Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 98264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Thea—my sister.
Thea—the only friend.
Thea—the love of my brother’s life.
And by not telling anyone about Josh, I’d all but held her down and let him do it.
Holding him by the throat, Ramsey continued to hit him, and I felt each and every pulverizing blow as if they had landed in my gut instead.
“Stay the fuck away from her,” Ramsey finally said, throwing him to the ground and landing a swift kick to his midsection.
Josh rolled to the side, coughing and spitting out blood, and let out a laugh. “If it’s any consolation, she wasn’t nearly as good as your sister.”
All rational thought abandoned me. A guttural scream tore from my throat, so loud it felt like razor blades exiting my body. Years of anger and frustration all tied up in one ear-piercing note. I slapped my hands over my mouth, one stacked over the other as if it could somehow silence the cry, but it just kept coming.
All the drawers in my head blasted open at once, a war of emotions battling to be the first to escape.
Choices. Everyone makes them.
And when my brother stumbled back, shock contorting his face, I made mine.
Throwing the car into drive, I slammed on the accelerator and ended Josh Caskey’s reign of abuse once and for all.
Ramsey never came home that night.
I waited until the sun broke the horizon before waking my dad up. He’d never helped me before, but if Ramsey had been arrested, surely he’d do something. I didn’t get the chance to tell him any of the details before he mumbled some variation of, “Ramsey deserves whatever he gets,” before passing back out.
The only other person I could think of was Thea, but when I looked out the window, two police cars were parked in her driveway.
Peeking through the blinds while my heart raced a million miles a minute, I waited for them to leave. When they finally came out, Thea was wrapped in a blanket, tears rolling down her face as they escorted her to her dad’s car. Together, they all drove away, leaving me more terrified and alone than ever.
I had no idea what to do. Ramsey had assured me that it would be okay, but nothing felt okay.
Josh was dead.
It was my fault.
And my brother was in police custody.
I spent the afternoon alternating between pacing and dry-heaving, like I was in a gas chamber, suffocating on poison and waiting to die.
My worst fear was confirmed that afternoon when the channel six news broke the story of Josh’s death, airing it alongside Ramsey’s mug shot with a headline reading Murderer Confessed.
Utterly dumbfounded, I stared at my brother’s picture. He’d confessed? To what? He hadn’t done anything except beat Josh up. However, since the cops hadn’t stormed our house and arrested me yet, I had a sudden stomach-churning fear that Ramsey’s confession wasn’t going to match mine at all.
The reporter was still talking when I sprinted from the house.
My brother was my hero.
He had kissed every skinned knee I’d ever gotten.
He’d held me every night after our mom left.
And he went out of his way to protect me from our father’s rage.
In all the ways that mattered, I was alive because of Ramsey.
Letting him take the fall for a crime I’d committed wasn’t going to be the way I repaid him.
Arms swinging, legs pumping, pulse thundering in my ears, I sprinted to the police station. I couldn’t breathe when I got there, but in my desperation, air was inconsequential.
“I did it!” I confessed, physically dropping to my knees in front of a young, uniformed officer. I wasn’t begging; I just no longer had the ability to stand. “My brother didn’t do it. It was me. I did it. I killed Josh Caskey.”
The cop stared at me with a bored glare. “Girl, get up off your knees. He already signed the confession.”
I folded my hands in prayer. “Arrest me. Arrest me please. I’m begging you. Just don't take him from me.”
Grabbing my arm, the slender officer helped me to my feet. “Okay, okay. Relax. You want to make a statement about what you think happened to Josh?”
I wanted to make every statement about what I knew happened to Josh as long as it led to Ramsey being released. “Yes. I just need someone to listen. It’s not what it looks like.”
Clovert was small, the police force even smaller, but there was another officer nearby who sauntered over. The small silver tag on his uniform read Perry. “Nelson,” he said to the young officer, “we don’t need a damn statement. We’ve got a motive, a confession, and charges filed. Don’t you dare put more paperwork on my desk about this.”
Panic built. “You have the wrong person. Ramsey didn’t do this!”
Officer Perry, with his yellow stained teeth and gray hair, cocked his head. “And you expect me to believe you did? I was the first officer on the scene. We had a dead body and your brother’s car covered in blood. Where the hell were you?”