​     Axel didn't leave his hospital room for a year after that. ​He was wheeled out only for tests and treatments. An only child, he had a mother who worked constantly and who now worried constantly about bills and medical expenses and a father he'd only seen once or twice in his entire life. Machines kept him breathing. He spent the majority of his time alone.

     One life down the drain.

     At eighteen.

     Rory got off virtually scot-free. He had grandparents who were very rich, and they hired the most respected lawyer in the state. Rory showed up at the trial clean shaven, conservatively dressed, and with a Bible under his arm. He cried when he gave testimony about how he'd lost control enough to cripple poor Axel Clemons for life, and about how, first thing every morning, he'd pray to God that someday Axel would walk again. And, after all, it was self-defense. Rory was afraid Axel would kill him if he didn't take Alex down.

     His sentence: six months house arrest and two years' probation.

     For taking Axel's life from him.  

     For taking his life from him and not even having the common decency to finish the job and kill him.

     Axel seethed over that.   

​     For months he seethed. 

     He thought about Rory and what Rory had done to him, and he seethed. 

     It was all so fucking unfair. 

     He couldn't think about anything else. 

​     And then one day...

CONTINUE