The Lonely Position of Neutral

Revenge (It's Not You, It's Me)

 "Your dad is in a better place, and I'm sure he's looking down on you from Heaven," I said, massaging her shoulders at her father's funeral. 

"You really believe that shit?" Leah said, raising a brow. "I shouldn't even be here." Leah folded her arms.

"Have I ever been wrong before?" I gave her a confident smile and a cocky wink.

"You know what?" Leah said, stroking her chin. "I've got a fucking plan."

"Language," I whispered, placing my finger to my lips. "We're at a funeral and the pastor is still here."

"And plans and you don't work out so well."

"Since when?"

"The last time you had a plan, I wrecked the car running from the police."

Leah closed the distance between us, fixing my collar. "I'm not wrong, not this time."

I rolled my eyes and blew out my lips. "This had better be good."

"I know who the killer is," Leah said.

"That's great. I mean, let's turn him in, and let the cops handle it."

"It's rare for a person to get the death penalty in Washington State, and if the person who killed my father doesn't deserve the death penalty, I don't know who does."

"You can't be serious." I rubbed my eyes. "This can't be happening."

"As a heart attack, that's how serious I am. As a fucking, I mean, heart attack." Leah's ocean blue oval eyes turned to crinkled slits. "You in?" Leah raised a brow. 

"We gonna get caught this time?"

Leah rolled her eyes hard. "Let's go," she said, navigating me by my sleeve through a sea of people who came to see if Mr. Jenson left them anything in his will more than they wanted to say goodbye. It's not as though I have a choice. When Leah asked me to do something, anything with her soul-piercing pupils, I couldn't resist. 

The brisk September air hung with a still breeze, caressing her sun-kissed skin. I guess we're Bonnie and Clyde. "Where are we going?" I said. "Seattle is back that way." I pointed to the general direction of the last off-ramp. 

"It's a surprise," Leah said. 

"The killer--"

"What about the killer?"

"We're going to get revenge, right?"

"Oh, that, yes." 

Leah blinkered to an exit near a lake. "Almost there."

"Leah, you're starting to scare me. What's going on?" I shouted. "You don't know who the killer is, do you?"

"Oh, I know her alright."  

"Her? It's a she? I guess I don't understand." 

Leah rolled to a stop and placed the car in park. She slid her hand down the small of her back, retrieving her Smith & Wesson. "But you would have soon put the pieces together, and--"

"You?" I said, shifting my body in her direction. "You killed your father, didn't you?"

"Took you long enough," Leah said, giggling in a tone I hadn't heard since she killed a cat in the 5th-grade. 

"I guess I don't understand."

"You would have put the pieces together, and your empathetic side would have turned me in, eventually." Leah raised the pistol to my chest. "I couldn't take any chances. He left me everything in the will."

"No. You forged the will!" I said. 

"Should have been a detective," Leah said before a firecracker echo shocked my chest with the pull of the trigger. 

I grabbed my chest as blood pooled my jacket. "Why. Why me?"

"Say hello to Dad for me," Leah said, brushing tears away.

I saw black, then nothing else.