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en out loud. I shifted in my chair and said nothing.
“Back to the issue at hand,” Kowalski said finally and took a turn with the file. “Says here on your first day at Central High, you broke Frankie Dowd’s nose.”
“He was harassing my friend.”
“So you clocked him in the face without so much as an introduction?”
“Miller was fucking dying.”
“Miller Stratton?” The cop read from the file. “He wasn’t your friend at the time of incident. You didn’t know him from Adam, isn’t that right?”
He’s my friend now, asshole.
I’d die for Miller Stratton. For Holden Parish.
For Shiloh…
Pain gripped my chest. Kowalski rapped on the table to jar me out of my thoughts.
“It’s looking like you got a reputation for unprovoked violence. That true?”
I stiffened, said nothing.
I tried. I tried to do better. Be better…
“Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?” Harris consulted the file again. “In one year, you were suspended from Santa Cruz Central High no less than six times. Vandalism, assault… Two months ago, you had a physical altercation with Miller Stratton’s stepfather. Dangled him over a two-story balcony.”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t dangle anyone. I’d bent that fucker Chet Hyland over a railing to scare him away from Miller’s mother. And it worked. But so what? These assholes weren’t interested in the truth—it didn’t match the story about me that was already written. Written in my mother’s blood. And my father’s. His blood flowed in my veins.
Like father, like son.
“Well?”
“Chet wasn’t his stepdad,” I muttered. “He was a deadbeat who hit Miller’s mom. Not that you give a shit.”
The cops exchanged glances.
“You got a problem with police?”
An old memory broke free—my mother, broken and bleeding, dragging herself into a corner, and my dad standing over her with the bat in his hand…
You failed Mom and now she’s dead, I thought, but was I aiming that at myself or the cops? They failed her but so did I. I couldn’t protect her.
Couldn’t protect Shiloh, either.
Guilt, rage, and grief—the three monkeys on my back—squawked and howled.
Kowalski gave me a hard look. “Answer the question, son.”
“People need help,” I said. “If they don’t get it from you, I give it to them.”
“Well, ain’t that some vigilante shit.” Kowalski rolled his eyes. “Threatening to toss a man over a balcony is helping?”
I sneered. “He left her alone after that, didn’t he?”
“How about Frankie, two nights ago? Were you ‘helping’ then too?”
“I didn’t touch him.”
