The Things We Couldn't Forget

Chapter 40.

I stumble back a bit, trying to keep my space from him. "Dallas, you can't just frame people for what you did. I couldn't let him go to prison for you."

At this he smiles. "Why not?" He shrugs, the twisted grin on his face making me feel like the blood is being drained from my body and refilled to the brim with nothing but fear.

"Because it isn't right."

He laughs. "No." He says, shaking his head again. "No, it's not. Doesn't mean you can't do it anyway. This town...they deserved it. The people here...they had this coming."

"Dal," I try to say gently. "You're scaring me."

"You should be scared!" He booms. "Every fucking person living in this fucked up world should be scared, Missy."

I stare back at the stranger in front of me. The cold, heartless monster living in the body of my brother. My father's letters ring out in my mind.

"Stay away from your brother."

"Dad knew." I whisper and he smiles brighter. "He...Dallas, did you?"

He chuckles to himself. "Ah, that's the question, right? Did dear old Dad do it?" He keeps watching me as my tears well. "Missy, Dad couldn't even kill the rat that got into house. He was a weak man. He didn't have the power a man should have. He never protected us."

My knees go weak below me, and my body sways. Everything I've believed for years has been a lie. My father never killed those girls. There isn't some new killer out to recreate the murders of notorious John Jacobs.

The real killer, Dallas, was back to revisit his own past. Dallas was recreating his own slayings.

Dallas was the monster under my roof the whole time.

"How could you do that to him?" I cry. "He loved us, loved you! He was our dad and you let him take the fall for you? You let him die for you?"

Dallas shoves into my face, knocking the flashlight out of my hand.

"He owed it to me!" He shouts at me, his breath hot against my face. "He deserved what he got for being weak! He never protected us!"

"What are you talking about?" I gasp, trying to breath but I can't as he reaches out and shakes me hard, throwing my head back and forth angrily.

"Are you this stupid?" He shouts. "Do you really think you're the only one?" He shakes me again. "I told him! I told him first! And you know what?" He shoves me backwards. I land hard on the ground, the breath knocked out of me. "He didn't believe me! He kept sending us back there!"

I struggle to sit up. "T-Terrance?"

"Fuck him!" He shouts, kneeling over me and shoving my shoulders back down into the ground. "I told dear old Dad, and he didn't believe me. He told me I misunderstood. He treated me like I was stupid!"

"Stop!" I scream as he climbs on top of me.

"But guess who he did believe?" He wraps his hands around my neck and yanks me up before slamming my head back down. "All you had to do was say one thing to Mom and everyone believed you. Then they took it seriously. Then they supposedly protected us from him."

"Please," I grip at his hands, struggling to pull them away from my neck.

"No!" He slams me again. "One word from their perfect little daughter and suddenly they cared." He leans up to get into my face. "Aren't you mad?" He screams in my face, spittle landing across my cheeks. "Doesn't it piss you off?" He tightens his grip on my neck until I can't breathe. "They let him go about his life. They didn't send his ass to fucking prison. They didn't fucking kill him like they should have. They did nothing! Nothing, Missy!"