“Kelly! Kelly!” I hear him call to my stepmom. “Isis got into Stanford!”

“Stanford!” Kelly’s saccharine voice pierces through the phone. “Quick, give me the phone.”

I suck in a breath and brace myself for the inevitable showdown.

“Isis!” Kelly exclaims.

“Kelly!” I imitate. “It’s so nice to talk to you again. Once every two years isn’t enough.”

“I agree! Stanford…wow. That’s incredible. I hope Charlotte and Marissa can be as smart as you when they get older.”

“They can try,” I say sweetly. She laughs, but under that laugh is the obvious – we dislike each other. We’ve just never said it out loud.

“You should really come visit us this summer,” Kelly presses. “Your father and I are taking the kids –” She puts emphasis on kids, rubbing it in my face that I’m not included in that category. “- to Hawaii. We should all go together before you head off.”

“Aw, but I like you so much more when you are a generally enormous distance away from me.”

She laughs, short and biting. “Well, I’ll give the phone back to your father now. Congratulations again!”

Dad comes back on. “So, what’s the plan? Do we fill out the FAFSA? I’m coming to your graduation – I could drive you down there. A road trip, for just you and me! How would you like that?”

I smile at the floor. Yeah. That’d be great. If I was five years old. He’s trying to make up for lost time. It’s so obvious, and so ridiculous. I’m not a kid anymore. He missed out on his chance to raise me. At least Mom tried, even if it was at the very end of my time as a kid.

“I dunno, Dad. I’ll think about it.”

“Okay! Keep up the good grades, and we’ll talk more about it later. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

The words are hollow. But that’s okay. Most things are, these days.

Mom bustles around the kitchen making a celebratory dinner. She’s forcing herself to be happy for me, but I know something’s wrong, and it’s not just the looming trial this time. She’s so wrapped up in her BLT making I can’t get a serious answer out of her, so I go upstairs and turn on my laptop and stare at pictures of Stanford. I do more research; there are amazing overseas programs. England, France, Italy, Belgium. The campus is something straight out of a magazine – perfect green lawns and white-washed buildings and the California sunshine turning everything golden. Their math program is incredible, with really famous professors I’d only read about in scientific journals. Not that I read that nerd shit. I just, uh, look at them while I’m pooping.

But still.

It’s everything I’ve never known I wanted.

I rifle though my email, to thank them for my scholarship, and to tell Evans, and pause at one particular message. It’s new – sent just four hours ago, from a weird address. At first I think it’s spam, but then I read the title;

Isis, I know you’re there

Creepy-possible-serial-killer title aside, I click on it. What’s the worst that could happen? My firewalls are tight, and if it’s a phishing email I just won’t click on anything inside it. There’s a single line in the body;

Jack Hunter is evil.

It’s a joke. It has to be a crappy joke email from someone at school. I’ve heard these exact words from people at school – but in an email like this, it’s creepy. It’s somehow more threatening, and real. I try to trace the email by putting it in Google, but nothing comes up. It’s a jumble of letters and numbers that might as well be a spambot, but it’s not. It’s someone who knows my name, and someone who thinks Jack Hunter is evil. I’m conflicted about him for sure, but I don’t think he’s evil. He’s cruel, and callous. But evil? Really, truly evil? That’s going a little far.

And that’s when I see it.

There’s an image attached to the email.

I open it. It’s blurry, but I see trees, and the pine needles covering the ground. I see the dark lump that looks like it has limbs (a person?) lying on the ground, and I see the hand carrying a bat in the corner. A bat stained with something dark on the tip.

My mouth goes dry. I know that hand. Memories surge up like a rapid tide. I grabbed that hand, with its slight veins and long fingers. I held it, both of us sitting on a bed, and I confessed something. Something that meant a lot to me. Thumping music. The taste of booze. Dancing. A bed.

I know whose hand is holding that stained baseball bat.

It’s Jack’s.

Jack is looming over what looks like a dead body.

-5-

3 Years

26 Weeks

5 Days

Welcome to Hell. Population; me, some idiots, and my mother.

Justice is basically a costumed farce. You learn that when you’re three and your parents tell you sharing is caring when quite clearly sharing is terrible, and there is no caring at all involved because no matter how loud you cry no one seems to have sympathy for you and your doll which must not touch anybody else’s hands because everybody else is grimy and dumb.

A courthouse is essentially the same principal; a bunch of stuck-up, weary adults telling each other to share and care. With the added bonus of jailtime.

I sigh and re-button my hideous white blouse all the way up to my chin. At least Mom let me keep my jeans. I can’t morally support her when my butt is hanging out of tight black slacks for the world to see. I try to fix my hair – some big bun Mom made for me, but Kayla slaps my hands away.

“Stop it. You look good. For once.”

I smirk and look over at her. She sits beside me in the courtroom, a similar white blouse barely restraining her considerable chest. She wears a skirt and pearl earrings and actual pearls and looks totally the part of First Lady. If the First Lady was seventeen and Latina. The court isn’t exactly what I pictured – I was expecting CSI levels of crowded rooms and scowling judges and apprehensive jurors. But instead I get a room that looks straight out of the 80’s – weird geometric-patterned carpets and a flickering fluorescent bulb in one corner and a judge who looks like a smiley grandma with purpleish hair and bright red nails. The jury doesn’t even look serious – they talk and laugh among themselves. Mom sits two rows in front of us, her lawyer at her side. Leo, the scumbag, sits at the left table, his lawyer whispering to him. He’s got a cast on his arm and a bandaged nose.

“Ass,” I whisper to Kayla. “Leo’s nose is fine. He’s just wearing it for show.”

She sneers. “He’s so nasty. I hope he gets all that nasty delivered right back at him! Via FedEx! Express shipping!”

I keep my eyes on Mom as people filter in. I slept on the air mattress by her bed last night, because she wouldn’t stop crying. After the Stanford hullabaloo deflated, all that was left was a sad remnant of reality. Her shoulders are shaking under her two-piece suit, but she keeps her head high.

“Is Jack coming?” Kayla asks. I nod.

“Yeah. Why?”

She shrugs. “Just…it might be hard for you. You know.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Kayla’s quiet, before she says; “It was hard for him, too.”

“What? Who?”