Page 80 of Lights Out

“Haha,” Josh said humorlessly.

I gave him a blank look.

His eyes flashed wide. “Jesus Christ, Aly.”

I winked to let him know I was kidding – kind of – and faced the road again.

He shifted beside me, sitting fully upright in his seat. “I can’t believe I just murdered someone.”

I held up a finger. “Technically, I think what you did classifies as involuntary manslaughter.”

“Oh, good. That makes me feel much better.”

“It should,” I said.

“Why’s that?”

I shot him a wink. “Less jail time.”

“How are you so calm about all this?” he asked.

“Because death is nothing new to me,” I said. “I see it on a weekly basis. Mostly, it’s good people who pass way before their time due to illness or injury. So much of the loss I witness is senseless and tragic, leaving far too many heartbroken family members in its wake. It’s nice to see someone like Brad get what they deserve for once. I doubt even his parents will mourn him.”

Josh was quiet in response, and I glanced over to see him staring out at the passing snowscape as he processed my words.

God, the man was beautiful. His profile in the dashboard light was a thing to behold. It made me wonder why he’d ever want to cover his face with a mask.

I’d seen shitty people in his comments say things about how men like him were all butterfaces, and that’s why they wore masks, but that wasn’t true of Josh, and I’d watched enough face-reveal videos from other creators to know those commenters were wrong. So what drove the masktokers to it? Was it the anonymity? The opportunity to don an alter-ego like a second skin and become someone else entirely?

That felt oddly fitting for Josh. He was like a soft dom – sweet in the streets and mean in the sheets. But, like, mean in thebestway. Bossy and demanding and relentless, and oh, no, I was getting turned on within five feet of a fresh corpse.

I jerked my gaze back to the road. That cemented it. I’d officially become so numb that not even the body of a dead rapist affected me like it should.

I snuck one last glance at the passenger seat. Or maybe Josh was so handsome that the laws of morality broke in his presence.

“The worst part about it is that I don’t even feel bad,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m freaked out that I killed someone, but beneath that, I don’t have any guilt over it. I’m more fucked up over not being fucked up if that makes sense.”

“It does,” I said as we approached a four-way stop. My map helpfully told me to turn right, so I threw my blinker on and followed the directions as I mulled over a more detailed response. “I think most people would feel the same way in your shoes. Death in and of itself is terrifying. The first time I watched someone pass, I stepped into the hall afterward and puked all over the floor. I’ve watched other new nurses pass out. Your response is pretty normal. As for not feeling bad, why would you?”

He turned toward me. “Because I took a human life.”

I shook my head. “That’s societal pressure. You’ve been taught that killing is wrong and only monsters do it, but that’s not right. People kill for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes, it’s in the heat of the moment, and they spend the rest of their lives regretting what they’ve done. Other times, it’s out of desperation, like a woman killing her abuser because she knows that if she doesn’t, she’ll end up dead instead. And then there are accidents like what happened tonight. I’m honestly relieved we did it ourselves. Part of me was panicking over the thought of those people calling the cops instead of taking care of Brad on their own.”

I reached out and gripped Josh’s knee. “Just keep reminding yourself that it was an accident, and making one mistake doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Especially when the result is removing a rapist and potential murderer from this earth. Between his family money and his obvious escalation, he would have gone on to target someone else if we didn't stop him. Who knows how many lives we might have saved by taking his?”

Josh shifted, his leg flexing beneath my palm. “You keep saying we, but I was the one who did it.”

“Yeah, but I’m just as complicit,” I said. “Maybe I didn’t put the duct tape over Brad’s mouth, but I went into this planning for him to end up dead, one way or another.”

Josh slipped his hand beneath mine and threaded our fingers together. “Thank you for saying all that. It helps.”

“You’re welcome. And I hope you know I’m not blowing smoke up your ass. I truly believe we made the world better by removing Brad from it. I know vigilante justice is problematic as fuck, but sometimes I think it’s necessary, especially when the system put in place to deal with men like Brad fails because it's susceptible to loopholes.”

“Don’t forget bribery,” Josh said. “Brad gave off plenty of warning signs that went ignored, including peeping through windows, animal cruelty, and sexual harassment. All as a teenager. I read a quote from a judge who let him off without so much as probation after he got drunk his senior year of high school and drove his car into the house of a classmate who’d turned him down. It was, “He’s a bright young man with his whole future ahead of him. It’d be terrible to ruin it over something like this.” The judge was a golf buddy of Brad’s father.”

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