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2022-03-12 00:05:51Ava: After killing Justice
Wednesday afternoon brings a barrage of news that floods my phone with so many notifications that I’m forced to keep my phone on silent mode. This morning, someone tagged me in a post on Instagram and the numerous others inevitably woke me up.
I thumbed through the pictures and almost grimaced as Justice’s face from our Year Nine graduation stared back at me. We got older as I slid through them. I did this till I had enough of torturing myself and chucked my phone underneath my pillow, ignoring the string of messages popping up like clockwork. I’d been up since four a.m. The soft skin underneath my eyes, the ache in my neck and the pressure behind my eyeballs are screaming at me to catch some sleep.
Since I have a penchant for overstressing even the littlest of situations, I’m focusing on the names I’ve scribbled in my notebook. I’ve let that nagging feeling
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Killing Justice Chapter 31
Ava: After killing Justice It goes on to say she’s a resident of the elite Circle so I backtrack, wondering why they’d state that in the registry, but then I notice the familiar colours of the national news station and almost let go of the device. Justice’s story has made national news and to escalate it further, the police are going to treat it as a murder investigation. All talks of runaway Justice are going to cease now, and so my time to find out who’s behind this has dwindled. The sound of mum reprimanding my sister bleeds out of the room and there’s only me and the nightmarish news staring back at me. Wordlessly, I place it on the counter with a loud thud, which is unintentional, but Asia springs at me and snatches it away. “My God. I know you’re upset about the news but no need to break my iPad.” “Oh honey,” Mum says and rounds the kitchen island to read it too. “Poor Justice. I can’t
Killing Justice Chapter 32
Ava: After killing Justice “She’s fixing me a cup of coffee,” she says to me, placing back her half-eaten cupcake. “Patience!” She calls out in such a bellowing voice it hardly fits her frail old woman’s body. Patience ambles into the sitting room and at the mere sight of us, her cheery expression crumbles faster than rocks at the edge of a precipice. She recovers quickly and plasters on a plastic smile while setting the mug of steaming coffee on the table. “Mother, what are they doing here?” Try as she might, her displeasure of seeing us has already meandered its way through her façade but my mum’s ever ready to give off her platitudes. “We’ve come over to give you our best. I’ve personally read the news and figured we’d offer our support.” I try to get past the niceties, plastering on my worried best friend face. God, I’m so burning in hell for this. “They keep saying they’ve found some sor
Killing Justice Chapter 33
Ava: After killing Justice For a fleeting moment, I can tell she believes me, but she glances back at whatever text message she read earlier and the mistrust resurfaces. “Winona Cho just texted me, asking if I knew Victor was cheating on Justice with you. She says you were out with him the night Justice disappeared.” “She’s lying.” For once, that’s the truth. She’s lying. I helped him back up that lie so he wouldn’t end up in jail because I’m ashamedly the stupid lovesick fool who hasn’t yet clarified if he was really at the arcade that night. That’s one thing about truths, it’s hidden behind layers of lies which only makes it much more tenuous to find. “Her dad is the chief of police,” she explains. “Isn’t he not supposed to discuss the case with his family?” I deflect, “someone should really call him out on it. It’s unprofessional.” “Unbelievable,” she mutters under h
Killing Justice Chapter 34
Anonymous: Before killing Justice I look at her from across the parking lot. She waves at someone—a girl, hair a mass of curls pulled taut in a ponytail, dressed in the same uniform with a worried expression on her face—but her heart’s not into it so she gets into her car quickly like someone’s closing in behind her. She’s not wrong. She hasn’t got the slightest inkling of what’s coming for her. She has no clue what I’m capable of. I asked for one thing: honesty. Was that so hard? I guess it was a cumbersome task for Justice. If she had told the truth, I wouldn’t have her darkest secret tucked away in my head like a festering tumor. Justice hasn’t been coming to the hotel. She’s ghosted me, sent me to voicemail and avoided the café all week where she knows I’ll be able to contact her. Ever since I gave her hair a trim, she’s gotten the courage to do all this. She starts the car, pulls out of
Killing Justice Chapter 35
