Page 20 of Punishing Penelope
“Pen! I’m on your side.”
“You don’t know how it is! You didn’t lose a sister. I expect her to show up. I expect someone to come and tell me it’s a bad joke and that she’s alive, Peter! It hurts. Here.” She clenches her fist and presses it to her chest, over her heart. “Savannah will never have a first date, never go to prom, never smoke her first joint, get married, have little brats. All because some trigger-fucking-happy hillbilly!”
I put a hand on her arm to take her down a couple of notches.
“We invaded his house. It’s all on us. He had the right—”
She jerks and pulls loose.
“Fuck you, Peter Hale! How dare you? You’re wrong! You’re so fucking wrong. Why did we bring her? How can you defend… I thought you and I-I thought we… I can’t do this!” She gives me a look filled with loathing, then spins around and runs off.
“I’m not…” I shout. Your enemy. But it’s too late.
It’s the last time I speak to Penelope Wilder. Graduation day is a happy day for everyone who’s moved on. Sandra and Cole have a fight and sit in ice-cold silence, turned away from each other. How fucking unusual. Lexi is glued to Liam. She’s lost weight. I know she hung out with Pen a lot in the beginning, but I haven’t seen them together for a long while.
Penelope accepts her diploma, glances at me with one brief, dark look, then disappears off stage and, within a few days, out of our lives completely.
A new family moves into their house.
Cole got Sandra knocked up, and he got them a trailer, which they put in his folks’ backyard. He works hard, though, and I’m pretty sure they’ll find a house of their own soon enough. If they last. They fight about everything—money, where to live, her dancing and acting lessons, his drinking—and he never seems to be around. Being their friend is becoming harder and harder.
Liam and Lexi move to San Diego. He’s going away for marine corps boot camp.
I leave for L.A. to find a new life. A life without the memories, without every fucking street corner as a reminder of what used to be.
The shooting—Savannah Wilder’s pointless death—left a big, fat impression on me. I want to serve and protect. I want to help the ones in need.
If I can save even one kid, one family, from senseless violence and grief, I’ve done good.
Chapter Five
Penelope
Peter Hale, Officer Peter Hale, stands to the side by the podium. His features appear set in stone as his eyes sweep the crowd of journalists, but he never looks my way.
It’s been eight years since we last talked, but I remember our argument as if it was yesterday. Gun laws. The right to shoot and kill anyone you think threatens your life, without asking, without thinking. He was for. I was, and still am, adamantly against it.
The feeling of betrayal crushed me and still riles me up, thinking about it. I shouldn’t be so surprised he ended up a fucking cop. I can’t believe I thought I loved him. We are on the opposite side of everything. He stands there, representing oppression and all that is wrong with the world. I fight to give a voice to the little guy.
I wonder if he ever thinks of me.
Why do I want him to see me?
I moved across the country a few times. First, university, then jobs at smaller newspapers before I got this gig and landed my ass back on the old home turf. I’ve worked hard and carved myself a place in crime reporting.
Some call me the blonde piranha, and some call me queen bitch of the universe, and it’s said I eat rookie cops for breakfast and district attorneys for lunch. It’s not true. The rookies need to watch, learn, and do better. I eat the DAs for breakfast and the chief of police for lunch. At dinner, I prefer less fatty food.
I’ve changed, but goddamn, so has he. The tall, gangly boy I knew and fell in love with has become intimidatingly buff, and his once warm blue eyes are steely cold. His name always pops up in the toughest murder investigations, and he does good work, but he isn’t a good man anymore.
He’s a man you don’t wanna end up on the bad side of.
And that’s exactly where I am.
I raise my hand.
A few more questions are answered, and I listen with interest while I take notes, notebook perched on the leg I’ve crossed over the other, juggling the writing one-handedly.
“Miss Wilder.”