“Is that a spider?” she shrieked. “What are you going to do with it?”
He couldn’t help but chuckle at that question. “I'm going to do with it exactly what you think I am. I’m going to put him in there with you.”
“Is that thing poisonous?”
“Do you really need to ask?”
“What are you going to do with my son? Don’t hurt him, please. I’ll do anything you want just don’t hurt my baby,” she pleaded.
He was done.
No more chitchat.
It was time.
He took the lid off and set it down, and the woman pressed her hands to the opening, trying to block it. “Don’t put that thing in here with me,” she screamed.
Paying no attention to her pleas, he tipped the spider out of the jar and onto her hand.
She shrieked louder and jerked her hands, attempting to get the spider off her, but all she accomplished was causing it to land somewhere inside the box with her.
He could literally feel her panic as her body thumped against the sides of the box as she tried to avoid the arachnid.
He fed off that fear.
It was like a drug to him.
It made the world make sense for one precious moment.
* * * * *
6:50 P.M.
The flashing lights and police cars caught her attention as soon as she pulled into the street.
Summer couldn’t help but tense.
Against her will, she slowed as she passed the house.
There were two police cars, a crime scene unit van, and a news van. She had no idea what had happened, nor did she want to.
She knew all too well what it was like to find yourself at the center of a police investigation and it was an experience she hoped never to repeat.
Even now, years later, she felt nervous driving past. Sometimes it was hard to shake the feeling that some day what she had done would catch up with her somehow. Part of her felt like it should as if a proper punishment would help ease that huge ball of guilt she carried around daily.
But realistically, she didn’t think it would.
The only way to ease the guilt was to make the decision to let it go.
And only she could do that.
The last nine years she had been waiting for something—something she wasn't even sure of—to occur to magically take away the guilt and shame. She wanted tofeelbetter before she moved on with her life. But that had been just an excuse. She hadn’t really wanted to move on with her life. She had wanted to remain in a perpetual state of misery, reliving everything that had happened over and over again, punishing herself relentlessly for something that logically she knew she’d had no choice but to do.
If she wanted a different outcome in her life, then she had to be the one to get it.
She had to give herself permission to move on.
Summer was under no illusion that that would be an easy undertaking. The events of ten years ago had almost crushed her, and she’d had to claw and fight her way out. She had worked hard to build a life for herself, and she knew she was extremely lucky to have been able to do so.