Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
He was going to hurt Joey…he was going to kill him. My brain turned off. I was nothing but reactions and reflexes. The bat was in my hand, and then I was on my feet and swinging. It connected with the side of his head with a loud crack. His legs gave out, and he collapsed to the floor, blood pooling around him as his body twitched.
“What did you do?” Joey yelled. “Oh God, what did you do?”
His father was lying there, unmoving. His eyes were angled up, staring at the ceiling, the fan spinning above.
Vacant.
Gone.
He didn’t blink.
Didn’t move.
Joey cried.
The bat fell from my fingers.
And I knew. In that moment I knew nothing would ever be the same.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Joey
“I’m sorry,” Gage said, his voice so soft, I almost couldn’t hear him. He was staring down at me. I was on the floor. Had I always been on the floor? I couldn’t even remember ending up there.
“Dad?” I tasted blood in my mouth. My head was thudding.
“I’m sorry, Jojo. I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I did that. He was hurting you, and I thought…oh God.”
He bent and threw up, right there next to my dad’s body, just vomited up breakfast for dinner and birthday cupcakes.
That snapped me into action. I shoved to my feet, threw my arms around him, bit back my own vomit. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault. It was self-defense.”
But even I knew that didn’t matter. Gage was Gage…son of the town drunk, of a petty criminal—a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. My dad was the local chief, a well-liked and respected cop in a small town.
“We have to go. Come on, Gage, we have to run.” I grabbed him, tried to pull him into action, but he wouldn’t budge. “We have to run!” I said again, going for my dresser to grab clothes.
“It was self-defense. You said it yourself.”
Two against one. Gage had a bat. My dad was a cop. None of that would matter.
“I didn’t mean to kill him. Oh God. I killed him…did I kill him? Maybe he’s not dead.” He bent down, put his hand to my dad’s neck…and started to cry. “I’m sorry, Jojo. I fucked up. I really fucked up. Why didn’t I just fight him? Pull him off? Call someone?”
“Get dressed!” I shouted. “We have to go!” It was as if he couldn’t put together the words I was saying.
“What? No. We can’t run. You can’t run. They’re going to know it was me. Where would we even go? We don’t have much money. I just wanted to protect you.”
And then…then he wrapped his arms around his legs and sat there, next to my dad’s dead body and his own puke.
A part of me died. I’d never seen Gage so broken…so scared…because of me. Because he loved me and wanted to protect me and knew I couldn’t take care of myself.
Gage was a killer now because of me.
I fell down beside him, my legs giving out. We wrapped up in each other and cried—him for me and me for him. For ourselves. For that beautiful moment that was forever tainted. For our lives that were forever altered. For the guilt I would forever live with, that because I was weak, because Gage always had to take care of me, he’d done this.
For Gage…because he was now a killer. I knew him, knew that no matter how much he hated my dad, it would kill him to live with this. Gage’s heart was too big, too pure, too devoted to me.
“Please,” I begged. “Let’s just go. We have to try. I don’t care if we have to be on the run.”
“You didn’t do shit,” he cursed. “You aren’t ruining your life because I fucked up.” His hands knotted in his hair and pulled. “Why am I so dumb? I’m so sorry, Jojo.”
I cried more, harder, felt like I couldn’t breathe. “It’s not your fault. He was hurting me…he hurt you.”
That wouldn’t make a difference. I told him again that we needed to run, but he said no. I begged him to go without me, but he wouldn’t do that either. There was blood on his chest as he went for the phone.
“Don’t do it. Please, Gage, please, please, please.”
“I love you,” he said and called.
We pulled clothes on after that. We held each other as we waited. As red and blue lights flickered on the walls.
Then the police were there, in my room. People were rushing toward my dad’s body. They screamed at us both to get down.
“Don’t say anything!” I said as I lay on the floor, hands behind my back while they cuffed me.
My gaze locked with Gage’s. He was in the same position. I shook my head but knew it was worthless. “Not him,” he said. “It wasn’t his fault. I did it. It was me.”