“Thank you,” Sara said.
Nguyen washed her hands and pulled a pair of latex gloves from the box on the counter. “First, I need an oral swab.”
She approached Sara, carrying a cotton swab and a petri dish she had taken from the cabinet above the sink. Sara opened her mouth to receive the cotton swab, bracing herself for physical contact. Nguyen took several swipes against the inside of her cheek, and then the process was over.
Nguyen placed the petri dish on a tray, labeled it, and then walked back over to the sink to wash her hands and change her gloves. “Now I have to examine your genitals. I’ll have to touch them. Is that okay? You can say no at anytime.”
Sara wanted to say no, but she said yes. She didn’t want to wake up one morning and find warts or sores all over her body. If Jason had given her something, she wanted to know. She started when she felt a cotton swab graze her labia; she had fallen so deeply in thought that Nyguen was able to catch her off guard.
“Sorry,” Nguyen said.
“It’s okay.”
She winced as a cotton swab slid inside her. It made her mind travel back to when she’d had her rape examination.
“Your genitals have some pretty serious abrasions.”
“That’s not because of the assault. That’s because of something else.” Sara pulled her gown down and clambered out of the stirrups. She had forgotten how damaged her skin had become since she had begun her new shower regimen, having acclimated to the stinging sensations.
Nguyen gave her a look of sympathy and a warm smile. She was probably only patronizing Sara, the way Nurse Linda and Officer Barrett had at the hospital and the way Detective Cassidy had at the police station.
“Are we finished with this part of the examination?” Sara’s eyes darted nervously around the room. She had gotten better at making eye contact with people, but it was weird to do so with someone who had only moments ago been inside her.
“Have you had any warts, bumps, or sores show up since your attack?”
Sara shook her head no.
“Any itching or pain?
She shook her head again to indicate no.
“What about any unusual discharges?”
Another negative head shake.
“Then we can move on.” She took another petri dish over to the tray, labeled it, and then headed back over to the sink to wash her hands and change her gloves again.
“Okay, now we need to get a blood sample.”
Nguyen had Sara sit in a chair by the door and make a fist. The needle pierced her skin, and the syringe attached to it began to fill up. Nguyen placed the container of Sara’s blood on the tray after it was full and labeled it.
Ngyuen washed her hands and changed her gloves once more. She reached into the cabinet and removed a small plastic container. She turned to Sara and handed it to her. “Fill this, please. The last thing that we need to get is a urine sample. There’s a bathroom on the other side of that door.” She pointed at a door on the other side of the room.
Sara knew this was coming, and she had drunk plenty of water in preparation for it, although some of the water had already left her body while she had been waiting for her appointment. She crossed the room and went into the bathroom. She squatted over the toilet, positioning the cup underneath her, and began to urinate. She set the cup on top of the toilet after she finished and then moved over to the sink to wash her hands. She flushed the toilet with a piece of tissue and then grabbed two sheets of paper towel: one to wipe any spillage off the container (so gross!) and the other to hold the container with.
Nguyen took the container from her when she came back out, attached a label to it, and set it on the tray. “There. All done.” She removed her gloves and washed her hands for the last time. “We should have your results for you in a couple of weeks. I’ll leave you to get dressed.” She grabbed the tray and walked out.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
For the rest of the week, Sara was back to her old self: she started focusing on her art and schoolwork again, and she was thinking about getting back into tutoring as well.
But the following week, when the big day came, she was as big of a wreck as she had been after the rape: She tried to focus in school, but couldn’t concentrate during any of her classes. She stopped by the shooting range for one last practice session before she carried out her endgame, but her shoulders tensed up and her hands shuddered, resulting in her shots landing all over the place. When she made it home from the shooting range, there was a bill from the hospital for the rape examination. She put it in the shredder, so her father wouldn’t get a chance to see it, and then she put the shreds in a trash bag and threw it in the trash container—just in case her father was the next one to empty the shredder and was still able to make out the bill (she knew she was being paranoid, but she couldn’t help it).
Hours later, while getting ready for the big event, she couldn’t decide which black outfit was the best to kill Jason in: her black turtleneck sweater and a black pair of jeans, her black long-sleeved crew-neck T-shirt and black cargo pants, or her black tracksuit. She decided on the tracksuit. It would be easier to move in. She also put on her black balaclava that she had bought from Harold’s for the occasion; a hooded black jacket for further camouflage; and a pair of black gloves to avoid leaving any fingerprints on the gun she planned to use.
She sneaked down to the basement to take one of her father’s guns from the case. Her hands were so unsteady that she dropped the Glock twenty-six, nine-millimeter pistol as she attempted to slide it into one of her jacket pockets. She froze for several seconds, afraid that her father might have heard the commotion (she had told him that she felt tired and was going to bed early). Once she felt the coast was clear, she picked the gun up off the floor, hid it in one of her jacket pockets, and then skulked out the back door. Sara looked at her phone: she had about an hour to get to the park before Jason made it home.
