Page 24 of Live for Me

The panic hit the detective by the end of Utah’s words. He was already shaking pretty violently from the pain in his ankle, but he started to cry once he recalled the case to which Utah was referring.

“Yeah,” Utah said quietly. “You remember it now.”

“Why?” I asked the now sobbing man.

“It wasn’t up to me,” he cried.

“You didn’t decide to just let everyone believe Elizabeth Anderson did it? You didn’t choose to not investigate anything at all? You didn’t choose to ignore that there was no evidence to suggest Liz was the shooter? For any of the victims involved?” Utah asked. “Herself included?”

“Okay, look. Yeah. I did all that. But I didn’t have any other choice.”

“There’s always another choice,” Utah said. He stepped forward a second later to swing the golf club at the man’s other ankle. While the detective sat there and wailed, Utah turned to face me once he’d laid the golf club across his shoulders. He stared at me until I looked back at him. He was trying to silently ask if I was okay to keep going, to continue being present for this, without actually saying the words.

I swallowed the urge to vomit and nodded my head at him.

“I’ll stop breaking your bones if you just tell me why,” Utah said.

“I can’t,” the detective screamed in between the sobs.

“Why?” I asked.

“You’re prepared to sit here while I break every bone in your body just to avoid giving me the reason?” Utah asked and walked back to the detective. “‘Cause I feel like I should tell you now, man,” he smirked and placed the head of the golf club in the man’s groin, “once I’m done with the bones, I’ll just move on to removing pieces of your body. You probably won’t like the appendage that I’ll be starting with.”

The detective started shaking again when he hung his head to cry that time.

“Your ankles might heal well enough if you get a good doctor,” Utah continued. “But that,” he said and tapped the golf club up and down on his crotch, “that won’t grow back.”

“I have kids,” Samuels cried quietly. “I have two daughters.”

“That’s nice,” Utah said sarcastically. “Weird as fuck that you’d bring them up while I talk about cutting your dick off. But if I was worried about losing mine, I’d probably say some strange shit too.”

The detective shook his head. “He said he’d take them.”

I was across the room before anybody said another word to grab Utah’s wrist and make him move the golf club. He stepped back and I knelt in front of the detective to see if I could get him to look at me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He shook his head again and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Step back, angel,” Utah said. I glanced back to see that he already had the golf club raised and ready again.

“Tell me,” I begged the detective. “Please. Who was going totake them?”

The detective’s shoulders slumped but he raised his head until he was staring straight up at the ceiling.

“They were so young. He had people watching their school. He knew their schedules. He knew Viv played soccer. He knew Lil was in gymnastics. He said he’d take them. He’d sell them,” he continued crying. “Sell them. Do you understand me? He. Would. Sell. My. Girls.”

I wasn’t sure when I’d stood up. Or when I started backing away from him.

The room felt like it was shrinking while I backed away. Like there was a black fog closing in from the broken-down walls. Like the sun had disappeared entirely and was letting some plague of darkness take over. That nonexistent fog was somehow making it harder to breathe too.

Utah’s chest appeared in front of me after what felt like nearly two hours in that void.

I shook my head as hard as I could.

“Angel?”

I pushed him out of the way and rushed right back to the detective.

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