Dead and the Dying.

"You have to understand..." the man gasped as they wrestled him to the ground and painfully pinned his arms behind his back. "Please. Understand. I didn't have a choice!" he screams. "She asked me. She begged me!"

They had him on his stomach now, his left cheek pressed hard into the carpeted floor. His face inches away from the pool of blood that was still growing and creeping it's way towards him. It was so... red. Shockingly red but quickly turning dark. He looks up, and see's his daughter in the crowd, smiling at last.

She hadn't smiled since the day she'd been murdered. The sight makes him calm down and smile himself. The sudden contentless relaxes his muscles and it feels like the officers knee is going to sink through his back and into his heart. He can't breathe through the crush of bodies on top of him.

Good. He hopes it kills him.

He'd just done the only thing he had left to do in this life.

"Why did you do it, you crazy fucker? He was guilty. He was going away for life," one of them hisses in his ear. "You didn't have to kill him."

"She asked me. She wouldn't leave me alone," the man mutters, more to himself than to anyone in particular.

Ever since the day--that day--his mind hadn't been right. He lost track of time. He lost track of days. He forgot to eat. He'd grown lean, then frail. He didn't shower. Didn't work. His marriage had fallen apart. He wasn't processing the loss. Couldn't process the loss. He didn't want to. He was drowning in grief. Choking on it. It flooded his chest and left no room for air. For life.

He'd researched the man responsible, saw that he was a repeat violent offender that should've been locked up years ago. That had driven him into a black rage that he'd taken out on his home. Destroying windows, doors, and anything he could find. He'd left Marissa's room untouched, of course. What if she came home? She'd be upset if he messed up her carefully decorated room.

He'd work himself up into a suicide frenzy night after night. Desperate to feel something other than this crushing grief that weighed him down and made him hurt. He'd hung a noose up in his barn, and he'd watch it watch him. Whispering to him.

And then... Marissa had come back home.

He was sitting on the floor, in complete silence, rocking back and forth when he'd heard a scuff, startling him into attention. And there she was. Looking at him from the kitchen. Jagged cut across her neck, weeping blood that never fell but never stopped.

He knew she wasn't real. Knew that she was the product of a fractured mind. Electrical confetti spraying out of broken synapses. He knew it. And didn't give a fuck. His little girl was back home.

He'd talked to her. Full conversations. And she'd went into detail about what the bastard had done to her, what he'd inflicted on her.

Then... then she'd asked him to avenge her. To make it right. And as soon as she said it, he knew he didn't have a choice. He had to make it right. Don't you understand? The scales had to be balanced and there was only one way to do it. A life sentence in a jail cell didn't weigh enough.

So, he'd put on aires, pretended to be a forgiving christian, just to work his way close to James Boudreaux. No-one suspected anything from Jeff Miller. He was small. Mild-mannered. Wrecked with grief and professing the desire to pray with James. This was the Bible Belt. The judge had allowed it.

When he'd gotten close it seemed like time had stilled, treacle slow and almost foamy. The world lost its high definition and it seemed to Jeff that he was watching it unfold on an old T.V. He saw James smirk, laughing at his request. Saw him lean over Jeff's shoulder so he could whisper in his ear, about how much he'd enjoyed killing his daughter.

Jeff let him talk for a moment, looking over James' shoulder at Marissa, standing in front of him, lips starting to turn up at the edges with a smile. So, he smiled too.

"Just to let you know, I'd do it again." James said, his unknowing last words.

Jeff breathed easy for the first time in months and reality snapped back into vivid definition. He put an easy hand on James' shoulder and said, "So would I."

He buried his pocket knife deep into his neck, ripping it out the front, desperate to cut anything and everything that was important. It was hard to miss, there was a lot of important shit in the neck.

James stumbled back, hands locked at his waste, unable to put up a fight. Jeff followed after him, arm pumping like a piston as he stabbed... stabbed... stabbed until people pulled him off and slammed him to the ground.

It was chaos inside the courtroom. People were screaming. They were rushing everywhere with nowhere to go. Reality was crystal clear now, and the only thing Jeff could look at was his daughter, on her hands and knees, bending down to talk to him. Her throat was no longer cut, it was the same smooth paleness that he'd always remembered.

"I love you, daddy. I'll see you when you get here," she whispers into his ear, words clear as day in his mind. She kisses him on the cheek and he can feel that too.

"I love you, sweetie," Jeff says, tears pouring out of his eyes.

The officers rip him up off the ground and stand him on his feet, big hands gripping his arms painfully. Sheriff Rawlins is there, standing in front of him, shock plain on his face.

"Why? Jeff. Why?" he asks.

"I didn't have a choice," Jeff says. "I didn't have a choice."