“I didn’t. I don’t. I swear.” And I didn’t. Not until now.
I thought back to those stares I recalled him giving me. Every “look” I gave him, he obviously interpreted as something else, every glance his own goddamn guilt. He took my sister out and thought I found out his secret.
He gave himself away.
Ignoring me, his head whipped again, his crazy hair just as insane as he was. He didn’t believe me, and now, considering the obvious, that didn’t matter. He showed all his cards here today. He squeezed my throat again. “I really didn’t want to kill your sister, Ms. Lindquist. I didn’t want to. She left me no choice, and Daisy… I didn’t want to do that either.”
Either?
I struggled, those words repeated over again as he breathed them into my ear. He kept saying he didn’t want to do something, something having to do with Daisy.
Oh my God, did he kill her too?
That’d make sense, his jealousy and insanity driving him to the brink. If he couldn’t have her, he’d end her too. Just like he did my sister.
“Please.”
He responded not one word to my plea before grabbing my thigh, and I screamed, biting at him.
His punch hit again, my head slamming against rocks as he palmed my legs way too close to my shorts. He unbuttoned them, attempting to work them off, and no doubt doing exactly what he’d done to my sister and maybe even Daisy. He assaulted Paige, murdered her over Daisy and some fucked-up illusions he had in his head. This man was completely crazy, and here I was with him alone.
My life flashed before my eyes as I wriggled, as I fought with every fiber of my being. My hands and ankles bound, he got little resistance, my shorts undone and tugged down before he reached for his own. He wrestled with those for a second, and I closed my eyes, not able to look. I wanted to numb and disconnect myself from my body. I only opened them when a charged force blew Principal Hastings’s body clean off me, a blur of size and mass ending up on top of him. Immediately, a round of never-ending hits rained down on the principal’s face in a sea of punches. They wouldn’t stop, and squinting, I made out Royal’s big body in the sun.
A wash of dirty blond hair shrouded his face as he threw down punches at our principal again and again, the educator’s face turning into mashed meat. Royal pummeled him with never-ending blows while his fists became coated in dark red. Royal didn’t care. He just kept going, wouldn’t stop, and in his rage gave room for opportunity. He didn’t see Principal Hastings reaching. He didn’t see him go for the gun that was positioned right at Royal’s hip. It’d clearly been reserved for someone else, not this moment.
No…
The shot fired, and Royal’s expression blanked, my shriek lining the air as the smoking gun clouded between us. I was that close to Royal, could see the dread and fear all over his beautiful face as he fell, fell beside me.
“Royal!”
Pistol whipped for my cry, I silenced, my eyes on Royal. His eyes were on me too, the pair of us in our own world as a shadow hovered over us. We didn’t even look, only staring at each other. I wouldn’t close my eyes. I’d only look at him, those green eyes if they were going to be my last thing.
Maybe Royal felt the same way, staring at me too. I had no idea where he’d been shot, but he reached for me, taking my hand. He threaded them together, with me to the end. I flinched when another shot fired, and I believed that was it.
That was until I saw the body.
Holding his chest, Principal Hastings’s fell to his front, his face slamming gravel beside us. In shock, I turned to see a figure running, coming right at us and calling my name.
“December!”
My dad dropped to his knees, his phone at his ear. He was calling 911 with a gun in his hand, a smoking gun.
I faced my principal again, unmoved before turning back to Royal. He no longer had his eyes on me, his lids closed.
“Royal? Royal!” I attempted to move toward him, but my dad shouted at me to stay still. He didn’t want me to move, but I wasn’t hurt. Royal was. “Dad, I’m fine. Help him. Help Royal!”
He wasn’t listening to me, on the phone with emergency. I had to lie there, stewing in moments of wonder as I stared at my boyfriend, who lay incredibly still on the ground beside me.
I didn’t even know if he was breathing.
Twenty-Two
Graduation Day
December
A lot of people didn’t make it across that stage the day of Windsor Preparatory Academy’s graduation. A lot of people had their lives stolen away from the darkness of this town, and one of those people was my sister. She’d had an affair with a married woman and that sole decision resulted in a chain of events that I still was reeling from. The choice left people widowed, Daisy’s husband, the mayor’s chief of staff, included in that number. We found out Daisy’s life had also been taken by a madman, Principal Hastings’s jealous rage concluding in a way that not only left this town bloody but a graduation stage filled with a somber mood. Someone else’s sister had to stand on that stage and hand out diplomas, Lena Hastings left both without a spouse and a sister. She’d been designated temporary headmaster until the position could be filled in the fall, the woman so strong. She stood there with pride as if
