Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 34926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
That got more tears from her. Maybe because she hadn’t had much kindness in her life, and she thought I was being kind to her. She was young. Being in prison that long… yeah. Prison is not kind. She seemed starved for positive attention. I planned on giving it to her in spades.
“The man I killed raped and murdered my older sister. I was hidden. Scared to move. I stayed hidden while he brutalized her, and she begged for mercy. Brandon was charged several months later, mainly due to my insistence and continued accusations. I was only thirteen at the time, but the state-appointed psychiatrist said I was old enough and mature enough to testify in open court. I was called before the Grand Jury. Fortunately, they thought there was reason enough to hold Brandon and begin building a more solid case against him.
“It was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. Sitting there looking at that monster. By the time the case finally went to the actual trial, I was fifteen, but it still gave me nightmares afterward.” Her breath hitched and her voice cracked, but she continued after a brief pause.
“Anyway. The cross examination was brutal. The defense attorney had me sobbing on the stand before it was over. He basically said I was lying and was trying to get back at Brandon for choosing my sister over me. He was twenty-five years old and I was only thirteen at the time of the event. The jerk even implied I’d killed my sister just to frame Brandon, so I could get even with both of them. In the end, the jury couldn’t make a decision. The judge declared a mistrial and found some legal reason to make it so Brandon couldn’t be tried again due to double jeopardy. Something about the high probability of my testimony being fabricated and that an innocent young man shouldn’t have to be put through this. He said if I continued to defame him in public, Brandon could sue my parents and ruin their lives.”
“So he walked free, and you and your parents got dick all.”
“Pretty much. By this time, my mother had had some kind of nervous breakdown and was in psychiatric hospital. She was never herself again. My dad drank all the time. I found myself in the position of trying to take care of both of them. My dad blamed me for my mother’s mental health. One night, when he was so drunk he could barely talk, he told me if I wanted to make up for everything I’d put his family through, I’d kill that son of a bitch and be done with it.” She shrugged. “It had been on my mind since the end of the trial, so…”
“You killed him.” My thumbs feathered over her hands where they were still clasped with hers.
“I killed that motherfucker in broad fucking daylight,” she said fiercely. The tears started to flow steadily now. It was surreal. She cried but was steady all the same. Tears continued to course down her face, but she didn’t sob, her voice didn’t catch, her chin didn’t tremble. Those Goddamned tears seemed to release the sorrow and anger inside her in a way she couldn’t otherwise manage. “I followed him. Found the perfect place. He was with a bunch of his buddies, in a park near his home. They’d run off all the locals, bullying the ones they could, roughing up the ones who still refused to go. All so they could have the fucking basketball court to themselves.” She looked at a point past my shoulder now, seeming to be lost in the past. Those Goddamned tears still leaked in a steady trickle from her eyes. “I watched them for a long while. Out of sight. Just… watching. Listening.
“When Brandon started telling his buddies what he’d done to my sister, bragging about how he’d gotten away with it, how my whole family had been destroyed in one way or another, I just… snapped.
“My father had a Ruger SP101. An older gun, but it was in mint condition and well taken care of. Only fired a few times. I’d done some research and found the best bullet to use in that gun to kill someone, no matter what part of their core body I hit. I loaded it with Critical Defense rounds and kept it with me at all times. Just waiting for the perfect moment. I think, maybe, I wanted to talk myself out of it? But as the weeks passed, I knew I was long past that.
Cotton let go of my hands with one of hers and swiped at her tears. I wanted to get her some tissue but didn’t dare move. It was painfully obvious she needed to get this out. I had to wonder if she’d actually told anyone this version of events or if it had always been glossed over, concealing her feelings in order to just get it over with. She wiped her hand on her jeans and didn’t reach for me again. So I reached for her, taking her free hand gently and pulling it back to me. The second I did, her hands tightened on mine in a death grip. She seemed to find the courage inside her to continue, finally looking up at me and meeting my gaze, clinging to me both physically with her hands and emotionally with those shiny, brown eyes.