Page 31 of Overkill

My question was silly. Ridiculous. This whole situation, my existence for the past year, was absolute nonsense. If I had watched it in a movie, I’d have called it unbelievable and seriously considered giving it a one-star review.

Not for an Unsolved Mysteries episode, though.

Christ! The thought of some YouTuber talking about the unspeakable crime that happened in the quaint, bucolic, small town of Mourningkill, with ominous music and my high school picture plastered on the screen, made me bubble with laughter. Then I whimpered. Then laughed again.

The thing about being scared for as long as I had been? Eventually, you stopped being scared. Random, targeted drive-bys? Whatever. No big deal. I’d killed someone, and for over a year, feared getting arrested and ruining the lives of me and my siblings. What was one more shitty thing on top of an already gargantuan crap pile?

Was this what hysterics felt like?

I was going to die.

I was going into the deepest pit of hell, but not before I was dragged down in fire and pain, though, right? Karmic justice. I took a life, so they would take mine.

I was the human equivalent of nuclear waste.

“You should get away from me,” I whimpered. “I’m going to be nothing but trouble for you.”

“Darlin’,” he said, loud enough to be heard over the wind blowing through the truck’s cabin as the cool air swirled through the broken windows. “If I wanted to stay away, I would.”

He wiped glass and debris off his thigh, then reached over and pulled my hand there, palm down, flattening his own on top of mine.

“You’re insane,” I said, unsure if he could hear me. “A normal person would walk away after something as terrifying as this. I might not know who those people were, but I know that they attacked because of me. It’s always about me.”

I wished it wasn’t. I wished I could just be normal.

“Nah.” A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. “Of all the terrifying things I’ve ever been through, this doesn’t even crack the top three.”

He lifted my hand, grazing my knuckles with his lips. It was such a gentle gesture. There was nothing lewd or inappropriate about it. Just…pure affection. It felt tender but also protective. Like a person staring out the window at a bird singing in a tree. Doing something just to savor it.

“One day, I’ll tell you about the time Goose and I were in a room when a grenade went off, and we had to crawl our way out of rubble while Taz, Griff, and Top were in a firefight right above us.” He chuckled. “Then the damn Air Force dropped their load what felt like just a few feet from us, dangerously-motherfucking-close, and had us all shitting our pants.” Then he coughed. “Sorry. That…was vulgar. I got carried away.”

That was what he was concerned about? Pants shitting? Not death by explosives and flying bullets?

It was a little cute.

“By the way, nice shooting, Tex.” He let out a high-pitched whoop, grinning. “You visit the gun range much?”

“I don’t like guns. But they did make me feel safer, at one point.” I swallowed.

It was cheap therapy, knowing I could have done irreparable harm to someone from a distance. I kept imagining him. His face. His smug expression. My fucking hatred made me a good shot. Then I kept doing it just to show myself that I could have—if I’d wanted to.

Imagining him dead again and again was probably what led me to murder. Why it became a solution—a necessity—in my brain.

I had unloaded clip after clip, and with tears streaming down my cheeks, I realized that if I didn’t do something, I’d never be free. Not of him, not of the shame, and not of the absolute horror that was my life.

No one could keep me safe but me.

“I learned when I was in undergrad. I did a biathlon and thought I’d try small arms. I liked it. It helped me work through some stuff.”

He put my hand back on his lap, his warm palm enveloping mine.

Then we turned up a driveway that wasn’t mine. A little higher on the mountain, with gravel instead of concrete. It went on for over a mile until the freshly painted Victorian house of sage and forest green, flanked by a red barn and a small wooden cabin, came into view.

“Don’t worry about a thing, darlin’. I’ve got you now.”

Chapter 11

What…?