Page 7 of Deliver Me

God doesn’t ask me to judge you for what happened, He only asks that I treat you with kindness and compassion, but I made a judgment anyway. I watched the trial and I know that look in your eyes.

You’re not a monster.

Maybe it’s easier for you if you tell yourself that you are, maybe it makes it easier for you to deal with your secrets and whatever really happened that night, but I know what it looks like when someone’s whole world has crumbled beneath their feet.

You can fool yourself, but you can’t fool me.

Mia

Chapter Four

Gabriel had been in a piss poor mood for three days. Fury pulsed in the air around his large frame to such an extent that even Alex had wisely kept his mouth shut and stayed as far on his own side of the cell as possible. The other inmates, already intimidated by the sheer size of him and his unpredictable temper, gave him even more space than usual.

Three days.

That’s how long it had been since he’d last received a letter fromher. The obnoxious woman—not woman,child—that had shown up in his life from out of nowhere, hellbent on disruption and acting like she knew one single fucking thing about him.

You’re not a monster.

The words repeated endlessly in his mind since he had first read them and the sheer audacity of it was still difficult for him to wrap his mind around. She’d watched the damn shows, read the fucking articles … she knew exactly what he’d done.

He’d never denied it.

You’re not a monster.

But he was. Why didn’t she understand it? That it didn’t matter at all what the hell she thought she’d seen or how he’d felt or why it had happened. It only mattered what he’d done.They’d made that clear to him in abundance, hadn’t they? His family, his friends, the courts … all of them. He’d been left to rot in a juvenile detention center for a year because his mother and uncle, the thought of whom still sent fresh coils of rage rioting through his veins, refused to post his bail. He’d turned sixteen in that hellhole, all alone and with no one to acknowledge him.

It was only the hope he’d clung to that had gotten him through that. He had been open with his lawyer about what had occurred, and the psych evaluations had resulted in a diagnosis of severe PTSD related to events that had occurred before the stabbing, about living conditions that clearly fell within the definitions of mental, emotional, and sexual abuse.

It painted a clear picture and it seemed like it should have been enough … but it wasn’t. Not once the lawyers had decided that his version of events wasn’t credible. He’d spent years wondering if they had simply been too overworked to bother investigating his story or if they had simply been fans of his uncle’s, unable to wrap their minds around his role in what happened.

Gabriel could still feel it, the weightless absence of sensation when he’d realized none of that evidence would be used, the way shock and disbelief almost made it feel like he was floating, how the words themselves were muffled as they reached his ears, the dark metallic taste of fear on his tongue when he realized what it would mean. He’d never gotten a chance to speak, to explain, to lay out his reasons and be judged fairly for his crimes.

The verdict had been unsurprising, such a foregone conclusion in his mind that it hadn’t even been able to penetrate the hopeless numbness. The press had gone crazy over his lack of reaction. It was one last thing to demonize him for before they locked him up and threw away the key.

Not that he was sure it would have mattered anyway. The public had already gotten the story they needed, the mediaspreading the details for everyone else’s entertainment, and he’d been made to understand exactly what he was. They had wanted a monster, and he had become one, the last of the hope inside him dying as the trial progressed.

How dare she show up now, years after it had all stopped mattering to him, to try and tell him he wasn’t a monster?

On the third day, simmering with rage and unable to hold his emotions inside any longer, he scribbled another hasty note on a torn scrap of paper, breathing heavily through clenched teeth as he slammed a stamp on the corner of the envelope.

What the hell do you know about anything, kid? You think I’m a nice person even after everything I’ve done? After all the shows you watched you should know exactly what kind of monster I am. Did your parents keep you so tightly bundled up in your nice little house and your nice little church that no one ever bothered to teach you stories about the boogeyman?

That’s a serious flaw in your education, princess, so let me do you a favor and fill in the gaps. The devil you should be worried about isn’t the kind that lives in your Bible and thinks that saying ‘fuck’ is a sin. The devil you should be worried about lives next door to your house and thinks about peeling the skin from your bones. He’s the friendly guy at the grocery store that pays to watch strangers do unspeakable things to kids on the internet, or the nice lady at church who goes home and beats her own children, but only in the places where their clothes cover their bruises.

Hell is empty, sweetheart, all the devils are here.

Alex smirked when he handed over a new crisp white envelope.

“Fuck off,” Gabriel snapped, but there was little heat to it.

It had been longer this time, long enough that he really thought that maybe his last letter had finally gotten through to her, that she’d moved on, but she was stubborn.

It was almost as impressive as it was irritating.

He tore the top off the envelope and quickly scanned the letter inside, noting with surprise that there appeared to be a few spots near the bottom where the rich black ink had blurred and the paper looked thinner, more fragile.

Tear spots.

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