Page 114 of Snitches and Serpents

“Tristan is being offered the same deal. If he testifies that he personally saw Rob Bracken hand you that bag of drugs and personally heard Bracken tell you to sell drugs at that charity event, he will get to walk out of here a free man. No charges against him. Nothing.”

“But that doesn’t work. We can’t both get the same deal.”

“Exactly. So whoever takes the deal first, is the one who gets it. Otherwise, you both go down for this.”

Straightening my spine, I level a determined stare on him and declare, “Fine, then we both go down for it.”

“Really?” His smile is slow and mocking as he watches me. “Do you really think that there is any sort of universe, at all, in which Tristan doesn’t take this deal? From what I saw when we arrested you, he looked very angry and very hurt. It looked like he wanted to kill you. And based on what you said last time you were here, he also hates you for something you did back when you two were in high school. And now, he is about to be presented with an offer not only to screw you over but also to save himself. Do you really, honestly, think that he will ever pass up such a golden opportunity?”

My stomach drops and true fear spreads like cold poison through my limbs.

Because he’s right.

He is so utterly, undeniably right.

Tristan hates me now. He hated me before, when I made him lose his scholarship, but there was a short time this past week when I thought that we had finally been able to move past that. But now, after this… After he thinks that I betrayed him again, he is going to hate me forever. I could tell by the look on his face when the cops hauled him out of the room. There is no coming back from this. Not for us.

With his final words to me before being dragged out, he told me that he was going to kill me the next time he saw me. But this would be an even better revenge for him.

Not only would it be a sort of cruel poetic justice for him to get me arrested, since that is what I did to him in high school, it would also be a much more lasting revenge. Like he said that day when I had the panic attack, he didn’t want me to die because I hadn’t finished suffering yet.

Now is his chance. Sentence me to prison and utterly destroy my life while he walks free.

This is his shot at revenge.

At the perfect revenge.

“But like I said,” Derrik continues with a casual shrug. “I have some personal issues with Tristan, so I would much prefer it if you were the one to take the deal. Which is why I’m presenting it to you first.”

I just sit there, staring at him. Completely dumbfounded. My heart is beating so fast in my chest that I’m not even sure it’s beating at all. I feel like I have been hit really hard in the head.

Derrik picks up his notepad and taps it on the metal table a couple of times, as if gathering up the papers even though they’re already stuck to the notepad. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes or so to consider my offer while I go and present this deal to Tristan. Then I will check back with you first, giving you the opportunity to be the first one to take the deal. Because, like I said, I would prefer it to be you. But if I come back and you tell me no, I will go to Tristan next. And he will take the deal.”

The chair scrapes against the floor as he stands up.

My body feels heavy. As if it’s full of lead. I barely manage to raise my head to stare after Derrik as he starts towards the door.

When he reaches it, he pauses for a second and looks back.

“Choose wisely,” he says.

And then he walks out.

I’m left sitting there on the hard chair inside the bleak interrogation room.

My heart hurts and my mind is drowning with impossible choices.

If I take this deal, I will be screwing Tristan over. Again.

But if I don’t take this deal, Tristan is going to screw me over. He’s going to happily pin it all on me and send me to prison. My entire future will be gone in seconds. Ruined. Never to be repaired again.

I will never be able to go into politics. I will never be able to get any sort of job I want. Because who would hire someone who has served time in prison for dealing drugs? Not to mention all the precious time I would lose while I’m actually in prison.

Oh God, I don’t want to go to prison.

And I don’t want to throw Tristan under the bus.

But if I don’t do that, he is going to throw me under the bus.

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