I gave him a level look.
“Is something that I deserve,” I countered. “This man shot my father. I deserve to watch him die.”
There was a silence behind me that made me realize I wasn’t being quite as quiet as I’d intended.
Derek looked over my shoulder and sighed.
“So do you want to sit in the front or the back?” he asked.
I frowned at him, unsure what he was talking about.
But when I turned around, it was to find the seating practically cleared except for an older man who was sitting on the very back row. All the other people that had once been seated were now standing, deferring to me as they waited to see where I would want to sit.
All of them were looking at me as if I was about to break at any moment.
“Pick a seat, darlin’, so they can sit back down,” Derek murmured softly into my ear.
I picked the front row seat, directly in the middle.
The men piled in around me, filling the seating back up, but no one got too close to me.
And the man who had glared at me earlier for sitting too close to him resumed his seat on the very end. But not before he stopped in front of me and offered me his hand.
“I apologize for acting the way I did earlier,” he said. “My name is Roger MacMillan. I worked with your father as his partner until I moved down here for better pay. I was at the funeral that day, but there were a lot of people there and…”
I waved his apology away.
It was more than obvious that the man didn’t like being too close to people. And that’d been what I’d done, encroach on his space.
“No apologies needed,” I said quietly. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The man, Roger, sat down and looked at the empty room in front of us.
I did, too, allowing myself to take it all in.
“I asked the guard what his last meal was,” I murmured softly. “He told me he didn’t know, but he would find out for me. Is that stupid to ask?”
Derek shrugged his large shoulders as he said, “Maybe. Maybe not. Who’s ever one to say that any question is stupid? Why do you want to know?”
I didn’t know.
I just felt like it was something that I needed to know.
“I feel like he shouldn’t have gotten that choice,” I admitted. “What makes him think that he can have anything nice after what he did?”
Derek made an agreeing sound in the back of his throat as he said, “Well then, you’ll be happy to know that Texas doesn’t do last meals anymore. Some dumbass ordered a huge immaculate meal back in 2011, I think and didn’t eat it. So they did away with last meals altogether.”
I looked over at him.
“How do you know that?” I asked curiously.
He shrugged. “I was curious too this morning, and I had time while I was waiting for a train on the way here. So I looked it up.”
I smiled. “You don’t think they gave Jorgan that option?”
Derek looked down at me, his beautiful face set in a frown.
“Avery, Jorgan is a cop killer. I doubt he got anything he wanted,” he finally said.
That was true.
Cop killers were treated differently than any other criminals.
Killing a police officer was a very big deal, especially to other cops.
Something—movement of some kind—had me looking back toward the room in front of us.
The door.
The door had opened.
I tensed, and Derek put his arm around me, pulling me in tight.
I stayed stiff for all of two seconds before I leaned into him, watching as they marched Jorgan into the room, arms and legs shackled and chained together by a long chain that went from his wrists to his feet.
I stiffened when he looked over at the viewing room we were sitting in.
His eyes found me, and he smiled.
I narrowed my eyes at the evil man, then smiled right back.
“Don’t lose your cool,” Derek ordered.
The guards got Jorgan on the stretcher, and I watched with anger as they situated him.
He was strapped down by Velcro straps across his feet, arms, and chest.
Once he was sufficiently immobile, a man wearing slacks and a black button-down shirt walked up to Jorgan, snapping gloves onto his hands.
He pulled out something from his pocket and proceeded to start an IV on Jorgan despite Jorgan’s struggles.
“I would’ve thought they’d give him something to make him cooperative,” I found myself saying.
Derek didn’t say anything.
There wasn’t anything to say.
They rolled up a machine with pre-filled syringes full of liquid and began to hook the machine up to Jorgan’s IV.
“I think I would’ve rather seen him fry in an electric chair,” I muttered darkly.
Jorgan’s eyes turned to me as if he could hear my comment, and he smiled.
“I would’ve rather that happen, too,” Derek admitted. “If that guy wasn’t about to die, I would’ve found some way to make his life a living hell.”
Amen to that.
Jorgan pursed his lips at me and jerked his chin, indicating that it was for me.
So I flipped him off.
Then, just like that, the switch was flipped, so to speak.
The plungers on the syringes depressed, and suddenly the life died right out of Jorgan’s eyes.
Just. Like. That.
“Well,” I said when his eyes were no longer filled with life. “That was honestly anti-climactic.”
I didn’t really know what to expect, but I thought maybe some final words would be said. That maybe it’d be more exciting.
But honestly, it was kind of boring.
Way less fulfilling than I thought it would be.
“I feel like they should stab him in the heart with a wooden stake just to make sure that he’s actually dead,” I muttered.
Derek’s arm tightened around me as he lifted me up and guided me to the door.
Nobody spoke to me as we made our way outside, but eventually the events of what had just happened started to catch up to me, and I slowed.
People passed me on the way out, but I didn’t notice or care.
I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t even realize we were outside until Derek’s shout had me blinking back into reality.
“Hey,” Derek called to the two men who were in front of us.
I allowed my eyes to follow Derek as he let my hand go and jogged up to the two men.
“Hey, did y’all ride together?” he asked them.
The two young rookies nodded. “Yeah.”
“Would one of y’all mind driving her car home?” Derek asked.
I opened my mouth to deny that I was more than capable of driving myself home but thought better of it.
I wasn’t capable right now.
I’d expected to feel relief at watching that man die.
I expected to feel like some big weight had lifted off my chest.
Only, there wasn’t some big weight.