Interim by S. Walden Page A

be dealing with this enormous moral issue.” He paused a moment then added, “Moral issue that you completely made up, by the way. I’m not planning on shooting people. They were just words. Words don’t mean anything.”
    “Words mean everything,” Regan countered. “What’s the point of them if they mean nothing?”
    Jeremy chewed his lip.
    “When my dad tells my mom he loves her, does that mean nothing?” Regan persisted.
    Jeremy shrugged. “How should I know?”
    “If I told you I trusted you completely, does that mean nothing?”
    He had no choice but to shake his head.
    “You filled an entire notebook with your thoughts and feelings about how those assholes treated you. The things they said to you. Their prejudice. Your hurt. Do your words and their words mean nothing?”
    A strong wave of heat rippled through his muscles. She could have stopped at the “I trust you” argument.
    He clenched his jaw and hung his head.
    “Words matter,” she said decidedly.
    “So what?” Jeremy said. “So now it’s my job to sit here and try to convince you with my words that these—” He waved his notebook in the air. “—don’t mean anything?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What the fuck do you want from me?” he barked.
    “I don’t want anything from you,” Regan shot back.
    He knew he was making a mistake, but the anger rose up fresh—one very pissed off Lazarus whose bones still ached, whose knees buckled and jerked when he tried to walk.
    Jeremy stumbled over his next words. “Y-you c-could have given . . . sh-should have left me . . . had no r-right . . . !”
    He jumped off the ground and towered over her.
    “You could have given it back! You could have left me alone!” he roared.
    Regan scrambled backwards once more, grimacing at the feel of a sharp stick that pierced her right palm. She thought absurdly that he might hit her, and she thought even more absurdly that she’d deserve it—deserve to be punched in the face by a boy twice her size.
    “I don’t think you’re a killer!” she cried.
    He said nothing.
    “I don’t,” she insisted. “I believe you.”
    “Because you’re afraid of me,” he replied.
    “No! No, I’m not!”
    He looked at her, unconvinced.
    “Well, you hovering over me like that doesn’t help,” she confessed.
    He backed away.
    “I know you would never hurt anyone,” Regan whispered, and despite the evidence, her brain began to believe it. Because she wanted it to. She felt her masculine side concede victory and recede into the depths, her feminine side crowned queen and conqueror.
    Jeremy wasn’t angry because he’d been caught, she realized. He was angry because she violated him. She took his words when he never gave them to her. There. That made a lot of sense.
    He studied her carefully. She stared back, unblinking, and he knew she told the truth. She made the decision to trust him. His heart faltered with the knowledge, shaking his sturdy resolve. He’d resolved long ago to kill. It was a just mission. It was the right thing to do. They deserved to die, and he deserved to take them out. But the look in her eyes forced him to ask a question he’d never entertained: Are you sure?
    Well, that pissed him off.
    His muscles swelled and contracted at the image of a boy being pummeled over a scar. A fucking scar. He ripped in two as the image played on and on in a continual loop. Pudgy fist to his arm. Elbow to the thigh. Slaps and scratches to his face. Little boy fingernails were the worst—jagged and chewed—making the perfect razor-like weapons. He clung to the image as he split. Two people abiding in one man: gentle, quiet victim for her and justified vigilante for them. He had no choice but to swing on the pendulum—a dangerous ride that would challenge his sanity. Back and forth. Side to side. Victim. Vigilante. Victim. Vigilante.
    Victim, for now.
    He twisted his face in mock pain, watching her eyes soften with sympathy. He felt mildly sorry for her,