Page 82 of He Hate Me

“Possibly he drugged her because she had seen him assaulting your mother, but I don’t think she understood what she was seeing. Once she was drugged, well…”

“So that’s it?” Anton shakes his head.

“While Devin is doing what he’s doing, Lindsey seems to wake up or at least she becomes aware enough to tell him to stop what he’s doing and curse at him, so he forces more of the drug on her until she becomes almost dazed. Then she stops breathing.”

“What are you saying?”

“This is probably how your mother’s brain injury occurred. He gives her a shot and then calls Deja’s father. You see him dress Deja and carry her upstairs and the video keeps recording until the disk is full.”

“A few weeks later, he calls me and says he needs me to clean something up for him. That something was David.”

“So you think he had David killed because he knew about what happened to my mother?”

“Or possibly,” Anton says, “because David noticed his daughter had been drugged. If he’d examined, her he would have been able to tell she’d been assaulted.”

I don’t even want to know what that means. Deja was eight years old. What the fuck?

“Based on the amount of time between the other four videos, my guess is he didn’t have a lot of access to her.”

“Why do think he stopped?” I ask, trying to hold onto my anger.

“Puberty? It would have been hard to explain away a pregnancy and they would have DNA tested every male she came in contact with.”

“So it went beyond touching?”

“On the later videos, yes.”

“I’m going to kill him,” I say, feeling calm for the first time today. There’s no more moral ambiguity, no more doubt. Devin needs to die. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never killed anyone and never thought I would, there is no way I can continue to live in a world where that man is breathing. Those tapes would put him away for a long time, and an inmate would probably un-alive him for me, but that would mean revealing to the world happened to Deja. I’m not doing that. She deserves to keep her peace.

“That’s not a good idea, Brandon. You don’t want that on your soul. Once the evidence is secured, I’ll take care of him.”

“You’ll kill him?”

“You’ll never have to worry about seeing him again.”

“But will he be dead?”

“As good as.”

I don’t like this answer, but there’s no point arguing with Anton anymore. I thank him for everything and tell him I’ll be waiting at Rourke’s for an update. I gather my things, and he orders me a car to take me home. Instead, I tell the driver to take me to Briarwood. I need to make sure Deja doesn’t go home. Even if I do, she must never see Devin again.

Deja

I drag myself to my car after practice. I don’t really have the energy to be social today. Mackenzie rubs my back soothingly before she heads for her car. She doesn’t know why I’m upset, but she’s trying to comfort me anyway. Shelby gave me her chocolate bar at lunch, and it’s her favorite thing. This whole time I thought if I wasn’t the perfect cheerleader my friends would abandon me, but here they are just trying to make me feel better. I wish I could tell them why I’m upset, but I can’t.

I’m feeling kind of guilty as well after what Mello told me about Brandon’s life. Did I judge him too harshly? I didn’t see him at school today. I saw Rourke going to soccer practice when I was heading for cheerleading and felt a powerful urge to run over to him and ask if Brandon was okay. Of course, I didn’t. What if Rourke kicked him out already? What if something happened to his mom?

He’s by my car when I get out to the lot, dressed in dark clothes. He looks like a bartender or a waiter at a high-end restaurant. His face is pale, and his expression is hard. Is he angry with me now? Is he here to yell at me.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

He’s standing in front of the driver’s door, so I can’t get into the car until he lets me.

“What do you want?”

“I need to talk to you,” he says. “It’s important and private.”