She’s saying something—I can’t make it out yet—but I can feel it. Her whole body is shaking. Her fingers thread through Bash’s curls, palm firm against his back, rocking him in a rhythm meant to block everything else out.
I slow my approach, but only just. Eyes scanning the perimeter.
People saw. A jogger’s already on the phone. A woman with a stroller is pointing, talking fast to someone off-screen. Good. Let them talk. Let them tell the story. Because what happened here? It’sjustified.
I reach them as Bash hiccups and sobs into her chest, and she looks up at me.
Her face—God,her face.
Not scared of consequences. Not yet. But wrecked. Shattered. Red-rimmed eyes locked in a stunned gaze, her parted lips trembling on the edge of a breath she can’t fully find.
“She had him,” she says, voice raw. “She had her hands on his throat.”
“I know, baby, ” I breathe, crouching beside them. “You did what you had to do.”
She nods, once, wanting to believe it. But her eyes keep darting back to the bench. To Ashley. To the red spilling down her blouse. To the silence where there should’ve been more screaming.
Sable’s not used to death.
I am.
She wanted to handle this the right way. Courts. Restraining orders. Logic. Paper trails. She dotted everyi, crossed everyt, begged the system to see the truth.
But the system doesn’t always get there in time.
She did. The moment forced her hand.
Even if it broke something inside her.
The sirens are close now. Maybe five minutes out. But there’s enough here. Witnesses. Bash’s bruised neck. Her legal weapon.
I watch her cradle her son, one hand still trembling, eyes far away. The gun lay in the grass where she dropped it. There was no panic, no concealment to question.
I know she’s thinking about the fact that she killed someone.
Maybe imagining how close she came to losing Bash.
And I can’t fix that for her.
But I can be here when it lands.
I kneel beside her and curl an arm around both of them, pulling them into me, letting Bash’s sobs soak through my shirt, letting Sable collapse against my chest.
“I didn’t want this,” she whispers.
“I know,” I murmur into her hair, holding her tighter. “You wanted this to end the right way. But it didn’t. It ended the way it had to.”
And God help anyone who tries to take her down for it.
The moment we cross the threshold of Sable’s house, it feels different. The air hangs heavier, charged with the energy of what she just lived through.
Sable moves in a haze, holding Bash to her chest, his arms wrapped tight around her neck. His face is tucked into hershoulder, tear-streaked and red, but he’s calm now. Tired. Worn out.
The paramedics checked him. He’s okay. Bruised, shaken, but physically okay. Recommended, in time, to speak to a professional to work through the event.
They said the marks on his neck would fade in a few days. But we’ll all remember those marks long after they are gone.
Andrew’s already pulling into the driveway and hopping out of his truck. I hold the front door for him. He gives me a slight nod and the second he steps inside his eyes go to Bash.
