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“I asked for this,” I say weakly, full of shame.
“What did you ask for?” He barely gets out the words as his voice shakes with pain. He shakes his head as he adds, “You didn’t ask for this.” He’s full of denial as the police park in front of the house. I can hear them. There’s more than one cop car and the sound of multiple doors slamming shut is mixed with him whispering that this isn’t my fault and that I’m okay and that he’s the one who’s sorry.
But it is my fault.
I asked for this. For vengeance. For justice.
I didn’t just ask for it. I prayed for it every day for years. When they taunted her in the hallways. When the other girls declined to sit with her. Every meeting I had with lawyers who refused to take the case, saying it was impossible. Every time I thought of her, I knew I would never be able to stop until someone did something. I prayed for him to pay.
Dean didn’t, though. Knowing that, I hate myself even more.
DEAN
My stomach feels hollow.
My body is freezing.
The fucking jail cell is cold, so at least that part makes sense.
The doctor who came in to examine me said I was in shock. Maybe that’s what happens when you kill a man. Or when you see someone you love screaming in pain. Maybe the two are the same.
A cell opens and closes, and I barely lift my eyes at the eerie sound of finality.
I killed him.
In cold blood.
This isn’t a bar fight I can get out of.
Charges have been pressed and they booked me within hours.
Third-degree murder.
I told them everything. Every bit of what I remembered. There’s no way to get out of this and I still don’t know how I could do it. I can say I’m sorry and I didn’t intend to kill him, and I mean it. I do. I didn’t mean to kill the prick. It doesn’t change it, though. I can’t take it back.
I’m fucked.
I run my hand down my face and try to stop seeing him. Any time the image flashes in my head of him dead on the floor, it’s followed by one of him on top of Allie. It’s like a sick joke my mind’s playing on me. Twisting and coiling the darkness inside my head until it strikes me down over and over again.
“Allie,” I whisper under my breath and let my head fall. The door opens at the end of the row of cells and I repeat to myself, “It was to protect her.” Wasn’t it?
I’m already starting to question it. Just like the cops did. Asking me what I thought of him. If we’d had physical encounters before. How my anger management sessions were going. Whether I tried to pull him away or if I just went in to kill him.
They questioned if he was even hurting her.
I didn’t have to keep going, but I swear I couldn’t stop myself.
There were so many questions, I couldn’t even keep my own answers straight.
“Just let me know when you’re ready to leave.” I lift my eyes at the sound of the guard’s voice and see Uncle Rob standing outside of the bars.
They slide open and he walks through, looking like a ghost of the man I once knew. His hair’s silver and the heavy bags under his eyes are either from years of booze or weeks of no sleep.
“Dean,” he says my name and my eyes drop from his jeans to his boots, then lower to the cement floor of the cell. I can’t look him in the eyes.
The cell door shuts with a loud clink and I hear him walk over to the cold bench to sit beside me.
He doesn’t speak as he leans forward with his elbows on his knees.
