Chapter 2His Regret After Live Streaming My Detox

As the pain threatened to drag me into unconsciousness, Vincent’s search continued. He was nothing if not thorough, tearing the place apart, determined to uncover every last piece of my “criminal enterprise.”

Finally, he kicked the bed frame aside and dragged a dusty iron box out from underneath.

My heart seized in my chest.

No!

Not that. Anything but that!

The things in that box were more precious to me than my own life.

“Don’t touch it!”

I don’t know where the strength came from, but I scrambled across the floor toward him, crawling on my hands and knees.

My frantic desperation seemed to amuse him. The sneer on his face deepened. He easily kicked me aside again and pried open the box’s latch.

Inside was a diary, its pages worn and curled from countless readings, and a single police badge, carefully wrapped in a piece of red silk.

Vincent picked up the diary and flipped through a few pages.

My handwriting chronicled every chemo session, every spike in pain, every adjustment in my medication dosage.

March 7th. Sunny. OxyContin, 80mg. Pain.

March 9th. Cloudy. Morphine shot. Pain so bad I wanted to die. But I think I saw Vincent on the street today. He’s still so handsome.

March 15th. Raining. They upped the dose again. Feels like my bones are going to snap.

He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. He held the journal up for the camera.

“And what do we have here? An addict’s diary!” he announced, his voice dripping with theatrical scorn. He read the line about seeing him aloud, his tone mocking and cruel.

“‘Saw Vincent today.’ Hallucinating from the drugs, were you? Still thinking about me? God, Clara, you make me sick.”

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the diary into the trash can in the corner.

Then, he picked up the silk-wrapped badge.

It was my father’s. My father, who had been his mentor on the force.

The moment he saw it, Vincent’s eyes turned to ice.

“You don’t deserve to have this.”

He walked over to me, his presence a suffocating weight.

“A hero’s daughter, and you end up as scum. What would your dead father think of you now?”

I shook my head frantically, tears and sweat streaming down my face. “No… it’s not…”

He wasn’t listening. He pulled a lighter from his pocket.

Click.

A blue flame shot up.

And right in front of my eyes, he set my diary on fire.

He slammed his foot down on the hand I stretched out to save it, grinding his heel into my knuckles. I heard a sickening crunch and screamed as the bones fractured.

“Watch,” he commanded, forcing me to look as the flames licked at the pages, turning my final testament to ashes.

“Why keep this? So people can know what a pathetic waste you were after you’re gone? Or so everyone knows that I, Vincent Vance, once had a junkie for a girlfriend?”

The fire consumed the paper, but it felt like it was burning through my marrow.

From the sidelines, Sophia added her own fuel. “You did the right thing, Vincent. Something like that is just pollution. Better to burn it and be done.”

I lay on the floor, pinned beneath his boot, unable to move. I stopped struggling. I stopped crying.

I just watched the fire until the last page turned to black soot.

That diary was the last piece of proof I had in this world. The only thing that could clear my name.

And now, it was gone.