Guilty 4

She tried not to scream. If she did, he'd hit her. Again. Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd just laugh instead. She didn't know which one hurt more.
She'd lie in bed for hours, unable to sleep, just waiting for the too-familiar sound of her bedroom door opening. . . .
"Wake up Vinn," Coeur's husky voice grated across her senses. Her heart was racing. How many times had she told herself to lie still, then it'd be over that much sooner? But she couldn't. She had to fight him! She had to make him stop!!
He had the rope in his hands; he always came prepared. Her bound wrists and ankles always bled. He always pulled the knots too hard. The more he hurt her, the more likely it was she'd keep her mouth shut.
She struggled and writhed. She tried to throw him off, but she couldn't. She never could. And all the while he hit her.
Biting her tongue, she forced herself not to make a sound as he pounded against her, The tears stung the cuts on her face. She closed her eyes hard, so she wouldn't have to see the gloating, malicious smirk. But she couldn't stop herself from feeling. She could never stop herself from feeling. Every foul thrust was engraved on her memory.
She knew it'd be over soon. It was getting faster.
He collapsed on top of her, knocking the breath from her bruised lungs.

Angevin bolted upright. Her breath was coming in ragged bursts. Looking around, she caught sight of her room. Her empty room. She could feel herself shaking.
Trying to calm down, she told herself that Coeur was away, he couldn't hurt her when he was accepting the honours in another youth citizenship contest. In Oklahoma City. He couldn't possibly sneak into her room tonight.
But he was coming back tomorrow. Tomorrow he could. And most likely would. With trembling fingers, she reached down and opened the bottom drawer of her bedside table. The glass neck of the vodka bottle was cold. Here was a friend. This bottle could help her sleep soundly, help banish the nightmare that too often was reality. Maybe one day she's find the courage to break it over her brother's head, before his rotten hands could touch her again. After all, that's what she'd stolen it for.

Zac knocked on the door. Vinn had called him that morning – 7:30am, on the dot – pleading with him to come over. It'd surprised him a little; Vinn had always been the one to come to him. He thought it was because she was afraid her brother would find out she'd ratted on him. But then, she'd said Coeur was out of town. Probably getting another one of his goddamn awards.
He knocked again. Only God knew what his parents would think when they found the note he'd left on the dining-room table, telling them he'd gone out for a while. They thought he missed the speculative glances that happened to fall on him every time he got a phone call from Angevin. Worrying about him and the company he kept seemed to have become their favourite past-time. He was sick of the hints they dropped at the dinner table, almost as much as Ike and Taylor's bluntly spoken lectures that ‘just crept up' whenever they found time to rehearse.
‘I don't give a damn about who their friends are! Where the hell do they get off telling me who I can and can't be friends with?! But then, I'm sure mom and dad would love to know a little about some of the people Tay keeps company with! Ah, blackmail. Such a useful invention. Come on Vinn, answer the door!'
Right on cue, the door opened a crack, and heavily outlined eyes peeked out.
"Oh, it's you,"
"You thought it was Coeur?" she nodded. "Is he coming back today?" she nodded again. Vinn was never really that much inclined towards talking. This was the first time he'd seen her house. Not surprisingly, it was lavish. And it reeked of dysfunction.
"Why did you call?"
"I didn't want to be alone when he came back,"
"But won't your parents be coming back with him?"
"No. He told me all about it before he left. Probably thought I was too out of it to hear," the complete blankness in her voice spoke of a bitterness all it's own. "Mom and Dad are gonna stay an extra day in Oklahoma City. He'll have the house to himself,"
"Why didn't you just come over to my house then?"
"He'd come looking for me. I didn't want to cause a scene," he nodded understanding. His parents would have freaked.

