Page 113 of Commit

“I’m very sorry?—”

“I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to feel every inch of pain and fear that she did.”

She reaches for her phone, but I slam my fist into the back of her hand. I hear a crunch before she cries out.

“If you think that hurts, it’s going to be a long fucking night for you.”

I spend the next few hours wandering around the school with the principal in tow, planting small devices that fuel her terror. I haven’t laid a hand on her yet, aside from when she reached for her phone, but she knows I’m capable of violence. It’s simmering just below the surface, and every second spent with me could be her last.

The violence that I don’t waste on her, I use to destroy every room we pass. With the cameras being disabled thanks to Kenzo, there’s nobody around to see it.

Except for her.

“If you let me go, I promise I won’t say anything,” she says with a shaky voice after spending the last three hours as my unofficial tour guide.

“Hmm… Well, I guess you have been helpful.” As her shoulders relax, I reach for her. In a swift move, I snap her neck and leave her on the cafeteria floor. “You were always going to die. You sealed your fate the second you failed my wife.”

I step over her body and head back to my car. Once I’m at a safe distance, I pull the detonator from my pocket, flip the safety off, and hit the switch. There’s a two-second delay before an explosion rips through the night. I feel the heat from here, and the noise makes my ears ring and my head pound.

I drive three-quarters of the way home before I get out, torch the car, and walk the rest of the way. Once home, I head upstairs, strip, shower, and fall into a deep sleep for a few hours until the morning light wakes me up. I reach for my phone and see it’s eight a.m.

I get up, get dressed, and call the cops to report my car stolen before heading back to the hospital, calling Kenzo on the way.

“You see the news?” he says as a greeting.

“Not yet, why?”

“There was a big explosion over at the high school, and the fire’s been blazing out of control for hours.”

“No shit.”

“There was also a break-in at the Robbins residence. You know that realtor guy whose face is plastered everywhere?”

“Can’t say I do,” I lie.

“Well, apparently, the intruders broke in, and the daughter ended up with two broken legs.”

“Sounds painful.”

“Uh-huh. There were a couple of other break-ins too. And a few people got roughed up.”

“Sounds like that Purge movie,” I reply when I pull up at the hospital.

“That’s what I said. Where are you, anyway?”

“Just pulling into the parking lot at that hospital. I ran home to take a shower and get some clean clothes.”

“Did you stay there last night?”

“Yeah, she was so scared. I couldn’t leave her. One of the nurses was cool about letting me stay.”

“That was nice of her.”

“Yeah, and I needed nice after getting home and realizing one of my cars had been stolen.”

“Fuck off! What is the world coming to?”

I walk into the hospital and head up to Starling’s floor.

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