Charlotte's Scars

Epilogue

Epilogue

Charlotte

Six Months Later

From my spot on the bleachers, I looked down to where Karla was sitting. She was between Blake Settler and Ryan Storran — mentally, I cursed our assigned seating. This was a momentous time in our lives, and it wasn't fair that I couldn't sit next to my best friend.

Pushing the thought away, I looked out at the onlookers watching us from folding chairs. They were spread out across the lawn of East Coast High and were looking up at our graduating class with excitement and pride. I tried to listen to the speech Emma Georgia, our valedictorian, was giving but my eyes kept wandering to the crowd.

I found Mrs. O— she was sitting with Liz, Summer, and Brittney. All four of them smiled up at me, excitement evident on their faces. Since the arrest of Mack and Danny, things at Hillside house improved tenfold. In the last six months, my relationships with Liz, Summer, and Brittney blossomed. Summer, feeling safer with Mack gone, began opening up more and being herself. She became the closest thing I had to a sister—aside from Karla of course.

Liz was still her bad-arse self. With Mack gone, she was the new the Queen Bee at Hillside with Brittney following her faithfully as always. It wasn't that bad though— even though Liz still didn't take crud from anyone, she wasn't a bully anymore. Rather than picking on any new kids that came to Hillside House, she would take them under her wing and try to teach them how to defend themselves. I joined in a few time—as much as I hated physical violence, I now understood the importance of being able to defend yourself.

Liz and Brittney were tad overprotective when it came to me. I think they blamed themselves for what happened...and what happened to the girl before me, Jasmine.

I was still haunted by the events of that day. It was hard to close my eyes and not think about it. Sometimes, I had panic attacks that made it hard to breath and struggling to breath made me panic even more. The counselor told me I was having PTSD attacks from all those times Mack strangled, suffocated, or drowned me. It was hard to deal with, but I was seeing a counselor for it and things seemed to be getting better with time.

It was especially hard for the first couple months when news of what happened was all anyone talked about. Mack and Danny had tortured and murdered four other girls before me, all of it recorded on that same camcorder they used on me. With such damning evidence against them, Mack and Danny would be locked up for a long time.

After speaking with the investigators, I was able to find out why Danny was helping Mack. The first video, that was dated two years ago, wasn't like the rest of them. On it, Danny was forcing himself on a girl—she tried to fight back and get free, but he grabbed her and threw her to the ground. She cracked her head open on a rock.

Mack, hidden in the bush unbeknownst to Danny, videotaped the entire thing. For years she blackmailed him with this, getting him to do her dirty work. Either way, they were both sick and twisted individuals that deserved to be in jail. Danny wasn't a serial killer like Mack, but he was in no way innocent.

Looking past Mrs. O and the girls, my eyes settled on a familiar form standing away from the crowd. Clad in black jeans and a black t-shirt, Rayden stood in the shade under a large, looming oak tree. He was leaning up against it with his tattooed arms folded together, a smoke hanging from his lips, and a prideful gleam in his eyes. When he noticed me looking, he brought his hand up to salute and then winked teasingly. I returned his wink with an amused scowl.

Rayden should've been graduating too, but he spent far too much of his time and energy focusing on street racing. Rayden was smart—he could've graduated top of his class and went to university, but he was convinced he was going to make a living with street racing. I told him numerous times that it isn't exactly living if it ends up killing him. But, alas, he kept doing it—sometimes I wondered if he was trying to intentionally get himself killed.