Winning His War

25

Jem's POV

The guilt from killing Crain still felt like it was smothering me I forced myself to not care about it anymore. Andrew and Patrick were getting suspicious and if that continued it would complicate things way too much.

So I pushed the guilt away.

Unlike Ash Dunham, Crain didn't get a shallow grave in a ditch in a random street. His body had been buried on my property, deep in the woods where no one would bother him except for me.

Other body surrounded him, all of them died because I had pushed things too far and I couldn't force myself to just throw them out like trash.

A small wooden cross was the only thing to mark his grave but it was enough to tell me exactly who he was and remind the exact reason why he was here and not still in the world thriving.

I shook my head from the thought as I forced myself to focus on Patrick again.

A few days ago when they forced me out to the lake and then the next morning with Patrick had reminded me that I had people watching me again. I couldn't let myself slip like that any more. Not until they left at least.

Since then, I had forced smiles again, I cooked and baked daily like they expected me to, I stuck to the schedule everyone knew I was delusional for following so religiously.

I could tell Dev and Barrett didn't buy the act for a second but so far they hadn't said a word to me about it and I was thankful for it.

Now the three of us sat in the living room as we eat dinner. The TV played in the background but none of us were really watching it. Our focus was on Patrick who was going over some traffic stop one of his officered had to deal with.

"So he gets up to the dude's window and the second the woman rolls it down, you can see the smoke just pouring out of the car. The second he smells it, Jameson knows it's weed and since it's illegal in our state, he tells her to step out of the car so he can arrest her. She does but when he tries to cuff her she starts grinding on him and cups his junk like she's about to get laid on the hood of car as if this was a sex video." Andrew's eyes go wide as if it were the wildest thing he had ever heard of.

"People actually grope officers? I thought that was fake."

"It happens more often than you would think," Patrick said with a bit of sadness in his voice.

"I swear I'd have to taze a bitch for that," I sighed as I put my plate on the coffee table.

"It's not as satisfying but she's getting charged with sexual misconduct of an officer along with possession. Thankfully we have the body cam footage so she won't be able to say he started hitting on her or anything."

"Because that's so much better," I said with a small eye roll but Patrick shrugs it off.

"Anything happen to you today," he asked Andrew now that he was done with his drama drop for the day.

"Not really. Had a few breakthroughs, changed some meds, the usual. Jem?"

"Sold some stuff, bought a few things, the usual," I teased as I smirked at him. He gave me a small glare as his eyes moved back to the TV.

The second his eyes left me the smirk was gone. I fought the urge to rub the sleep out of my eyes but I caved after a while and did it anyway.

It was becoming exhausting. I wanted nothing more than to be away from everyone and to let the fake attitude drop but the thought of Patrick and Andrew getting involved kept me planted on the couch.