Bad guy (REWRITTEN)

Chapter 22

The house felt smaller the second I stepped inside—like the walls had been waiting to close in. Dad's voice hit me before the door even clicked shut behind me.

"We have a lot to discuss, Anna"

I kept my eyes on the floorboards, shoulders hunched, and tried to slip past him toward the hallway. My sneakers squeaked once too loud. His hand shot out, fingers closing around my upper arm, not hard enough to bruise but firm enough to stop me cold.

"Did you not hear me? I'm speaking to you"

I turned slowly. His face was carved from stone jaw locked, eyes narrowed to slits. Mom stood a step behind him, arms crossed tight over her chest, lips pressed into a thin, disappointed line. The air between the three of us crackled with the same old electricity: disappointment, suspicion, the unspoken accusation that I was always one wrong choice away from ruining everything.

"I'm sorry" I started, voice small. "I was—"

"I've had enough of your apologies." His volume climbed half an octave. "Where the hell have you been?"

I couldn't meet his eyes. The lie formed on my tongue anyway, automatic, flimsy. "At a friend's. Helping with homework. I lost track of time. I'm sorry, Dad, I swear—"

"You think I believe that?" He took a step closer. I smelled the faint coffee on his breath. "You've been acting strange for months. Coming home at dawn with marks on your neck like someone's been chewing on you. Sneaking out. Lying. What's gotten into you?"

The bruises. Fuck. I'd forgotten to check them in the mirror this morning Billie's mouth had been thorough last night. Heat flooded my cheeks, burning up to my hairline. I opened my mouth, closed it. Nothing useful came out.

Behind my eyes flashed the living room floor: two bodies, blood spreading dark and glossy under the hallway light. Billie's boot on a man's chest. The way her eyes had gone flat and black when she looked at me afterward not angry at me, exactly, but furious at the universe for putting me anywhere near that violence.

I spun on my heel and bolted.

"Anna!"

His shout chased me down the hall. I slammed my bedroom door, twisted the lock, dropped my bag. My back hit the wood and I slid to the floor, knees pulled to my chest, trying to make myself small enough that the world couldn't find me.

Through the door I heard them turn on each other.

"You should've taught her better—"

"Oh, now it's my fault? You know how much she's suffered! She lost Emma—David—whatever the hell his name was—and you want to stand here acting like she's just being rebellious?"

The argument blurred into white noise. I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes until stars burst behind my lids. Emma's face flickered there anyway, laughing one second, gone the next. Brett's smug courtroom smile when his parents posted bail. Three years reduced to a signature and a check. The rage that had boiled in me back then was still there, banked but alive, feeding on every new wound.

My phone buzzed against my thigh.

I fished it out with numb fingers.

Billie: Im sorry for shouting at you. I was just worried n shit and didnt want anything bad to happen to you because of me. so please forgive me. call me or anything. Love

I stared at the words until they doubled. Love. She'd said it before whispered it against my throat while her fingers were inside me, growled it when she pinned me to the mattress—but seeing it typed out felt heavier. More real. More dangerous.

I set the phone face-down on the carpet and crawled onto the bed. The window framed a slice of night sky, sodium-orange from the streetlights. I lay on my back, arms loose at my sides, and let the thoughts come in waves.

Billie wasn't just some girl I was fucking around with anymore. She was with enemies who carried guns and grudges. She was willngly to kill two men in front of me without blinking. And I'd stood there, frozen, while she held it. Part of me wanted to run screaming. The other part—the louder, stupider part still remembered the way she'd kissed me in the closet like she was memorizing my mouth in case she never got another chance.

I didn't know how to fix this. Didn't know if it was fixable.

My fingers drifted to the side of my neck where the bruises still throbbed faintly. I pressed down until it hurt, grounding myself in the ache.

The phone buzzed again. I didn't look.

Instead I rolled onto my side, pulled the blanket over my head, and tried to breathe through the knot in my chest. Tomorrow I'd have to face my parents again. Tomorrow I'd have to decide whether I answered Billie's text or deleted the thread and pretended the last few months never happened.

But tonight—tonight I just let the tears come quietly, soaking into the pillowcase, until exhaustion finally dragged me under.

Somewhere in the dark, my phone lit up once more. I didn't reach for it.

Not yet.