Sara arrived at the deserted park at seven fifty and ensconced herself behind a group of trees directly across from Jason’s house. She shivered slightly, the bitter air making her regret not taking her car. Luckily, there hadn’t been a drop of snow this year, so she’d leave no footprints when she made her getaway. She wouldn’t have minded having snow, though, if it didn’t interfere with her plans. The park, clean and beautiful, would have looked like a giant snow globe. Sara made a mental note to add a painting of a snow globe with people dying inside it from frostbite to her portfolio.
Jason still hadn’t made it home by eight thirty. Knowing him, he probably stopped by one of his bimbos’ places for a quickie. Oh well. Better to be too early than to be too late and miss her shot.
The anxiety Sara had felt about murdering Jason had died down. Now Sara didn’t feel anything, other than chilly, and foolish for her sweat earlier. She looked at her phone: it was now 8:35. She hoped Jason showed up soon; otherwise, they might find her body out here instead of his, it was so cold. At least she wasn’t sweating. She thought about playing Call of Duty: Zombies on her phone to pass the time, but if she did that, her hands would become so cold that they’d burn.
Jason did not arrive until a few minutes past nine. Sara’s anxiety level rose back to the top once she saw him. This was it. This was the moment she had been waiting for. She yanked her hands from her pants pockets, clumsily drew her gun from her jacket pocket, aimed it at the back of Jason’s head as soon as he stepped out of his car, and reminded herself to keep her hands steady . . .
She put her quivering finger on the trigger . . .
(She considered not going through with it: it was one thing to put a bullet through a headshot; it was quite another to do it to an actual human being. If she pulled the trigger, if she killed Jason, she wouldn’t be able to fix it. She wouldn’t be able to take it back.
Then she recalled what Detective Cassidy had said to her: Well, don’t take this personally, Ms. Krason, but he looks the way he looks, and you look the way you look, and we just don’t thi
nk a jury would believe you. I’m sorry.
Then she flashed back to the humiliating rape examination.
Then to the actual rape.
Then to the party, where she had found out about the bet.)
And she fired!
But her hands trembled even more than they had at the shooting range; they wavered even more than they had in the basement, and she ended up missing Jason by a country mile, inadvertently alerting him to a menacing presence.
Jason spun in every direction, looking for his hidden assassin. He dashed toward his front door.
Afraid that she would lose her only chance at justice, Sara started firing wildly in Jason’s direction. She managed to get lucky, planting two bullets in him: one in his lower back and the other in the back of his neck. He yelped like a cornered puppy as he collapsed on the steps of his porch.
Sara, in shock at what she had done, stood there, immobile, until she saw people coming to their front doors to investigate (Silencer! I forgot the silencer!). She ran away from the scene of the crime as though she were an escaped slave fleeing a plantation. She dumped her father’s gun in a small creek in the park and then headed home.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
She didn’t feel any different.
Sara came in through the back door, quiet as a mouse, and stole up to her bedroom. She took her clothes off and threw them in a trash bag, planning to dump them tomorrow on the way to school. They might have gunpowder residue on them, and she wanted to be safe, not sorry, if anyone tried to accuse her of Jason’s murder. It would be funny, though, if the authorities tried and convicted her for Jason’s murder when the only reason she had killed him was because they had declined to try and convict him for her rape.
She had thought that she would feel different after killing Jason: happier, lighter, back to her old self. But she didn’t. At all. She slid into her bathroom to take a shower. Perhaps she was still in shock (the noise Jason had made when she’d shot him had made her a little queasy, and it had been kind of unsettling to see the look of fear in his eyes when he’d been looking around for the person shooting at him): killing someone—even a lowlife piece of shit like Jason, who had deserved it—probably took awhile to come to terms with. Once she did, her suffering would end, and she’d feel happy she had gotten her vengeance.
The next day, the entire school was abuzz with news of Jason’s murder. The principal announced it over the PA system during first period, but everyone in school had already known about Jason’s demise, thanks to social media. People were scandalized by his murder (Right in front of his own home, and so close to Christmas, too, was a common thread in the conversations). Sara couldn’t believe the plethora of ridiculous reasons people came up with for why someone would want to kill Jason:
“Maybe he was in a gang. A lot of football players are,” some guy said.
(Well, Jason and his friends were dumb and violent, and they did travel in packs and wear certain colors, but they were too soft to be true gang members.)
“Maybe one of the other football teams did it. City hates us ’cause we’ve been owning them ever since Jason became the starting quarterback.”
(Footballers—they thought everything revolved around them and their precious, little pigskin.)
“It was probably steroids or some shit like that. He was always acting like a rabid animal. Maybe someone was giving him some new steroids that are illegal in the states, like from China or some place like that, and he got killed ’cause he wouldn’t pay up or Tallis wouldn’t pay up or some shit. Athletes are always getting special treatment.”
(Sara chortled at how stupid this one was. She would never understand how Michael Adams had gotten elected class president. He was such a crackpot, with all his conspiracy theories and fight the power! rhetoric. He was right about athletes getting special treatment though.)
“Maybe he pissed off the wrong girl. Or her boyfriend. Didn’t he and Emily break up ’cause she got tired of his cheating?”
(Amy Reed was closer to the truth than Sara liked, but Sara remained calm and acted as she usually did. It was highly unlikely any of these fools would believe she was the girl in question anyway. Who would ever suspect Mr. Do it Pruitt of pissing off the ugly, fat girl? In that way?)
