How to Kill a Man in Thirty Seconds

Chapter 54: Justice

I drew back, disbelief and horror filling me. Tommen Miller. Mason's father? Oh no, Adrian. You didn't. Adrian swallowed harshly, "He was my swimming teacher, at the classes my father paid for. I thought I knew him. He was kind to me. He'd applaud me on days I did well, and on days my body was too beat up to do anything but stay afloat, he would applaud me still. He was a good teacher, wise and commanding." Sadness filled Adrian's eyes once more, "I felt safe around him. Safe from my father. So, I... took a leap of faith, I guess. I waited until all the other kids had left one day, and I told him."

The air caught in my throat, "But you said you saw Tommen Miller beating up a child."

Guilt flashed in Adrian's eyes and his head shook, "I lied, Charley. I'm sorry. I didn't see Miller beating up anyone. I was the child... And he didn't just beat me up."

Adrian's gaze dropped in shame, and his hand tightened helplessly on mine, "Turned out, he was a friend of my father's."

My eyes widened.

"That was why my father had picked out Miller to teach me. Because they were good friends," Adrian swallowed with difficulty. "Friends... have like interests," Adrian finished.

"He didn't," the words were a mere whisper, more a plea than anything else.

"These people, they're more connected than you'd think they are," Adrian paused, and for a moment, he looked like he was struggling. "He took me in the pool that day. There was no one to stop it. As always."

Silence fell. We were both too lost in our own thoughts to speak, too immersed in the clusterfuck of emotions we were feeling to be able to configure them into words.

"I remember," Adrian's voice was soft, barely audible, "I remember how he yanked me by the hair and shoved me against the wall. I was small, really skinny. They always used that to their advantage. I couldn't move a muscle, let alone push him off me..."

He trembled, "Sometimes, when I'm asleep, I can still hear the sound of his breathing against my ear. I hear him moaning; he didn't try to hold them in. They'd turned into all but shouts of pleasure, by the time he was done with me." Adrian's voice cracked helplessly, and he began crying once more, the tears falling from his eyes in endless streams as his face flooded with pain and fear, "Sometimes, I see only him. Sometimes, I see only my father. But on particularly bad nights," Adrian shivered as if a chill had overtaken him, "I see them both. Raping me, together. Their moaning, mixing together."

I remembered then. The bags Adrian had always had beneath his eyes. The constant exhaustion that lined his face. As if he hadn't slept all night.

I remembered the panic attack that had hit him the moment he waded into the pool that day, the struggle he'd gone to avoid that class in the first place.

Even the discomfort he'd shown when we'd stopped by the lake on our way home.

I recalled the way Adrian had lashed out at me, that night when I had stood up for him against Rory and his cronies. The frustration that had tainted his voice when he'd screamed that I was too small to protect him, and the anger that had filled his eyes when he had spat out what he thought the true intentions for my kindness were. Stop trying to cozy up to me just to get in my pants, he'd said.

The recollection made my hair stand on end. I had assumed Adrian was crazy, arrogant beyond comprehension when in reality, it had been quite the opposite.

I remembered the deep frown that had crossed Adrian's face when he had spotted Isaac staring at me that day in class, how his eyes had widened like saucers and he'd panicked when he'd realized something was wrong. How he'd forgotten about our rift in an instant and instead insisted I notify the school. And then resorted to casting Isaac one final withering stare in a desperate attempt to stop the teacher.