47
WILLIAM SCOTT-EVANS
Missy Hale wasn’t my first. Nor was she my last. But she was by far my favorite.
Not because of what I did—people always get that wrong—but because of the way she refused to disappear quietly. There was a defiance in her that irritated me. A refusal to understand how the world worked. How men like me didn’t ask. We took.
They think the thrill is in the chaos. The noise. The moment when everything stops.
Idiots.
The real pleasure is in the certainty. In knowing, before it even begins, that there will be no consequences. That no matter how hard someone fights, the system will eventually step in—not to stop you, but to clean up after you.
I knew that before the car ever slowed.
I knew it when she ran.
The other girl bolted the second things shifted. Panic makes people predictable. Missy didn’t follow. She turned instead, like she could bargain with momentum. Like she could talk her way out of inevitability.
I remember thinking she was brave. And stupid. But later, I realized she was buying enough time for her sister to get away.
The field was dark, uneven, loud with insects. There was no need to rush. She was already trapped—by geography, by fear, by the simple truth that no one was coming.
She fought. That was what made her different.
She didn’t scream or beg. Instead, she fought with everything she had, even when it was clear how this would end. Her nails broke skin. Her voice cracked. She spat in my face, and that just made me harder for her. Her defiance made me delirious with desire, because most people don’t put up a good fight.
When it was over, there was a moment—a brief, hollow pause—where I felt nothing at all. No triumph. No satisfaction. Just a flatness, like finishing a task I’d done too many times before.
I remember being annoyed at the mess. Annoyed at the time it took and that we’d have to wait until the next day to go to the festival.
That’s what people never understand. It isn’t rage that drives men like me. It’s boredom.
I cleaned up. I left. I adjusted. I moved on.
By morning, the world was already doing what it always did—softening the edges, misplacing details, redirecting blame. By the time her name reached the news, the story was already losing weight. She was a headline for fifteen seconds. Then a whisper. Then nothing.
I watched the investigation from a distance, amused by the theater of it. The interviews. The concern. The promises that justice would be served. When I knew better.
Justice is a performance. And I had front-row seats.
Her sister survived. That was unfortunate.
Survivors complicate things. They remember details other people are quick to forget. But even that didn’t trouble me for long. Money closes mouths. Influence redirects blame. Silence is bought, not earned. And institutions prefer resolution over truth.
So the problem corrected itself.
Time passed. Names blurred. The story shrank until it was nothing more than a cautionary headline people stopped reading halfway through. That’s how these things end when the right people are involved.
But I remembered Missy Hale.
Not out of guilt. Not out of regret.
I remembered her because she didn’t comply.
She fought when she should have broken. She resisted when resistance had no value. For a brief, irritating moment, she forced my attention—made me adjust, recalibrate. That kind of interruption is rare.
Interesting, but temporary.
