I now understand who was responsible, and as I sit through Abel Moreno’s trial, listening to all of his sins and misdeeds, two things become evident. The first is that I was becoming just like him. So twisted up in my grief and desire for revenge, I couldn’t see wrong from right. And the second is that I just don’t have the energy to carry that burden of hate anymore. All it’s managed to do is poison me, and for the sake of my sanity, I understand I have to let it go. But I also understand that, on some level, I already have. Because there are bigger things on the horizon now. I have a life waiting for me, and I still don’t entirely know what that life will look like, but I know I don’t want it to be tainted by these memories.

Yet as I listen to The Tribunal sentence Abel to death, I can’t help the uneasy feeling that settles over me when his eyes move to mine. Today, I will wash my hands of him and never want to think of him again. But I can’t help wondering if he has concessions for that. I don’t doubt he would have revealed my plan to The Tribunal in an effort to save his own skin. He probably told them of my involvement in trying to lure Santiago to adultery, which inadvertently got him poisoned. That was never my intention, nor my plan, but Abel schemed and made it so.

Regardless, I know it doesn’t matter how it happened. The fact is it did, and I could still be held responsible for it. By the evil glint in his eyes right now, I don’t doubt that’s exactly what he’s trying to tell me.

A shudder moves over me, and then the room falls to silence as the final word is passed down, and we are all told to adjourn to the courtyard. I move in a daze, Judge pressing his hand against my lower back in a silent show of support. The night sky is black when we step out and gather before the gallows. We’ve been here for many hours, and it’s late now. The normal raucous crowd surrounding the IVI compound is absent, and instead, there are only soft murmurs that fall into silence as the process begins.