Chase chuckles darkly, and after some maneuvering, they have him pinned. Chase looks back at me with an overwhelming amount of sympathy. “Hey, baby. How many times did he kick you?”
Kick, hit, spin on, throw like a rag-doll, smash my head into walls… “Every chance he got.”
“Come do your worst. We’ll keep him still for you.”
Wouldn’t that make us the same? If we were, why would I even think twice? He never did. But then I think about all his victims. Boys that were too young to know any better, falling for the image he created. Like me, Asher, and the others who didn’t make it this far. The ones who never made it out. The futures they can’t have because he targeted them and broke them down.
Without meaning to, I’ve gotten closer, now eye to eye with him, looking down on his crumbling facade. “I was just as defenseless as you are now every single time. You slipped pills in my drinks, never let me sleep through the night. You kept me weak so I couldn’t fight back. I was a child. Vulnerable and alone and you took advantage. Manipulated me. Isolated me.You made yourself the center of my world so that I had nothing left. No choice but to stay when you started hitting me. For a long time, I thought of you as a monster. But you’re not. You’re heartless. Soulless. But you’re just a man.”
I aim for the same place on his ribs that he favored when it was me on the floor, and the first one feels better than it has any right to. I think of them as much as I think of me. They never got this chance. Each time he wheezes and struggles for breath fills me with righteous indignation. True to their word, Chase and Brady don’t allow him to move. As the sirens get louder, I spit on his face before backing away.
It gets chaotic after that, and I end up separated from Chase which has my anxiety going haywire. I damn sure don’t miss the moment a cop slams a pair of handcuffs on Aaron and shoves him towards a patrol car. I wasn’t sure I’d live to see this moment—where he knows it’s all over and there’s nothing he can do about it. No more lies to spew or webs to weave. Just a murderer and child predator on his way to prison where they won’t be kind to him about his crimes.
I’m sure he won’t look back at me, and for a while, he doesn’t. Not until the car is driving away. Maybe it’s by accident or maybe he’s hoping for one last look at a familiar face. But the way defeat has changed everything about his appearance—expression down to posture—will be on the highlight reel of my life one day. I commit every aspect of it to memory. Maybe one day I’ll even sketch it out so I don’t forget.
But then again, it’s not his face that deserves to be eternal. It’s theirs; the ones he took before their time.
Some young guy is trying to interrogate me and Blakely. She’s not tolerating his attitude well. We are without a doubt less than thirty seconds from being arrested. If someone was watching this, they’d assume she’s my lawyer with how she’srunning the show, but if they’d listen to her and call the Chief, this conversation would be going much differently.
Squealing tires have everyone going silent. When Chief Brooks unfolds his broad body from the driver’s seat, I may or may not roll my eyes and mutter finally. Innocent until proven guilty, after all.
“What the fuck do you guys think you’re doing?” he booms. The guy in front of us starts to explain, but apparently it was a rhetorical question. “I know you’re not trying to arrest crucial witnesses. And where is Isaac?”
“He’s on a call,” someone tells him.
The Chief grumbles as he approaches. “Mrs. Ellison. Mr. Callaghan. Good to see you both again.” He keeps talking after that, but I tune it out. It’s not like this guy isn’t used to Blakely taking charge of the conversations. It’s not until her voice gets sharper that I realize what’s going on. “That child will die. You understand that, don’t you?”
The man sighs gently. “I know you’re concerned about him. Isaac will be here soon and he’ll make sure the scene is processed to perfection. You know how he is. Whatever evidence there is to find, we will uncover it. And interrogation works.”
“Not for this.”
“Finding him is our top priority. We just need some time.”
Whatever fragile dam has been holding me together this long breaks. Tears fill my eyes. This will have been for nothing if they don’t find him in time. “No, you don’t get it. He’d rather let him die than tell you where he is.”
“I realize this is stressful for you, but we have tactics for people like this. We’re going to do everything we can to find Asher. You’ve got to trust the process.”
Blakely’s hand on my shoulder makes me pause the tirade I was about to launch into. She speaks before I have a chance.“You’re right, Chief. We’ll do that. We appreciate how much you’ve done to help us this far.”
Having my head slammed against the wall hurts less than this. After everything we’ve been through, I thought she cared about Asher as much as I did. She knows he doesn’t have long left. When they’re gone, I turn on her. “How could you? I thought?—”
“Lovebug, that was fifteen minutes of us insisting that something had to be done and getting shut down. He was not going to change his mind. Come on, I need something out of my car.”
Brady goes with her and it feels intentional so I can have a second with Chase to try and get myself together. I launch towards him without a second thought.
He’s okay. I’m okay. We’re okay. I must repeat it myself a hundred times just to make it feel real. Eventually I’m able to pull back to look over his gorgeous face, looking for injuries I know aren’t there. “Did he hurt you?” Chase asks, his hands heavy on my hips.
“No. Brady didn’t tell me that punching him would hurt that much, though.” My hand is still throbbing in protest.
Chase chuckles, a warm rumbling sound from deep in his chest that calms me. He examines my hand, carefully checking for damage. I’m fine. I could have told him that. I’ve had way worse, but it still feels nice to be fussed over. “Feel good getting a little revenge?”
“He’s lucky I’m a better person than he is. If I wasn’t, he’d be dead.”
“Amen to that.”
Blake and Brady come back, and she’s clearly on a mission. Aaron’s car beeps as it unlocks. Before I can ask Chase what the fuck she just did, he covers my mouth with his hand with a serious look in his eye. “I promise, you don’t want to know.”
Well, I kinda do, but whatever. I lick his hand, making him yank it back.
