“Nothing about this is okay. I’ve killed strangers to protect kids I haven’t met. But the people I love were hurting all along, and I didn’t do anything to make it better.”
“You dealt with Kevin,” I pointed out.
“That wasn’t enough. Grizzly and Dog… I should have those kills inked into my skin.” His hand hovered a second, until he settled it on my arm. “You can say what you want, Rachel, but you flinch like it happened yesterday. You’re still as fucked up by the past as I am.”
I couldn’t deny that he was right. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
“Killing them wouldn’t have helped me,” was all I could think to say.
“Why not?” he growled.
“Because my second attacker was murdered right in front of my eyes.” I tipped up my chin. “If anything, that just makes the nightmares worse.”
Unknown Sender: So many perverts out there…
Unknown Sender: You’re running out of time.
Nyx: They’re for the cops to hunt.
Unknown Sender: That’s why there are so many still free. No one cares. Kids don’t have a voice. You gave them that.
Nyx: I didn’t do anything. I’m just a regular citizen.
Unknown Sender: You keep on telling yourself that.
Nyx: Got nothing to prove to anyone.
Unknown Sender: You don’t want to make a difference?
Nyx: Why the fuck is this on me? If you’re so all-fired ‘special,’ then why the hell aren’t you the one going out and getting rid of these bastards?
Unknown Sender: This is a young man’s game. No jail time, son. Just think about it… the freedom to do what the cops aren’t doing.
Nyx: This is entrapment.
Unknown Sender: Do I sound like a cop to you?
Nyx: No, but I’m not in the business of listening to shit that sounds too good to be true either. Fuck off.
TWENTY-ONE
REX
PUMPED UP KICKS - FOSTER THE PEOPLE
“Shut the door behind you.” I cocked my gun. The click was loud in the silent room. A sharp gasp escaped the kid in front of me. “Don’t say a word. Turn around. In that order.”
The door closed, the boy twisted around, and in his eyes, there was stark, stark fear.
What I was doing was wrong.
Very wrong.
But it was also fucking right.
His eyes were massive, big doe-like almonds that gawped at me, taking me in, taking in the weapon in my arms.
His weapon.
A weapon he was going to use against other kids.
He swallowed at the sight.
For the first hundred miles after I left Rachel and dealt with Inked, I just rode. I wasn’t going anywhere, was getting away. Doing as she’d requested—getting the fuck out of there.
Then, when my tank hovered close to empty, I filled up at a gas station. It could have been fucking fate for all I knew but the news came on the TV—a shooting. In New Mexico. And all of a sudden, I’d remembered.
The kid. The potential shooter.
Maverick had emailed me the little bastard’s details on Christmas Eve, and suddenly, I’d known where I was going. What I was going to do. And here I was, about to deliver a judgment worthy of Solomon himself.
“You want to piss yourself, don’t you?” I rasped.
His gaze locked on mine, and he nodded.
“You should think about how you feel right now and think about how the kids in your school will feel when you go in there like you’re in a first-person shooter game.” I patted the body and resettled the butt against my lap. “You ever shot anything, kid?”
He shook his head.
“Not even some innocent deer in a forest with your dad?”
“No,” he whispered.
“I have,” I told him calmly. “The second you press the trigger, it’s like the clock slows and speeds up all at once. I’ve never known anything like it. It’s the only time it ever happens. You don’t see where the bullet goes until it hits someone, and by that point, any regrets are in the wind.
“There’s no taking shit back. No making shit right. That’s it. Someone’s hit. All GSWs are reported to the cops, so there’s no fixing things. No escaping it.” I narrowed my eyes on him. “What makes you think you can drag this out and hurt innocent people, huh?”
He squeaked, “Can I answer?”
“I ask you a question, you can answer. You call out, I won’t shoot you with this.” I grabbed the knife from the table beside me where I'd rested it as I waited for him to eat his dinner. “I’ll just slit your throat instead.”
Those big doe eyes got even bigger.
“I never miss.”
He gulped.
“Go on,” I quipped. “Answer me.”
“I want them to die.”
“Who’s they?”
“Bullies,” he breathed.
It was more than bullying. It was torture. I’d seen that in his journal notes. “You’ve talked about being bullied with your family?”
“Yes.”
“What do they say?”
“That I’m a pussy.”
Well, of all the motherfucking things to say to a kid.
I reached up and scratched my chin. “Are you a pussy?”
“Maybe.”
My brow furrowed. “Ever had sex?”
He shook his head quickly. “No.”
“This path is one helluva way to never get laid. Just saying. Well, with a pussy.” I thought about that a second. “You’d get your ass reamed in jail if they ever let you out of solitary. Maybe you’re gay. Maybe you’d like that. Is that why you’ve never had sex?”
“I’m sixteen,” he squeaked.
“So? I had sex when I was twelve.”
He gaped at me. “Twelve?”
“Yeah. Twelve. Anyway. You don’t know this yet, but pussies can take a pounding. They bleed every month and they don’t die. Babies come out of them. Seven-pound monsters. You think a pussy is weak if it can do all that?”
“N-No.”
“That’s right. So, are you a pussy?”
“Is this a trick question?” he whispered confusedly.
“Naw.” I leaned forward and set the gun on the ground then placed my booted foot over it. “Just trying to make right what your fool parents told you. You ain’t a pussy, but if you were, there’s no shame in that. Older you get, the more you’ll realize a pussy is the only place you want to be.
“Now, killing all these folks… How will that help?”
“They’ll know how I feel.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like I don’t matter.”
I scoffed. “No one matters, kid. Not really. We’re all ants in this massive universe. You want to matter to someone, you can achieve that by not going into your school, not firing a submachine gun, and expecting to be heard.
“You want to matter to anyone other than a judge and a jury, and maybe an executioner—” I started flipping my knife in my hand.
“New Mexico isn’t a death penalty state,” he whispered, his back flattening to the door.