Page 166 of Because I Killed Him
“Harry,” I gasp, fumbling to open my Bond interface. “What’s William’s Bond number?”
“What?” Harrison reels back, still dazed.
“Give it to me.Now.”
Harrison straightens fast, his cap falling to the floor as he forwards the information. I pull up my civil credit panel. Two thousand gleamback at me, more than I ever asked for from Edmund, more than I ever needed.
I select two hundred civil credits and send them to William. Terms of service flood the screen, legal warnings and digital agreements flashing red, but I swipe past each one. My eyes are fixed on the corner of the hall, where the Coppers are almost through the door with William, still fighting and screaming. Vincent is trailing behind them, arms shaking as he drags himself through the wreckage of broken chairs.
And then…
The sergeant halts, dead still.
He checks his Bond screen, his breath rasping heavily through his helmet’s mouthpiece. Lifting his visor, he sweeps his cold, steely eyes across the hall and locks onto me. He must’ve seen my name on the civil credit transfer. He knows exactly what I’ve done.
The sergeant holds my stare—one second, two—as if etching my face into memory. Then he turns away. “Arrest warrant aborted.”
The words hit like a kill shot. The Coppers hesitate, momentarily thrown, staring at the sergeant for an explanation. William stops struggling. Vincent freezes mid-crawl. Even Harrison doesn’t breathe.
Then, slowly, the Coppers release their grip. One by one, they let go of William and slide their batons back into place. At a nod from the sergeant, they retreat, swift as moving shadows.
The room hangs suspended, every student caught in shell-shocked silence. William sways where they left him, blood pearling at the corner of his mouth as he checks the civil credit transfer on his Bond. Then he looks at me, and the disbelief on his face is painful, a gut-wrenching reminder of how rarely we Greens help our own.
William’s legs tremble as he staggers forward, one arm hanging wrong, as if torn from the socket. The students who are pressed against the walls stir uneasily, some reaching out as if to steady him, others shrinking back, unsure whether to touch him at all. Beside me, Harrison draws a sharp breath, only just realizing what I’ve done.
William stumbles once, then again. When he finally reaches me, he lowers his head in a half-bow, his mangled legs refusing to bend any further. He presses his forehead to my hand with a shudderingweight, smearing blood across my skin as he whispers his thanks. Once. Then again. And again, each word raspier and more desperate.
I try to shape a response, but the sound dies in my throat when I see Vincent approaching from behind.
He’s only a few paces away, but the effort it takes for him to reach me makes it seem as if he’s leaning on his own ghost. His face is wrecked, hardly recognizable beneath the swelling and bruises, yet he pushes on, one arm pressed against his ribs, where a large, bloated wound is visible through his torn jacket.
When Vincent reaches me, his lips part, struggling to speak through the blood misting around his teeth, but no words come. At last, with a hoarse, ragged breath, he holds out his hand. The movement is hesitant, as if he’s already braced for a refusal. Beside me, Harrison gives a faint shake of his head, but Vincent doesn’t stop. He extends his hand further, wavering on his injured leg, and in his red-rimmed, trembling eyes, I can see the moment is costing him the final scrap of his pride.
My gaze drops to his bloody hand, where his Blood Ring glints faintly, its green shade dulled by the sting rising in my eyes. The way his fingers hang there, shuddering in the empty air, is too hard to watch. I want to stop them, to steady them, even as every instinct I’ve trained myself to follow floods in at once, scrambling to rebuild the wall that’s kept me alive. My arm feels distant, no longer mine, as I lift it. But I reach out anyway, clawing through the resistance, and close my fingers around Vincent’s shaking hand.
The moment our hands meet, something inside me dislodges. It isn’t painful, but it’s warm and deep and rushing, like the relief of a thaw, of stepping into sunlight after too many days in the cold. The feeling surges through me with a force that pulls me outward, toward Vincent. And with it, I taste tears.
They burn on my cheeks, spilling fast, but I don’t try to stop them. I nod, chin trembling, vision swimming, and hold Vincent’s gaze through the blur.
His jaw tightens as if he’s fighting to stay composed, but I can still see it: the weight lifting from his conscience, the breath he finally lets himself take, the light rising behind his eyes.
It’s freedom.
The same freedom I finally feel.
The drinking hall is a chaotic scene, with distraught students stepping over bloodstains, broken chairs, and scattered sabers. Even so, the rules prohibit Harrison from ending the Fraternity meeting early. He orders Pinkies to clean up the mess, then picks up where he left off, his voice wavering slightly as a robot mops a streak of blood beside his boot. Vincent and William are gone, taken to the Belvoir Infirmary, but everyone else stays until the end.
The moment Harrison gives the word, I slip outside at the front of the crowd. Above, the sky is an endless black canvas, utterly starless, yet the night still shimmers. The Luminescent Lake lights up the shoreline, its glittering blue surface unnaturally still, as if it’s holding its breath with me. Somewhere at the edge of my mind, the sergeant’s face lingers—the way his steely, violence-hardened eyes marked me after I sent William the civil credits—and yet, for now, the fear feels distant. What rises in its place is peaceful.
Dad never calls it forgiveness. He says the word is too small for the weight it carries. He calls it mercy instead… mercy looking down on misery. And tonight, I hope he’d be proud of me.
I don’t realize how slowly I’m walking until I reach the hovercar and see Jack and Charlotte inside, the power core already running. Charlotte’s face is so tense it creases her forehead, while Jack gazes nervously out the window as if he half-expects the Coppers to come charging back—this time, for me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as I close the door. “You don’t think I should’ve done it?”
“No, Lore.” Charlotte reaches across the seat, her fingers curling around mine. “What you did was good. It’s just—” She winces and glances at Jack.
His eyes flick between us before he places a hand on my arm. “What you did was good, darling. We just want you to be careful. Sending civil credits to people under the arrest limit comes with debt… the kind that’s rigged never to clear. Most people end up wishing they hadn’t.”
