THERE’S A NEW GIRL IN group therapy, and she’s droning on and on about her sorrowful self. Beside me sits Tommy, and I can tell he’s bored as well. Five minutes in I catch him totally zoned out and figure that’s my green light to do the same. I tune the girl out and allow my thoughts to drift as I indulge my fantasies. . . .
I crouch in the darkness, my breathing steady and calm, my pulse fluttering in anticipation. The deviant I’m following knows I’m here, and his own breathing quickens as his pounding heart echoes in the night around us. I stand to my full height and step from the shadows to see his eyes widen in realization that I’m here for him. I take my Taser out, raise it, and—
Tommy nudges me. “Lane,” he whispers.
I blink, glance around the group, and see every eye focused on me. “Yes?”
“It needs to be unanimous,” the counselor says. “We all know we’ve lost a loved one, but we’ve yet to share how we lost that loved one. It needs to be unanimous,” he repeats. “Everyone’s agreed to share but you.”
“Oh.” I glance over to Tommy. Why I glance at him, I’m not entirely sure. “Okay.” Mine was murdered. This is what I’ll say and spare the details.
The girl a few seats to my left starts. She lost her mom to breast cancer. The guy beside her lost his twin brother in a swimming accident. Guy beside him lost his grandfather to a heart attack. And on around the circle it goes.
When it’s Tommy’s turn, he quietly starts, “My sister was a preschool teacher. She was the Decapitator’s last victim.”
I sit up in my chair. What?
He continues, “Well, that’s not true. The last victim was an FBI woman.” Then that’s all he says.
I know it’s my turn, but all I seem able to do is replay his words:
She was the Decapitator’s last victim.
Tommy gives me another nudge, indicating I need to go.
I turn and look him straight in the eyes. “My mother was that FBI woman.”
Everyone in the room gasps. So much for me sparing details.
The counselor finishes out the meeting, and although I don’t look at Tommy again, I know he’s staring at me. I imagine he wants to get out of here as much as I do. The counselor dismisses us and I beeline for my Jeep.
He had to have known who I am. Everyone at school knows who my mom was and how she died. Then again, he doesn’t go to my school. But it was heavily covered by the media. How could he not know who I am?
My sister was a preschool teacher. She was the Decapitator’s last victim. Her hands and feet were delivered in a cooler. I watched the video of her death. A video my mother sent me.
My parents killed his sister. They cut her into pieces. They enjoyed it. Oh my God. I’ve got to get out of here.
“Lane?” Tommy stops me.
I spin and look him square in his confused eyes. “How could you not tell me?”
He takes a tiny step back. “That means you’re the niece of the Decapitator. Your uncle murdered my sister.”
As the story goes. “How could you not tell me?” I repeat.
“And also murdered your mother,” he continues, obviously working things through in his mind. “I didn’t know. After my sister died, I couldn’t take it. It was killing me. I ended up leaving and staying with some family in New York. I knew there was an FBI woman, but I didn’t know she was your mother.”
I don’t know what to do, what to say, and so I just stare into his perplexed eyes and . . . I honestly don’t know if I believe him.
Tommy blows out a breath and runs his fingers through his blond hair. “I need to go. I need to think through all this.”
That’s probably a good idea.
On a second thought, he turns back. “Just when I think I’m getting better . . .”
Getting better. I never thought of myself as getting better, as something needing to be cured. I am who I am. I only need to perfect the details of dealing with that.
“Are you blaming me?” I ask. Because it sure sounds like he is.
Tommy shakes his head. “Your uncle violently murdered my sister. It’s a lot to take in.” He swings his leg over his bike, gives it a crank, and is gone.
It is a lot to take in. I thought I’d found a new friend in Tommy, but I’m not entirely sure we can be friends with this between us now. If the situation was reversed, if his uncle killed my sister, I probably wouldn’t want anything to do with him either.