Hide and Secret (Wattys2015)

(18) Taylor's POV

I lied to my mother, telling her that I just wanted to go out and get some coffee. In reality, I was planning to visit Zach from where he was being held in jail. I had some questions that I wanted to ask him.

Okay, I had a lot of questions.

After getting a visitor's pass from the secretary, I was escorted to where Zach was being held. I went down a long hallway, passing some prisoners on the way. They didn't make eye contact with me, keeping their gazes down towards the floor. I cautiously stared at them out of the corner of my eye.

"Taylor?"

I whirled around, and there was Zach himself. He was in an orange jumpsuit, and his wrists were tethered together with a chain. There were bags under his eyes, and he looked tired.

My gaze pierced into his soul, and he solomnly stared back. How could he boldly look me in the eye as if he did nothing to me? "Surprise," I said dryly, my voice void of any happiness. I wanted him to know that this wasn't a visit to check up on how he was doing. I crossed my arms and stared him down.

All Zach did was look back at me. There was a silence, until he sighed, biting his upper lip out of what appeared to be anxiety. "Why are you here, Taylor?"

I raised my eyebrows. "I have questions."

"Questions that I can't answer." Zach shot back, not a hint of amusement on his face.

It took all of my self-control not to punch his face in. Zach, a person I had once considered a friend, had betrayed me, made my life hell for ages. And now he had the audacity to act like he was too above me to give the answers that I wanted to hear. "Can't answer or won't answer? Because I think you're confusing the two."

Zach shook his head vigorously. "Taylor, I didn't do this. Someone framed me."

"You lying bastard!" I screeched, my voice raising. "You and I were the only ones who knew where that house was. And the evidence that it was you fell out of your freaking sweatshirt pocket!"

Zach raised his hands up towards me with his palms out. "Taylor, listen to me. I didn't do anything! You need to be careful, because whoever this psycho may be, they're still out there and they want to hurt you."

I heaved a shaky sigh, tears streaming down my face. "No, this psycho is staring at me right now in an orange jumpsuit. And if I wouldn't get a charge of murder for it, I'd kill you for all the crap you've put me through."

Zach looked at me carefully. "No, you wouldn't kill me." He stepped closer towards me, and I winced at how close he was to my face. "You can't kill me."

I locked eyes with him stonily. "What's that supposed to mean?" Was he a vampire now? Immortal, always living and tormenting me?

A creepy grin spread across his face as he scrutinized me further. I squirmed, feeling a flash of fury at the discomfort he caused me. "Taylor, you're not the murdering type. It takes a special person to kill, a psychopath, maybe. You're not that person."

"How do you know anything about me?" I snapped. "You ditched me after I changed. I'm a different person than the fat girl you used to eat candy with."

"Well, I liked the fat girl I used to eat candy with," Zach stated bluntly. "At least she wasn't scared of being herself. Unlike this new Taylor who was so desperate to fit into the pretty girl mold. I didn't realize that you could be that shallow."

Shallow? Me? The words hurt, feeling like a knife in the chest, twisting and piercing my organs until it was yanked out, covered in a vampire's delight. I swallowed the hurt and gave him a steely glare. "And whose fault was that? When they tormented me, you didn't say or do anything! If you had, maybe I wouldn't have felt the need to change."