“He’s out,” she rasps, her words rising barely above a whisper.
Emptiness. I feel, hear, and think of nothing. The stillness inside my mind and body is as cold and desolate as outer space.
Reverie grabs my wrist and slowly removes my hand from her throat. I let her, because I’m incapable of a single function outside of staring at her blankly. Her tongue darts out nervously, wetting her bottom lip, while her eyes skip around, landing on everything but me.
“I…”
Her brows pinch as she drops her face to her trembling hands. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so fucking nervous, and I just know what she did before the confession finally tumbles from her mouth.
“I saw the letter that morning in your room, after you nearly killed me with hypothermia. And… I took it. I’d found out the day before the board accepted his parole. It went to the governor for review, which can take up to thirty days for an official decision, so I wanted every day I could get without you knowing because I—” Her words crack, so she tries again. “I knew you were going to lose your mind, and yeah, I’ll be honest, Dread, I was fucking terrified of what that was going to look like. So, I took it. And truthfully, I hoped to be gone before he got out.” She grimaces again. “And before you found out what I did.”
She sounds muffled as she speaks, as if I’m underwater while she stands at the pool edge, looking down on me. While my brain understands what she’s saying, it’s slow to truly comprehend anything around me.
The pool water pumping through the filtration system is the first thing I register, then the poignant smell of chlorine.
And within the blink of an eye, I’m plunging back into reality, and everything hits me. I’m so aware of it all, I can feel my blood boiling, flowing through my veins like lava, as well as the erratic beat of my heart overflowing with absolute pure. Fucking. Rage.
I stand so quickly, my knees crack from the force, causing Reverie to flinch and cross her arms over her face, as if she expected me to strike her.
I’ve done a lot to her, put my hands on her in a lot of ways, but I’veneverhit her. Thankfully for her, I don’t even have the concentration to feel offended by it.
“How?” I growl, my voice deeper and rougher, sounding demonic. “They post their decisions on the website, so I’ve been checking every fucking week since the board said they’d decide within one hundred twenty days and haven’t seen shit.”
She grimaces. “Yeah, so about that. They’re allowing special circumstances with him and are waiting an extra week to post it due to some random group of people apparently threatening to kill him if the board approved his parole. Plus, with how high profile he is, they didn’t want to deal with the circus showing up to witness him walking out.”
A wildfire rages in my chest, burning a fiery path up my throat. This entire fucking time, I thought the board was still deciding. I’ve been checking the CDCR site religiously in case they posted it on their website before the letter hit my mailbox. Every so often, I’d even search Lionel to ensure he was still in custody, just to give myselfsomefucking peace of mind while I waited for the board’s decision.
But, of fucking course, I haven’t looked him up for at least a week, too caught up in swim, classes, and Rev. He was released from custody, and I fucking missed it.
Then, Mark’s text from that night registers—when we played the dummy prank on Reverie. He said to let him know if I needed to talk.
Reverie stole my letter notifying me of the board’s decision the following morning. Which means it had been in the pile of mail I picked up on my way home from practice that night, and I was too damn exhausted to sort through it at the time. I’d slapped the stack on my nightstand and got ready for bed, all the while Rogue and Severen were hauling Reverie out to the flagpole.
Mark must’ve gotten the letter then, too. He knows me very well, and that I need to process shit on my own. So, he’s been checking in on me every so often, asking how I’m doing, but oblivious to the reasoning, I’ve been telling him I’m fine.
I brought Reverie to my roomthree fucking weeks ago.
Fuck, fuck, FUCK!
My fingers dive into my hair as I turn to pace alongside the pool.
It feels like an impenetrable wall surrounds my brain, no longer allowing my racing thoughts to enter. It’s isolated and eerily quiet.
Yet, I feeleverything. The rage is so potent, it burns every cell in my body until nothing else remains.
It’s a wrath I haven’t felt since I stood in the police station at eight years old, waiting to be taken back for more questioning. In thewaiting room was a TV, and it was the first time I saw a news channel sympathizing with the D’Amours for what they believed to be false allegations against Lionel. The poor little boy lost his mommy, so he blames an innocent man.
Lionel lived one town over from me in Silent Mist, working as a car salesman. A week prior, my mom took her car into his dealership for a recall notice, and apparently, walked out with a date. So, the following week, when my mom stopped by to see him before their date later that day, leaving me in the back seat, the public believed I had seen him then. They’re convinced my little brain latched on to him because it needed someone—anyone—to blame.
But where Iactuallysaw him was standing on my goddamn doorstep, a bouquet of daffodils in hand and a charming smile tipping up his thin lips.
I wasn’t supposed to be home that night, but at a friend’s house. I decided I didn’t want to go last minute, and Mom had to scramble to find a babysitter—my next-door neighbor, Cynthia. She was in the kitchen cooking mac ’n’ cheese for me when Lionel showed up to pick up my mother.
But what he didn’t know was that I lurked in the living room window, sitting on the couch in front of it. It was next to the front door and allowed me the perfect view of Lionel. I glared at him from beyond the curtains, furious Mom was going on a date with him. My father had passed away from a car accident three years prior, and I couldn’t comprehend why she would want to be with anyone else.
I was pouting, and a moment before she left, she turned and blew a kiss my way. I was supposed to pretend to catch it and kiss my fist, like we always did, but that time, I was so angry with her, I only glared in response. Her smile faltered, sadness and hurt flashing across her blue eyes, and then, she was gone.
Lionel already had his back turned when she blew me that kiss, and it’s likely the only reason he followed through with killing her. If he had known Katherine Sharpe had a son who watched him from the window, she might’ve come home that night, set free because he knew someone could identify him should he harm a hair on her head.
