Page 110 of Bad Intentions

“I watched her,” she continues in a low, sinister voice. “You know, it’s peculiar that I’d wanted her gone for so long, and back then, when I sat across from her on a shitty chair, because she barely had any furniture, I watched as she lay motionless on the couch. Foam dripped from her mouth. I wished she’d spat out one of her lies, an insult, anything. I really did. I expected her to fight. But she’d lost her spark by then, couldn’t talk. A pity really.”

Tears well up in my eyes. My chest burns. A lump forms in my throat, making it hard to breathe. I blink, and tears spill down my cheeks.

“I could’ve called an ambulance,” Mallory Blain says. “But she deserved to die like she did. Alone on a shitty couch.”

61

JOSIE

“You are a monster,” I whisper, unable to hold back a sob.

“Aw, are you crying?” the psycho taunts me.

I never knew my mom. She was a mean girl. Cruel even. But killing her, watching her die is monstrous. This woman killed her. She took away my chance at having a mother.

“Your mom was a bully,” Mallory Blain drawls.

“I was bullied,” I say sharply, jerking in the chair, pulling at the ropes. I’m angry, and I need to use this anger to strike back. “You’re not the only person who’s been bullied. I grew up with it. Thanks to you. To the lies you told. To all the people you hurt. But that doesn’t make me go around hurting others.”

“Except for your daddy.” She smiles broadly, her teeth gleaming in the dim light, morphing her smile into a scowl.

“You are crazy!” I shout in desperation.

“That’s subjective.”

“You are not a victim!” I shout at her, leaning closer, pulling harder at the ropes that start to give way. “You are a monster!” I snarl.

The ropes feel loose enough, but if this doesn’t work, then I’ll have blown my only chance. But I have to try.

“Calm down,” she says. “What I am is a survivor,” she argues proudly.

“You are a killer,” I grit out, sliding toward the edge of the flimsy chair, curling my fingers around the plastic backrest.

“I brought justice.”

“You are a criminal.” I grip the chair tightly and push into the heels of my feet, finding balance, and tilting the chair slightly forward on its front legs.

“That’s not what⁠—”

With all the determination I can manage, I push to my feet, my legs bent, swing in my spot as hard as I can, and send the chair crashing against the woman.

She yelps and falls. The flashlight on the ground tilts, the light disappearing in the hay, sending the barn into almost complete darkness.

I shake off the loose ropes, getting rid of the plastic chair, which tumbles to the ground, and dart toward the door.

“You bitch!” the woman shouts behind me.

As soon as I run out the door, a gunshot echoes in the air.

I don’t stop. She might shoot me, but she’ll do that whether I run or not.

I can’t see where I’m going in the dark, but I can’t go toward the road—she’ll catch up. She knows the area. She’ll hop in a car and run me over.

My best bet is the darkest areas, and I dart toward the black piles of trash and abandoned machinery. I only have a chance of getting away if she doesn’t find me. That means I have to keep going.

“Jo-sie!” a shout comes from outside the barn door. “You little bitch! You can’t run far!”

Another shot echoes behind me and ricochets off a metal structure to my left.