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Back The Ursulina Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. I know you'll never forgive me...
  2. Part One - Your Father
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Part Two - Your Mother
  24. Chapter Twenty-One
  25. Chapter Twenty-Two
  26. Chapter Twenty-Three
  27. Chapter Twenty-Four
  28. Chapter Twenty-Five
  29. Chapter Twenty-Six
  30. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-One
  35. Chapter Thirty-Two
  36. Chapter Thirty-Three
  37. Chapter Thirty-Four
  38. Chapter Thirty-Five
  39. Chapter Thirty-Six
  40. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-One
  45. About the Author

“Will lied!” he shouted at us. “He wanted to protect me. Will’s not gay. I am. We were friends, that’s all. Tell everybody! It was a mistake! He lied because he didn’t want to see me go to prison. He made up the whole story. He sacrificed himself for a lie. We weren’t together out here. Nothing happened between us. I came on to him, and he rejected me. Tell them! I was home on Sunday night. I had a huge fight with Gordon, and I went down to the office to confront him. I hit him, and then I cut him up. Do you hear me? I used the book, and I made it look just like the others. It was me!”

“Jay, don’t.” I was crying. I wanted to fall to my knees. “Don’t do this!”

His voice grew calm, and the calm was worse than everything else. It was the calm of someone who’d made his decision. “Please tell them. Save Will. Give him his life back.”

“Jay!”

The boy’s finger slid over the trigger. Time stood still. I ran, but I was too far away to do anything. I screamed at him, but in the next instant, he fired. The wind picked that moment to wail like a banshee, and I could barely hear the noise of the gun at all. The only way I knew that Jay was dead was that his body collapsed to the ice right in front of me.

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

My fault, sweetheart.

This was my fault. Will was in the hospital, and Jay was dead. Two sweet teenage boys, one life ruined, one life over. I wasn’t able to stop it.

All I can tell you is that I had a breakdown. I didn’t want to be who I was anymore. Staring at Jay’s body on the ice, the red blood from his head already freezing hard against white snow, I realized that I wanted to get away from everything around me. Leave it all behind. The deaths, the abuse, the loneliness, the failures, the specter of the Ursulina. The monster in the woods had obsessed me for too long.

I knew I had duties to perform. I was a sheriff’s deputy, and a boy was dead. There were calls to be made, evidence to be gathered, reports to be written, laws and procedures to be followed. I did none of those things. What I did was leave the scene in a kind of daze. Ben Malloy, who was in shock at what had happened in front of him, pestered me with questions, but I said nothing. I was numb, overwhelmed, unable to function. With my flashlight, I followed the trail all the way back to Norm’s trailer. I went to my cruiser, and I got inside and drove away, leaving Ben shouting in frustration at me.

That depression I told you about?