Underneath that picture are a few paperback novels: Cumbres Borrascosas (Spanish for Wuthering Heights), El Conde de Montecristo (The Count of Monte Cristo). My mother didn’t used to be a big reader . . . not back in the days of pixie dust. But back then she had other things to occupy her: me, for one. And then there was her work and her occasional flings with men who lied sweetly and loved viciously. Things that were all taken away. So in this place, she discovered the books of intellectuals, books she wasn’t supposed to understand or have an interest in . . . but did.

I flip through the dog-eared pages as the fluorescent lights buzz above my head. So many passages have been circled with faint ink. Words about justice and revenge. All translated into Spanish, the language of my ancestors.

But there is one English book in here: The Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E. M. Berens. Serving as a bookmark here among the legends is a picture of a man. A dead man. Murdered in his own home, though in the picture he seems happy, handsome, even worry-free. It’s placed between the pages that describe the deity Mars. I’ve heard stories about Mars before. As far as I can tell he was just another brawling jerk with a god complex.

But then my eyes stop on a name that’s unfamiliar to me. Bellona, Mars’s companion. The book says that Bellona guides Mars’s war chariot. It says that she’s armored and is skilled with her weapon. It says Bellona “appears on the battlefield, inspired with mad rage.”

“Inspired with mad rage.”

It seems an odd choice of words. I’ve lived with rage for so long. At times it’s consumed me, I’ve been lost in it, occasionally immobilized by it. When I did fight, I took on the wrong enemies on the wrong battlefields—and those had been wars inspired by nothing more elevated than desperation. But now . . . now things are different. I know the faces of my enemies.

I know where they live.

And so maybe, just maybe, this Bellona chick was onto something. Maybe now that my rage has actual direction it also has enough power to inspire. Maybe I don’t have to be torn up by my own anger anymore. Maybe that can finally stop.

Maybe now I can use that anger to tear up others.

I think that might be better.

Inspiration and destruction . . . It has a ring to it.

I run my fingers over the name once. And then again. It brings me an odd sense of hope—something I haven’t felt since I stopped dressing up as princesses.

The correctional officer loses patience and clears her throat to get my attention, bringing me out of my head and back into the dimly lit room.

“You need to sign for her effects,” the officer snaps.