“Wasn’t supposed to be real.” Billy’s voice cracked. “She gave me smoke bombs, told me to just make a mess. The gas can was for show, but then—then it got out of hand. When the Sheriff showed up, I freaked. I didn’t mean to hurt him, I swear. I just wanted to get out.”
I saw it play out in my mind: Floyd on the ground, blood in his hair, the smell of burnt plastic thick enough to choke a man. I felt my stomach twist into a double knot, my vision narrowing to a single red thread.
Billy was still talking. “She said if anything went wrong, I should run. Hide out at the trailer for a week, then she’d get me out of town. She promised me—” His voice died in his throat.
Latham didn’t let him off. “Promised you what?”
Billy stared at the table. “Promised she’d get my dad’s record wiped. Said she had pull. Said if I did this, she’d make sure we got a fresh start.”
My hands were trembling. I pressed them flat against the wall to stop it, but the rage just climbed higher, a tsunami in my chest. I wanted to rip the glass out of the frame, storm the room, drag Billy up by the scruff and make him repeat every word so there could never be any doubt.
Instead, I clenched my fists until something snapped. Pain shot through my palm, hot and immediate. When I looked down, there was a spider-web of cracks spreading from the base of my thumb across the drywall. A neat little crater where my knuckle had struck.
Floyd’s hand landed on my shoulder. Not gentle. Not soft. Just there, as if to say: Don’t. Not yet. His fingers squeezed once, an anchor in the storm.
Inside the room, Latham was stone-faced. “You understand you’re looking at real time for this, Billy. This isn’t juvie. This is assault, arson, conspiracy—serious charges. Are you sure about what you’re saying?”
Billy nodded, but it was the nod of a man who’s already fallen off the cliff and is just waiting for the ground. “I’ll sign whatever you want. I’ll tell the judge. I just—I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted to get out.”
Latham pushed a paper toward him. “Write it all down.”
Billy did. The pen hovered above the page for a second before he started, and then the words came in a scrawl, like he was desperate to purge it from his system.
I turned to Floyd. The old cop mask was up, but the eyes gave him away. “You think he’s telling the truth?”
Floyd didn’t blink. “She’s been trying to mess with me for years. But this—” He shook his head, a humorless smile dragging at the corners of his mouth. “She actually did it.”
For a minute, neither of us said anything. The sound of Billy’s pen, frantic and scratchy, was the only thing in the room.
Then Floyd asked, “You okay?”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t find the words. I just stared through the glass, at the boy who’d nearly killed the man I loved, and at the world that would rather destroy you than let you breathe in peace.
Billy finished writing. Latham read it over, then left the room to photocopy it. Billy sagged in his chair, head hanging like a man on death row.
I let go of the wall. My palm was bleeding, little dots of red welling up between the calluses. Floyd took a handkerchief from his back pocket, folded it, and pressed it into my hand. His touch was brisk but careful.
“You want to confront her?” he asked, voice so low I almost missed it.
I looked at him. The anger was still there, but it was outgunned by something else—exhaustion, betrayal, the hollowing-out that comes when you finally see the rot under the paint.
“No,” I said. “Not yet.”
He nodded, and together we watched Billy’s world collapse under the weight of a truth nobody would have believed yesterday.
On the other side of the glass, Latham returned with the paperwork. Billy signed, his hand shaking. Then he looked at the mirror again, and I realized he knew I was there the whole time.
He mouthed something, just a whisper.I’m sorry.
Maybe he meant it. Maybe he didn’t. It didn’t change a thing.
I turned away from the mirror and let Floyd lead me out. My legs felt numb, like I’d been running in place for a year. In the hallway, the lights were colder, the air thinner.
Floyd stopped, squared his shoulders, and for a second I thought he’d say something soft. Instead, he just looked at me, the color rising in his face, and said: “We’re going to burn her down. You know that, right?”
I smiled, sharp as a razor. “Yeah. I do.”
We headed for his office. There was a war coming, and for once, I wasn’t alone on the front line.
