cell door opens and the day begins.
  
  > Survival
  After morning chow, you sat in your cell reading one of Samantha's letters. Your instinct was to hide in your cell after what happened yesterday. But Diego suggested otherwise. "If you start hiding after he mad dogged you, he's going to think he got to you. You must give him nothing, man. Do not show weakness."
  
  So you went back out like you had been doing the past week. Nothing unusual happened that morning, other than a couple of inmates at the table giving you weird looks. You were usually able to dominate when you wanted to, putting your talents to use, but today, folding a full house, you barely noticed t