Much to her displeasure, Sara saw there was as much mourning and grief over Jason’s death as there was gossip and speculation:
“He was such a great guy.”
(He had been an asshole and a rapist, but Andy Abbott was an asshole himself, and a follower, so it was no surprise he was blind to Jason’s true nature.)
“He was, like, a really nice guy. He gave me a ride home one day when it was raining. He was so nice and sweet.”
(Yeah, he had given her a ride all right. If Kimberly Weitsel weren’t such a stupid slut, who easily gave it up for any guy with a nice car, he would’ve raped her too.)
“Man, that was my homie. He was such a cool-ass guy. He was mad smart and funny. Great sense of humor, too. I’m gonna miss J.”
(Oh, please. Jason hadn’t even known who Salvador Dalí was, but it was hardly a bombshell Eric Moxley thought Jason had been smart, given that Eric himself was one of the biggest dumbasses she had ever met. And as for Jason’s sense of humor: He had thought Superbad was the funniest movie ever. Enough said.)
“This is so sad. My mind feels broken. Jason and me might not have worked out, but I still loved him, and he didn’t deserve to die like a dog.”
(On the contrary, he had deserved that and a whole lot more, but of course a weak-willed slut like Emily Bulstride would think differently. No wonder she and Kimberly were always hanging out. Sluts in tight pleather spread together.)
“This is so crazy! I was just with him last night, and now he’s gone. I miss him already.”
(Sara had known the reason Jason had kept her waiting had been because he’d been with some bimbo.)
“This is such a terrible loss. He was a great quarterback. Could’ve been the next Tom Brady, the next Joe Montana. We’ll do our best to win our last game for him.”
(Okay, this one was probably true, although Sara bet she could disprove Coach Logan’s eulogy as well if she had been knowledgeable about football.)
All the mourning and outpouring of love for Jason turned Sara’s stomach. She thought it said a lot about the world—or at least the people in her town—that everybody loved and cared about Jason, and was hurting over his death despite him having been a depraved bastard, who had gotten what he had deserved, and no one cared about her—except her father—or her assault despite her having done nothing to deserve her attack. His funeral would probably be even more of a love fest, with everyone within the tri-state area blathering on about the late, great Jason Pruitt. She had half a mind to crash the funeral and tell the idiots their golden boy wasn’t so golden. But she wouldn’t do that, not out of respect for Jason or any of his fatuous mourners but because that would cast suspicion toward her.
Sara found two men in suits on her doorstep after school. She tensed up as they approached her. She knew they were detectives.
“Ms. Krason?” one of them asked.
Sara nodded.
“We need to speak with you regarding the murder of Jason Pruitt. He was the one who allegedly—”
“No! Not allegedly! He was the one who raped me!” Sara felt like the world’s biggest idiot. Her outburst would only make her look guilty, but she was sick of the police saying Jason allegedly raped her when they knew the truth. They knew! They just didn’t care.
“Maybe it’s best if we speak about this inside?” he suggested.
Sara nodded in agreement. Her father wouldn’t be home for at least another three hours, so she didn’t mind. She unlocked the door and offered them a seat on the couch. She sat across from them on the love seat.
“You spoke to one of my colleagues about a month ago, and he said you very disgruntled about the way your case was handled.”
“Well, who wouldn’t be? I was told m
y case was dropped because I’m fat and ugly. But that doesn’t mean that I killed him.”
“Well, you certainly have the means,” the other detective said. They were ganging up on her, putting pressure on her so she’d crack. “Your father owns several gun ranges, and he’s also an avid gun collector. Where were you last night at about nine?”
“I was at home, in bed.”
“At nine o’clock? That’s awfully early for a girl your age.”
“It had been a long day, and I wasn’t feeling well. And it was also a school night.”
“Can anyone verify that you were at home and in bed at nine yesterday evening?” the first detective asked.
“My father, but he doesn’t know what happened to me, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“And there’s no way you could’ve snuck out?”
“I want you to leave.”
“Why? Are we making you nervous, Ms. Krason? I see that you are sweating.”
The detective was right: she was sweating (she didn’t usually sweat at home—she kept the temperature low enough so that it wouldn’t be a problem—or around this time of year) because she was nervous, but she kept her poker face on. “I want you to leave because I’m a minor being treated like a suspect without a lawyer or parent present.” Sara locked eyes with the detective. She could tell by his facial expression that he knew he and his partner had lost this round.
“Well, we’d appreciate it, Ms. Krason, if you’d come down to the police station with your father and lawyer, not that you need one, for a more in-depth interview.”
“I’ll consider it,” Sara said, walking them to the door, her heartbeat returning to normal after they left.
Two hours later, her heartbeat accelerated again: she was in her room, on the Internet, when she heard the front door unlock. It could only be her father, but he wasn’t due home for at least another hour. She came downstairs to greet him. “You’re home a little early.” His face was a mixture of angry and concerned. Sara gulped. She knew that look. She was in trouble. What for, that was the million dollar question. “Something wrong, Dad?”
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