Ava: After killing Justice Victor or me. A choice that was more than Justice ever gave me. She didn’t deserve either of us, but she was keeping us hostage like dolls, always pulling the strings, always blending the truth with her lies. We could only get out if she opened the door or if we could see past the darkness she brought. She was the only light source we could see, always blotting out the other lights, pulling us into her gravitational field because she believed she was the centre of everything. Don’t believe me? Ask Odette. Oh wait, you can’t because she’s dead. Justice made sure of it. Just like she made sure I came out as a drunken fool when I proposed she choose between her best friend and her boyfriend. With Odette, the choice was clear. In Justice’s eyes, she became a liability. A thorn in her side she needed to pluck out. It was five months ago at our midnight rendezvous in the
Killing Justice Chapter 36
Ava: After killing Justice A knock on my bedroom door snaps me out of my reverie. I stop smudging the concealer under my eye and my eyes flit to the door. Asia stands in the doorway and from her stance I can tell she’s been there watching me for a while, which makes me feel even more disconcerted. “Hey,” I say, brushing off my nerves with the flick of a brush across my cheeks. “What are you doing here?” “I just want to talk.” She pads into my room dressed in a diaphanous nightgown which could give Mum a heart attack if she wore it anywhere other than at home. My desk chair rolls towards me and as she sits, I stand, keeping a wide berth between us. “Talk about what?” I feign interest in my wardrobe even though I’ve picked out my outfit for Terry’s get together. I’m met with silence which is rather unusual. My sister is a stickler for confrontations, and if her rigid post
Killing Justice Chapter 37
Ava: After killing JusticeHe shrugs. “Nothing. It’s just been a while since you texted me for a ride. I bet if Justice was here you wouldn’t have.” I filter out the mild disappointment in his tone and hold on to it, hoping it’s real. Or maybe I heard wrong and it’s just wishful thinking on my part. Again. You’d think I would’ve learnt my lesson by now from that night out in the arcade. It’s my turn to choose: Victor or Justice. It isn’t a hard choice to make because, after everything that happened on Friday, I owe Justice a lot.Victor pulls out of the driveway, looking through the rear mirror to navigate the curve. Without looking my way, he asks, “Are we picking Cece up? From what I remember, she also doesn’t own a car.”“I think she’d rather die than breathe the same air as me,” I say stiffly, annoyed that I’ve someh
Killing Justice Chapter 38
Ava: After killing Justice Then he leaves, walking into the long hallway and disappearing into the kitchen on his left. I rub at my arms, feeling unmoored for the very first time like a baby deer, not sure what to do with its limbs. I don’t even hear the compliment about my cute heels until a duo of girls passes by me. “Well, consider me impressed you finally bagged him,” Terry remarks from behind me, a smattering chuckle following his statement. I subconsciously pick at a loose thread on my shorts, feeling my heart skip with a guilty beat. “It’s not like that.” He cocks his head to the side, taking his curls down with him. His beard looks rough and the skin underneath is red. He rubs at it now, watching me. “Could’ve fooled me.” He pushes off the raised table and moves closer. Rests lazily on the wall in front of me. “From what I’ve heard, you two were together Friday night.” <
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Chapter 53
Thana: After killing Justice The next day, I wake up with panic blossoming in my chest. It’s Monday, I realise, but it takes a while for my brain to remember school is out till they tell us it’s not. I moan into my pillow. All the crying I did last night takes its toll on me. My head is pounding. Kieran comes in seconds later, making me know she must have had her ears plastered to my bedroom door. I scootch to make room for her. “How are you feeling?” she asks, pressing her cold icy hand to my temple. A shiver racks through me and I whimper. “Oh dear, you have a fever.” I kind of figured it out when everything, including my bed, felt like a block of ice. She orders me into the bathroom while I strip my pyjamas and wrap a towel around myself, collapsing on the tiled floor. She returns with a bucket teeming with hot water and readies a bath for me while I wail about how much they must hate me now. “Who hates you?” Sh
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Chapter 52
Thana: After killing Justice When we don’t say a word, he starts pacing. I watch as he applies pressure to the space between his eyes, one hand on his hip. “At least explain to me why you broke into a hotel room at Circe Creek.” After a long beat, he probes some more. “Girls, c’mon. I know it’s in your nature to cover for each other. Lie for each other. I have nieces, so I’m well aware. What I don’t quite get is why you’re going along with this.” It takes me a moment to realise he’s talking to Skylar and I get the same free-falling effect of someone diving out of a twelfth story building. He’s trying to rip us apart and pit us against each other. “You don’t owe these two anything, especially Ava Hernaez. She’s Justice’s best friend. You don’t run in the same social circle. In fact, you all are the oddest group I’ve ever encountered.” “Are we suspects?” Skylar cuts him off, finally showing some ounce of the same fear zapping through me.
