Blake: “Emotional support asshole” isn’t a thing.
Axel: It is now. I’m trademarking it.
Jace: How’s Faith holding up?
Axel: Dakota’s been asking every ten seconds when she can visit. She’s already stress-baked three batches of cookies. My kitchen looks like a bakery exploded.
Me: No visitors except legal counsel rightnow.
Axel: Ohhhhh, just the TWO of you. Alone. In a private room. *winking emoji*
Blake: Your emotional maturity is truly inspiring. Really grown since Dakota tamed you.
Axel: I’m evolved, not neutered.
Me: I have to go.
Blake: Wait. Tell Faith I love her. And that I’ll be at her hearing. Front row.
Axel: Same. Tell her we’ve got her.
Axel: And tell her Knox says hi from whatever cell block he’s in this month.
Me: On that note, I’m out.
Axel: Love you too, Counselor. *kissing emoji*
10
FAITH
Oh God.
“You look like you have terrible news.” I could see it written across his face the moment he entered this tiny, sterile room. The fluorescent lights cast harsh shadows under his eyes, making him look older than I’d ever seen him.
Up until this moment, I had finally started to feel a little relieved. Okay, maybe not relieved, but okay-ish. As okay as someone can feel, having been arrested for murder.
I credited Ryker for my feeling of okay-ish. He’d walked me through every step so it didn’t feel as terrifying when they locked cold metal cuffs around my wrists. It felt less scary when they processed me with mug shots and fingerprints. Less shocking when my paper scrubs were traded for an orange jail uniform and jail shoes. Less ominous when that jail cell clanged shut behind me.
Did I still have a bit of a panic attack? Of course. I was only human.
The cell was six by eight feet. I’d measured it with my eyes the second that door locked—same way I used to measure the basement on Elm Street, where the Johnsons kept me when I “misbehaved.” That basement had cracks in the concrete walls likespiderwebs, and this cell had similar fissures in the drywall. Different prisons, same suffocating feeling of walls closing in.
I’d gone three days without food in that basement. Scared and alone in the dark, counting the hours by the sliver of light that crept under the door. So, yeah, I could handle this. At least here, they fed you. At least here, the lights stayed on. At least here, nobody was coming down those stairs to remind me why I deserved to be locked away.
But, God, the smallness of it. The way the air felt thick and used. My lungs had started working overtime the moment that jail cell door shut. I’d pressed my back against the wall, sliding down until I sat on the floor. Knees to chest. Head down. Breathing through my mouth because my nose wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
I’d counted the tiles then too. Three across. Four down. All while trying to remember what happened in those woods. The memories slipped away like water through my fingers every time I got close, like my brain decided to play hide-and-seek at the worst possible time.
Then I spent time feeling heartbroken that somewhere out there, a guy was dead. He probably had family. People who would be notified that their loved one would never walk the earth again.
All because of me.
The thought opened up something raw and hollow in my chest. I kept pressing my hand there, surprised my heart was still beating when it felt like it had completely stopped.
I mentally replayed my life. How it started with such hope and unraveled to this. I knew that no matter what they found, whether this was self-defense or not, I would never erase the fact that I had taken another person’s life. That the biggest impact I’d made on this world was ending someone else’s.
After I cried until there were no tears left, I lay motionless on that rock-bottom cot, surrendering to the pain. Maybe I deserved it. So, I stayed there, welcoming it, feeling it burn through every cell in my body.
