The Hero I Live With

Niki Alexander had to fight for everything she achieved in life. Her college education was cut short when her father stabbed a member of the Mexican Mafia and they had to run for their lives. After her father went to trial and was released because no one showed up to prosecute, they left California for Houston, Texas. Niki applied to the Houston police academy. There she met and fell in love with a motorcycle cop. A year after they married he was killed in a traffic accident. She worked hard to overcome the initial hostility from fellow officers, but she finally applied to homicide and partnered with an older officer who became her friend and mentor and the father she never really had.

Then the unthinkable happened. A shootout with a 17-year-old, high on PCP carrying a gun, who aimed at her and she shot first, killing him. Everyone told her it was a righteous shoot, but she couldn't live with it. She quit the force, got in her car and roamed the country for six months, stopping only to blot out the memory with booze. She finally return, sobered, and went back to school to finish her education and become a psychologist.

But fate intervened when she took a part time position as a counselor for a teen shelter. Part time quickly became full time as she realized why she ended up there. She was meant to save the children so they would never end up facing the wrong end of a gun. Her whole life had purpose now. Her calling in life was to counsel the runaways and throwaways, teach them self defense, and rescue them when they got into trouble.

To her kids, she became a hero.