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His face has aged considerably since his incarceration began when I was a child. The wrinkles at his eyes are much deeper now, his hair whiter. He’s lost more weight than what’s healthy, the bones of his frame sticking through his thin skin.

I would bet my life that had he left my mother alive, she’d still be beautiful despite what he put her through. What he did to her. Guess he’s not as strong.

Breathing slowly out of my nose, I swallow the hot rage that threatens to join the bile just past my esophagus. “I’m only here to say goodbye, father.”

He shifts in his chair, one of his hands sliding across the metal table toward me. Fortunately, he’s stopped halfway, courtesy of the cuffs keeping him bound to the chair. He sighs before curling the same hand into a fist and withdrawing it, slipping it back onto his lap. “No, sweetheart, please. Stay. I’ve missed you so much and?—”

He stops when I shake my head once, understanding washing over him that I am not the same child he once knew. I have not forgotten what he’s done. What he’s said. I have not forgiven him.

And I am most certainly not the little girl that he convinced to bury her own mother.

“So goodbye then?” His voice cracks with the question.

I nod, staring at his features one last time. Physically this man looks nothing like me anymore. Not an ounce of similarities between us. But inside, it’s as though I’m looking at a mirror.

It’s because of him and what he’s poisoned me with that I will never seek happiness. Why I’ll never be capable of love. I loathe him with every fiber of my being, and yet…saying the words is more than what I’m capable of.

Standing, I walk to my father, a man I’ve never cared about and will never see again. I incline, and place the softest kiss on his lips, no more than a breath of time passing.

When I give him a parting glance, I wish, with whatever adolescent shooting star magic I might still possess, that the evil part he left in me, dies with him.

But when I receive news the following day that he succumbed to a heart attack in his cell and passed away, I know it didn’t work.

“Before I say anything. Let me know now if you plan to sit here and lie to me.” Jessica’s gaze is set on the plate in front of her but her words are directed straight to me. Her shoulders are set, her posture rigid.

“I will not lie to you.”

Her eyes flash up, hurt and rage burning through them so bright her irises look like the clouds instead of the sky. “You know. The moment…”She pauses to take a deep breath and then places her fork down on the plate. The sound of the metal hitting the ceramic sounds like a gun firing.

“When I met you, I knew there was something different. Something more dangerous than what I currently could understand. But I thought you were a good fuck. Someone who would probably make a girl see stars and then ghost her the next day. I had these fucking bells ringing in my head and every fucking time, I ignored them.”

She swallows, batting away the angry tear that spills free from her eye.

My hand aches to reach out to her and explain before she can piece my sins together out loud. But I can’t. I don’t deserve to speak right now. I don’t deserve to defend my actions or all the secrets I’ve kept.

So instead, I simply listen, my face serene, my hands in my lap.

Jessica’s eyes move back and forth, her mind working it out. “Why would a lady from Noxus be in a bar like The Four? She got stood up. Okay. Fine. Why would the address to a fucking glass company that could be involved in a high-profile murder case lead me to said lady’s flower shop? Wrong address. Okay. Cool. Why would the lady have a fucking known mob boss’s car outside of her shop in the middle of a goodman tsunami and not even so much as look its way?”

She stops to breathe, tears streaming steadily now. “You know what’s really fucked up, though? The thing that made me sayHoly shit, Elena is a fucking serial killer who works with Alexi?”

I wince at her words, my heart splintering a little more with every sentence she says.

“It wasn’t the fact that Fikes was hell bent on proving the second killer was a female with a big brawny helper. It wasn’t that my uncle had the analyst do another swab of the vial and found traces of a poisonous herb Iknowyou have here at the shop. It was when those pieces of shit hurt me and I–and I came here and spent the night with you…”

Again, she pauses, only this time, her anger turns into sobs, her shoulders shaking with her stuttered breathing. A sharp pain shoots across my jaw and a crack over my molars. But the pain is nothing in comparison to what my sweet girl is going through. It’s meaningless when her next string of words will surely drive finality into my heart and finish the job of crumbling it to mere ash.

She rubs the back of her hand under her nose. “It’s when I woke up at three in the morning and found you gone. Somehow, I just knew. I fuckingknew. And I told myself if they ended up dead, I couldn’t say it was all a coincidence. I couldn’t keep?—”

She stands, and a newfound panic gallops through my bloodstream, pushing me to finally speak. “Jessica.”

Her eyes flash as she grabs her keys from the table and shoves her phone in her pocket. “Tell me one thing, Elena. Just one. And if you're honest, I’ll let you run.”

I rear back at her words, the realization of what she plans to do, slapping me in the face.

“Why did we cross paths? Did Alexi send you to stop my investigation on him?”

I swallow around the cotton lodged in my throat, despising that I have to fucking nod.