Before Killing Was Cool ➊ FRERARD

21: These Legal Proceedings Didn't Account For Sociopaths

C h a p t e r | T w e n t y - O n e

Present Day - Mikey

"I made a huge mistake," Mikey is begging Alicia at the station, "I can't do anything without him. I'm nothing. Please, just let him out."

The worn-out detective sets her lips into a firm line, having expected something like this to happen. Mikey's having second thoughts about Pete's sentencing. The kid has been through so much and Pete had become a lifeline for him, a distraction, and he's thrown it away. It's like trying to stay afloat in an endless ocean without a lifejacket.

"I lied," Mikey blurts out, "about everything. I got mugged, Pete didn't hurt me—"

"Mikey."

"—Frank, he - Pete didn't know about his plans, he would have said something—"

"It's too late!" Alicia grabs him by the shoulders to steady him. She won't pretend to know what he's going through but she needs to calm him down. "You have to make your peace with this. You're doing the right thing, I promise. I'm the expert, remember?"

Mikey has returned to his metaphorical cage like the hopeless animal he is. The door had been opened and he tried to fly, but his wings are still broken. And now his keeper is nowhere to be found. All that's left are his parents and he can't go back to living with them, with seeing their devastated faces everyday, especially knowing what his dad did to Joe.

He can't bring himself to tell Patrick. He was supposed to look after the fish and sure, goldfish rarely survive very long in the hands of children with slippery hands, but he failed in the one responsibility he was given. It was a simple pleasure, feeding the creature and watching him do lengths of the tank, something Mikey took for granted. Now there's broken glass on his carpet and a dead thing flushed down the toilet. And the reason for it is so much worse than spilling soda into a tank.

It might appear ridiculous to an outsider but that damn fish was important to Mikey for so many reasons. Losing him proves how once again, he has blood on his hands. It puts him back at square one with his self-loathing.

"I need Pete," Mikey decides, "because all my other friends are dead. My brother isn't here to comfort me and my—" No, he's still reluctant to talk about his parents, so he cuts himself short.

"Your parents?" Alicia frowns, understanding something is amiss. "How did they handle the dropping out news?"

In the worst imaginable way. "Well, they're not very happy. That's why I need Pete, so I can go back to living with him while I wait for things to cool down at home."

"Mikey, you were living with him?" Alicia stares at him like he's grown two heads and made a rash decision.

"Of course! He's my boyfriend." Now it's his turn to glare at her with frustration that she doesn't get it. Call him codependent but his other half is locked in a jail cell. Detective Simmons looks like she ages half a decade with this statement.

"I don't imagine it was a very conventional living situation." She sighs. "Let me guess, his parents were never home?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"You were sneaking around in his bedroom; you weren't truly living with him, not if the owners of the house had no idea. Pete's parents are highly esteemed and have a reputation to uphold - they wouldn't be pleased to hear about the sixteen-year-old high-school dropout squatting on their property. A boy, no less."