Katie Tenney

She hadn't expected to win.

When you've has been surrounded by people trying to ruin your life, you lose all hope.

Claire was positive.

Positively wrong.

When that foreman read the verdict, she could've died from happiness. "We find the defendant, Claire Avery, not guilty."

Claire threw her arms around her defense attorney, trying to hold back the tears. "Thank you!" Claire smiled brightly at her attorney, who simply nodded before heading out (after shaking hands with the DA and gloating a bit, of course).

She then turned to lean over the divider and hug random strangers. They quickly shoved her off, scared out of their minds at the crazy almost-convict touching them.

Claire could care less about her lawyer's callousness—she was free.

The bailiff undid the painful handcuffs—another reason for her look of glee.

She nearly skipped out of the court room, happier than she had been in a long while.

 

[]

 

Outside, on the steps of the courthouse, she saw him.

Claire hadn't seen him in two months, but there he was now. She fidgeted, and went the other way, hoping that she would avoid him.

He shouldn't have been there.

She hurried home: an almost foreign place since she was used to her tiny, cramped cell.

Slightly freaked out, she locked and dead-bolted the door behind her. She then decided to treat herself to something to eat—it didn't matter what, as long as it wasn't made by a strange cook of a questionable gender.

Claire opened the fridge, and screamed, slamming it shut.

No, no, no, no…and again, no…he wasn't supposed to be there…

She took a deep breath. Calm… she chanted over and over in her thoughts.

I've lost my appetite… She groaned mentally, heading for the couch.

The most coveted rarity during her stay in prison was now resting in her living room—a color TV. She smiled at it, rubbing her temples.

She fell onto the pristine couch, lying on her back, an arm falling across her face to cover her eyes. Her free hand reached blindly in the general direction of the remote, but instead was met by something warm and squishy.

She lifted both her hands, and saw that they were somehow covered with viscous, crimson blood.

She started, nearly falling off the couch.

Claire wasn't used to this much blood.

She never had been, even when he died.

He stood in front of her now as she sat on the couch, trying to figure out how all of this was possible.

She could barely hold back her tears. Gazing up at him, trying to keep her eyes off of the large axe in the side of his head, she choked out, "What's happening?"

He stayed silent a moment before sighing, as though he was very frustrated. "My revenge, baby."

An evil grin spread across the face of the man she had killed so violently two months prior, and, suddenly, she wished to God that she had been found guilty.