Repentance Comes Too Late

Thanksgiving Eve. The key to columbarium niche C-8 dug into the lining of my pocket. It was my only worldly possession.

Six years ago, my stepsister, Chloe, got into a fight at a bar. She pushed a man down a flight of stairs, killing him instantly. She had clung to my arm, sobbing, begging me to understand that she had just landed her dream job. She couldn't go to prison.

My older brother, Alan—now a World Press Photo award-winning photographer with twelve million followers—physically shoved me into the back of a squad car. "Victoria is the one who slipped. It was manslaughter."

My fiancé, Vance, my childhood sweetheart and now the District Attorney, perjured himself on the stand: "I saw Victoria in a physical altercation with the deceased with my own eyes."

Six years. Federal prison. My right ankle was shattered, and my liver rotted with tumors. The doctor gave me exactly three months and six days.

On the day of my release, the guard shouted at my back: "Inmate 008, don't let me see you back here."

I didn't go home. I changed my name to Amia, hid out in a speck of a town on the edge of the Arizona desert, and bought niche C-8 in the local cemetery—an echo of my inmate number, 008.

I thought no one would ever find me.

Until Thanksgiving Eve. The glass door chimed open, and a stranger stepped in, holding up a photograph. "The owner of niche C-8. Has anyone come looking for her?"

The pen in my hand froze.

"She was an orphan. Nobody is looking for her," I said without looking up.

The second the stranger turned to leave, another voice crashed into the room.

"I've been going crazy looking for you. I dragged my camera through thirty cities trying to track you down, and this is what you show me?"

It was Alan. Swathed in a cashmere overcoat, he looked immaculate, like he'd just stepped off a magazine cover. Meanwhile, I was emaciated, a withered ghost of the sister who used to model for his lens.

"Did Chloe mess up again?" I retracted my pen. "You want me to take the fall for her again?"

"She has depression," Alan frowned. "It was just a few years. Are you really still holding a grudge?"

It was the exact same tone he used six years ago. Just like when he shoved me into the cruiser: You're the older sister. Take the six years for her. Consider it atonement.

I laughed so hard tears pricked my eyes. "I don't want this family anymore."

He grabbed my wrist. "Stop acting crazy and come back to Los Angeles with me."

As I struggled, the old injury flared up. All the color drained from my face. Only then did he freeze.

"If you want to make it up to me," I jerked my arm free, "pay me back double what you owe me."

"Owe you what?"

"The truth."

"You want Chloe's life?"

There it was. That was the line. Even now, when he could afford the best defense attorneys in the country, his first instinct was still to protect our stepsister.

If he knew my right ankle had been pulverized—he would probably just say, It's only an ankle. As long as it doesn't affect Chloe winning her dance competitions, it's fine.

"Then why did you even come looking for me?"

"I can provide for you for the rest of your life," he sighed. "It's better than slaving away in some rundown motel."

I didn't have the energy to fight him off. I let myself be corralled into his car and gave him the address of my trailer park.

My landlord, Martha, jogged up as we arrived. "Amia, just getting off work?" Her gaze landed suspiciously on Alan.

It was too late.

"You changed your name?" Alan suddenly seized my other hand and yanked hard. I stumbled. The shattered bone in my ankle shrieked, making me sweat from the sheer agony. "Who gave you the right to change the name Mom gave you!"

Martha charged forward and shoved him away. "Let her go!"

The emotions I had suppressed for six long years finally shattered the dam.

"My life is none of your damn business," my voice rasped. "A drafty trailer, a graveyard shift, and... three months and six days. Is that not pathetic enough for you? I could tell you about what happened in prison, but I wouldn't waste a single word on you."

"What... three months?" The blood drained from his face.

"Get out."

"Victoria—"

"Get out!"

His hand froze in midair.

"Fine," his voice cracked. "Consider yourself dead to me."

He turned and walked away. My legs gave out, and I crumpled toward the dirt, but Martha caught me. She didn't ask a single question.

"Let's get you inside. I'll bring you some soup in the morning."

I deadbolted the door, collapsed onto my bed, and shivered uncontrollably.

My phone screen lit up the darkness. A push notification popped across the screen—someone had just reshared the old news article about the murder from six years ago.

I stared at the screen, my fingers trembling. In the blacked-out room, a vicious throb pulsed through my ruined right ankle.

The memories of that night, six years ago, came flooding back.