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Chapter 51
Thana: After killing Justice “Row, what on earth are you doing with those two?” “They’re my friends,” I say defensively. “And I need you to promise me you won’t mention what Justice told you.” “Why?” “It’s complicated. They’d know I lied to them. That I’ve been lying this whole time.” His ringtone interrupts us. We both look at the phone balanced on his lap. Kieran’s caller ID flashes on the screen. “Hold on.” He holds up a finger. “She’s been calling me nonstop. I wonder what she wants.” Nabil walks over to the other side of the space, stands in front of the gaping square where a window should be. I plop down on the slabs, watch as Skylar and Ava, their backs turned away from me, pull out their own phones. Apprehension creeps up my spine and buzzes intensely when Nabil walks back and hands me his phone. “She wants to speak with you.” The fear evi
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Chapter 50
Thana: After killing Justice Now, looking at his stunned expression, darting eyes searching for an escape from us, I’m pondering over what this means for him, for us. My brother is an exceptional artist with words that are meant to make you, not break you. I can’t imagine those fingers that have deftly moved with a pencil on a page, wrap around a knife and stab a girl seven times. Twice in the throat without remorse and three times in the chest without a second thought. “What are you staring at?” Skylar snarls. “You’ve got some nerve looking at us after what you did.” Nabil blanks and takes a step back. “W-what are you talking about?” he stutters. He’s rehearsed somehow because he looks stoic and confused like he just can’t place his finger on why Skylar is fuming. If she were a cartoon, I can only perceive the amount of smoke billowing out of her ears and nose. “Did you think you’d get away with it?
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Chapter 49
Thana: After killing Justice Afterwards, I curled up into a ball and cried my eyes out, hating myself for hitting send. Hating her for her silence after the double blue ticks appeared on my screen. Hating her even more for blocking me. Maybe she deleted the messages too, but I can’t be too sure, so I say, “We can use it. If we hand it over now, we won’t get the answer to why. Why us? Why blackmail us into burying her? You know once we give it up the cops, they won’t disclose any information and we’d be left in the dark.” Skylar leans in. “So what you’re saying is, we get him to meet us? Isn’t that dangerous?” “It’s really not. It’ll be three against one. There’s not much damage he can do.” Ava’s eyes meet mine. “I think it’s smart and we could even get a confession out of him.” And just like that, all’s forgiven. I will not make them doubt me again. She delicately picks
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Chapter 48
Thana: After killing JusticeI don’t ask what Skylar means when she says this. My eyes are fixated on the blackened screen of Justice’s phone, my thoughts whirlpooling: Ava has had this since Friday. Could she have gone through it? Does she know my secret? Did Justice ever delete our chats like she erased the very existence of me? I jut my head to the phone. “Have you gone through it? Found anything?”“Nope. I can’t seem to get past Justice’s stupid password,” she says in defeat. “I’ve tried her birthday. Mine. Victor’s. I even tried Patience is a dead cow, something Justice loved to say all the time and nothing. It’s like I don’t even know her anymore.” Her eyes have gone glassy and I want to ask: If you cared so much about Justice, why make that plan? Why hate her for some meagre title like Head girl? There’s got to be more than Ava’s letting on
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Chapter 47
Thana: After killing Justice Skylar smirks at me as if she knows I’m lying, but finds it amusing that I’m terrible at it. Ava, however, is oblivious and gives me a pitying look. “Sorry, but this couldn’t wait.” Her eyes scour the place before she speaks again, which is overly dramatic considering there’s no one here but us. “We’re here to sort of compare notes and figure out what went wrong.” She makes it sound as if what we did was right and some anomaly just entered the equation and messed everything up. Then what she says next sends shock pulsating through me: “Skylar found out my dad was the one booking the room at the hotel.” After a long beat of silence between us, I ask, “How?” If I look in the mirror right now, I’d see the ugly mask of confusion on my face. “How did you find out?” I ask. My eyes land on Skylar. “I went to the precinct yesterday.” A pause and then she frowns. “Does it
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Chapter 46
Thana: After Killing Justice They send me a load of texts telling me to meet them at the community library, ordering me to be there before noon. Don’t be late, Ava texts emphatically in caps. Instead of feeling annoyed that my Saturday morning was going to be spent at a library I didn’t even know existed, I’m glad. I’m being summoned. It’s good to feel like I belong. My phone isn’t a black nothingness anymore. But there’s a dark voice whispering to me that it won’t last for long, not with how much I’m keeping from them. I’m not the kind of girl to hoard away her secrets. Most people know them before I can even confess. If Ava and Skylar know what I know, they won’t look at me the same way. My murky past must stay in the dark, my real reason for wanting to get back at Justice along with it. The invitation staring back at me on my phone inspires me with a new sense of valiance I haven’t felt before. So I go in search of Nabil and when I do
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Chapter 45
Skylar: After killing JusticeWhen she rises from the bed, the protruding baby bump is the only explanation I get. Stupidly, I blurt out an oh but there’s no indication that I’ve offended her. “Dad’s been sneaking out of the house around this time. I know since I hear him every time he leaves.” She’s all business now. “That’s why we’re going to track him using the app I downloaded today. It’s called Spyic. He won’t even know we’re tailing him.”I give her a wry look. “How do you know all this?”She shrugs. “Where else but Google? There’s like loads of info on there you just have to know where to look.”Beside me, Ava rolls her eyes. “What now?”“We wait for him to leave,” Asia says.Ten minutes later we’re shut inside Asia&