Tipping the rest of her mostly untouched coffe down the sink, she walked outside, seemingly uncaring whether he followed her or not. But then, she knew he would, so why worry?
"Would you help me with this?" she handed him a bucket and gestured for him to follow as she walked towards a rather sick-looking inground pool. The water was in the process of turning from a spew green – complete with leaves, branches and grasshoppers that looked like bits of undigested food – to a swampy brown. And it smelt worse than it looked.
"I'm guessing you don't use this too often?"
"No, we don't," taking the bucket from him, she poured a whole bottle of hydrochloric acid into it and set it down beside the blue fibreglass edge.
"You drew the short straw?"
"What?"
"You have to clean the pool,"
"Oh yeah, well nobody else is going to do it, are they?"
"You could always pay someone else to do it,"
"And waste precious money that could be spent on Coeur?"
"Why do they do that?"
"For the simple reason that Coeur's seemingly perfect and I'm not,"
"But he's not,"
"And you and I are the only people that know that,"
"You said he deals, what abo–"
"YOU STUPID BITCH!!!!" the enraged shout was followed by the backdoor slamming and Coeur's heavy footsteps running towards them. He'd heard every word of his sister's ‘betrayal'.
Angevin screamed.
What followed was a mindless blur to all of them. Both Zac were knocked hard back against the fence. Coeur had Angevin by the neck. There was blood everywhere. Zac had the bucket in his hands. . . .
The blazing pain that was devouring the flesh of his arm brought him back to lucidity long enough to hear Angevin's pain-maddened screams as the acid ate away the skin from her body before he passed out.

He hadn't meant to hit Vinn. He'd meant to hit Coeur, but the bastard had ducked. Yes bastard. Did they know just what a bastard he was?
The jury had laughed outright.
The prosecutor had verbally torn him to pieces as efficiently as the acid had Vinn. Her face had been damaged beyond recognition, her arms and legs stripped down to the bone, her internal organs half-eaten away. She hadn't last the trip to the hospital.
Ironically, it was Coeur who'd escaped any real damage, and had been able to fake hysteria as convincingly as to fool the paramedics, the police and now the jury. The fabricated story was quite plausible actually. Coeur had come home from Oklahoma City to see Zac trying to rape his sister. He tried to stop him, but the boy had grabbed the bucket of acid and dowsed the girl before Coeur could get to them.
"I knocked him away from Vinn and some of the acid spilled on his arm. He hit the fence and he passed out. That's when I was able to call 911 for an ambulance," the bastard'd had a lot of practise at lying before, and it stood him in good stead. He had the ‘traumatised- victim-trying-to-stay-composed' look down perfect.
Of course that'd just outraged Zac even further. Because of the heartless bastard currently lying through his teeth under oath, Vinn was dead and his arm was permanently crippled. Now the mother-fucking bastard was trying to put all the blame on him!! When he'd taken the witness box, he'd been furious. It hadn't helped.
He'd known it was hopeless. As soon as his defense lawyer had entered his plea, ‘not guilty on the grounds of temporary insanity', he'd known it was hopeless. He'd already heard the lawyer tell his parents the whole story.
"Please, Mr. Gadarn, what's the best we can hope for?"
"At best, he'll be acquitted Mrs. Hanson,"
"And worst?"
"Guilty of second degree murder,"
"Mr. Gadarn, what do you think he'll get?"
"My guess, Mr. Hanson, if we enter a ‘not guilty on the grounds of temporary insanity' plea, the charge will probably be reduced to manslaughter and he'll have to spend a period of time in therapy,"

After the initial hearings, the case had been adjourned for a week. As it turned out, the jury hadn't really needed to hear any more.
When the police had come to get the boy for the continuation of the trial, they'd found him calmly sitting on his mattress, arms wrapped around his drawn up knees, smiling quietly to himself. Any question they'd asked had been answered with a nod.

As predicted by his defense lawyer, Mr. Gadarn, Zachary Walker Hanson was found guilty of manslaughter. He was sentenced to five years in the confines of a psychiatric hospital. Any further showings of violence would result in an extended sentence in the confines of a prison ward for the criminally insane.
Upon hearing his fate, Zac had nodded at the judge, and smiled.


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