Page 70 of Submission

“What the fuck happened?” I remember he asked all three of us. “Who’s this bleeding out on my floor?”

“Megan’s boyfriend,” Veronica said cooly. “He tried to hurt Rachel.”

“That’s a lie!” I remember screaming. “She stabbed him for no reason. Tell him, Rachel!”

“I will never forget what happened next. Without even flinching, Samuel grabbed the knife out of Rachel’s hand, wiped the handle on his jeans, placed it in my hand, and told me to finish the job, or he’ll kill me.”

Tears are rolling down her cheeks, and she’s talking fast, forcing the words out as if she’s desperate to get it over with.

“Megan–”

“I begged them to let me send him to the hospital, but Samuel smacked me hard with an open palm and told me he’d stab me with the same knife if I didn’t do it. He said he wasn't going to let his favorite daughter go to jail, that he’d like nothing more than to be done with a whore like me, and that all I ever did was to cause him problems.”

This is not the direction I thought this story would go. While I remember the asshole referring to some supposed murderMegan committed, I never gave the reality of that any real consideration. Now I see, I underestimated just how evil that man really is.

“I believed him, Hunter. I believed that he was looking for an excuse to be rid of me once and for all, and I wasn’t ready to die, so I pushed the knife into Peter’s stomach as he lay dying, hoping that I was finally ending his pain.”

I push my face into the top of her head and close my eyes. I can’t believe my Megan had to endure such a horrific event. I hate that I can’t turn back time and fix this for her. Fuck, I hate how powerless I feel right now.

“Is there any more?” I ask softly.

“And then I saw the flash as Veronica took pictures of me stabbing him with her phone. And–“

Her voice is faint, and I say firmly, “Finish it. Get it out.”

“Someone in the house behind us heard the screams, knocked on our door, and told us they called the police. This is where things get blurry. I’m not sure if I’m remembering things the way or in the order they happened.”

“You were in shock at that point. That’s perfectly normal. What do you think happened?”

“Rachel and my father trashed the place, and I think Veronica was the one who forced me to wash my hands. I don’t know why they didn’t turn me in. Probably because they changed their mind and thought that I might tell the whole truth to the police. I’m not sure.”

“So Samuel said it was a robbery?”

“Peter was still alive when the ambulance came, and the police believed Samuel’s ridiculous story about us inadvertently being in the middle of a drug deal gone bad.”

“Drug deal?”

“Peter was a teenage boy from the wrong side of our nowhere town. It was easy for Samuel to weave a lie about his daughter getting mixed up with the wrong kind of kid.”

“Understood.”

“For appearances, Veronica took me to the hospital. We waited for four hours in the waiting room, but Peter died of blood loss and fatal injuries. She kept whispering in my ear that whole time that I was responsible. That I killed him. And then something in me broke. I walked out of that hospital waiting area that night with a plan to never come back.”

“So, how did we get from that night to where we are today?”

“Samuel found me six months later. He showed up at my job, making a scene and getting me fired. At first, he threatened to drag me back home, but then he decided it was even better if I stayed away but paid him for the privilege.“

“And why would you ever agree to that?”

“Because of the pictures,” she whispers.

“Fuckkkk,” I mutter. “The pictures.”

Megan’s head falls back against my chest, and she feels almost weak.

“But I deserve to be blackmailed by those monsters. I killed my boyfriend, an innocent boy. His family doesn't even know the truth about what happened to him. I deserve worse,” she laments.

"Yet somehow you got me."

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