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but he could definitely believe in Mia.
    He softened.
    “So, I’m assuming you and I are part of the light.  Because if any of this turns out to be true, I need to be one of the good guys, Mia.”
    Her face split into a smile.  The smile that made everything okay, even when nothing else was.  “You’re the best good guy,” she said.

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER
    5
     
    JOSE

     
    16 Years Ago
    Phoenix
     
    While taking a shortcut on their way home from school, nine-year-old Jose, his sister Sabina, and a few other neighborhood kids discovered a pigeon fluttering on the ground in the abandoned lot behind the liquor store. 
    “It’s spazzing out,” Mateo said, kicking at the bird with his sneaker.  “Let’s throw it in the dumpster.”
    “No!” cried Sabina.  “It’s just a baby!”
    Doug reached down and poked at the bird’s wing with his pencil.  “It’s not a baby, stupid,” he said.  “But it’s as good as dead.  Which one of you wants to stomp on it to put it out of its misery?”
    Jose couldn’t take his eyes off the pigeon, because although theoretically it was the same as every other pigeon scuttering about on his walk to and from school each day, there was something intriguing about this particular bird.  This one wasn’t pecking absentmindedly at the ground.  This one wasn’t lined atop the roofline with the rest of the flock, awash in a sea of grey plumage.  This one wasn’t staring at him with its beady, prehistoric eyes.
    This one was dying, its misshapen wing contorted beneath its body, which instigated the bizarre flapping behavior as the bird attempted to right itself.
    Jose thought of his mother, cursing about the pigeons which frequented his family’s restaurant.  Less than a month before, the health department shut down their outdoor patio seating until they could get their ‘vermin problem’ under control.  He’d watched in horror from the kitchen window as his mother attempted to poison them, setting out bowls of seed laced with rat poison, but for every one she successfully eliminated, another showed up in its place.  Here, just a block from the restaurant, was an opportunity to help her in her crusade against the winged scourge of his family.
    “I’ll do it,” he told the others, kneeling beside the bird to scoop it into his hands.
    He could feel his friends watching as he turned the bird over, caressing the broken wing between his fingers.  It was strange to hold a bird, a creature which, by all accounts, should never be touched by human hands.  It was both heavier and lighter than he expected it to be, and the pigeon attempted to flap its healthy wing in opposition to its confinement.  Jose closed his eyes, unable to ignore the ferocious thumping of the pigeon’s heart inside its tiny chest.  His own heart sped up, as if to mimic the panic seizing the bird, and he knew in that moment he could not wring its neck as he’d intended.
    Warmth spread from his hands into the bird in much the same way as hot water when it is added to an already cooling tub.  The pigeon stilled for a moment, shocked into submission by the heat, and when at last it began to stir again, Jose knew instinctively to open his hands toward the hazy, afternoon sky.
    And the bird knew instinctively to fly away.
    “What the hell, Jose?” Mateo hushed, backing away until he bumped into the wall of the store.
    Jose shrugged, as confused by what had just transpired as the others.  “I don’t know.  I guess maybe it was just pretending to be hurt.  Animals do that sometimes, don’t they?”
    Doug shielded his eyes from the sun as he gazed up, still following the bird’s path.  “You mean like a possum or something?”
    “They play dead, idiot,” Mateo said, already recovering from the shock of what he’d witnessed as he turned on his heel in the direction of his house.  “They don’t fake being hurt.  It just must not have been hurt that bad.”
    Jose fell into step behind