My crippled sister, Monica Porter, jumped from the roof of the classroom building.

The day before she died, she had just been fitted with the custom prosthetic legs I had paid for with ten years of savings. She was glowing, excited to finally stand up on her own.

But my wife's best friend, a guy she said was just like a brother to her, locked Monica inside an empty art room. He smashed her new legs, forced her to crawl on the floor and lick paint clean to retrieve the broken parts, and recorded everything on video.

And my wife, a judge, ultimately ruled that the case could not stand.

"The video cannot confirm the time it was recorded and may represent consensual performance art between both parties," she said.

Sandra Pauley's final judgment was simple.

"The deceased had a history of depression. The school and the defendant bear no responsibility."

I smiled and cooked her a full table of food.

The next day, I hung the bully, Eric Hoyles, from the school's flagpole and livestreamed it to the entire internet.

"Honey, remember how you said Monica had such pretty legs?"

I raised a claw hammer and brought it down on his ankle.

"If you don't hand over the video evidence right now, I'll hook out his Achilles tendon one strand at a time and let him learn what it feels like to crawl!"

The wind passed through. His screaming broke apart in the air, mixing with the strained creaking of the flagpole until it sounded almost like music.

The live chat went insane.

Meanwhile, I laughed until my eyes filled with tears.

"Sandra, I know you're watching."

The moment the stream went live, traffic flooded in like a released dam.

"Bradley, I was wrong! I'm really sorry!"

Eric Hoyles, the school bully and my wife's best friend whom she said was like a brother to her, was hanging high above the ground, bound tightly by rope.

One of his ankles was already twisted at a sick, impossible angle.

I stood beneath the flagpole, gripping a claw hammer slick with blood.

The chat exploded.

[What the hell is this? Special effects or an actual psycho?]

[This guy's nuts. Pulling something like this in broad daylight. Is this some kind of revenge?]

[Wait, I recognize him. He was on the news a few days ago. His crippled sister jumped off a building. The court ruled it a suicide and said no one else was involved.]

[Oh, right. That girl who had depression, so she killed herself. What does that have to do with this good-looking guy? Guess her brother finally snapped. What a messed-up family!]

I ignored the stinging comments and spoke calmly to the camera.

"The first time Monica wore the prosthetic legs, she took three steps across the living room and fell.

"She scraped her knee badly. Blood seeped out.

"But she just sat there on the floor, tilted her head back, and smiled like an idiot. She said it didn't hurt at all."

Before the words even finished leaving my mouth, I swung the hammer and slammed it hard against the flagpole beside Eric's ankle.

The sharp metallic crash echoed through the air, mixed with the violent vibration of steel and Eric's terror-stricken scream.

His whole body spasmed midair. Even his crying came out wrong.

I didn't look at him. My eyes stayed on the camera.

"She said to me, 'Bradley, I can finally walk by myself now.' And you hugged her and laughed, saying she had the prettiest legs and could wear all the beautiful dresses she wanted now."

Seeing that I showed no mercy, Eric turned to the camera and cried even harder.

"Bradley! Monica lied to you! Wake up! Everyone watching, please save me! I was going to stay quiet for Monica's reputation since she's no longer around, but look at Bradley! He's completely lost it!"

His voice cracked as he sobbed.

"Monica started it! She wouldn't leave me alone. She said she loved me, that she'd do anything for me. That day, she fell on purpose. She just wanted me to hold her. When I refused, she snapped and said I looked down on her for being crippled!"

"Monica threatened me with those brand new prosthetics!" Eric cried. "She said if I didn't agree to be with her, she would kill herself right in front of me!"

Tears streamed down his still handsome face, his expression pitiful enough to break hearts.

"I'm the real victim here! I just wanted her to calm down, but she tried to frame me with her death!

"Now, she's dead, and everyone's attacking me! Bradley, how can you hurt me over a woman who couldn't take rejection and wanted to destroy me?

"Sandra! Tell him the truth! Please save me!"

The mood in the live chat flipped almost instantly.

[I'm actually crying. He's way too tragic. Gets obsessed over by a mentally unstable girl, then hunted down by her psycho brother.]

[She brought it on herself! She couldn't get the guy, so she burned everything down and dragged everyone with her. That's just gross.]

[The brother's unhinged, too. Didn't he know what his sister was really like? The cops should lock him up before he hurts someone else.]

[I feel bad for the guy. He's handsome, decent, and he even stayed silent to protect a dead girl's reputation. And this is what he gets.]

[So that's what really happened. Love turning into hate. Her brother's basically a ticking time bomb.]

He said my sister, Monica Porter, fell?

Did he think I was an idiot?

Those prosthetic legs cost every dollar I saved over ten years. They were custom-built.

The frame was aerospace-grade carbon fiber. The joints were reinforced titanium alloy. Even if a car ran them over, it would leave nothing more than a few scratches.

There was no way they could shatter into cold, broken pieces from a simple fall.

I stared at the rolling wall of venomous comments. I stared at Eric's face as he twisted the truth without blinking. Every word I wanted to say clogged in my throat.

What was the point of reasoning with an animal?

Seeing my silence, Eric thought he had won. A trace of smugness crept into his voice.

He pressed on while the iron was hot.

"Bradley, look, everyone knows what's right and wrong. I get that you loved Monica, but you can't let her fool you forever. And honestly… She told me in private that she hated her legs. She said they were a burden. She even said if she could get rid of them in some dramatic way, and make me remember her forever, it would be worth it…"

I let out a short laugh. I couldn't hold it in anymore.

My tone shifted, and I cut straight to the point.

"Sandra, why does the bullying video you submitted to the court end right when Monica falls?

"What about the part where Eric and his friends surround her, filming on their phones, laughing while they force her to crawl on the floor like a dog to pick up the broken pieces of her legs?

"You cut that part out, didn't you?"

Eric kept fighting back. "Monica was already mentally unstable! What you're doing now is exactly what she wanted. You're helping her complete her twisted final wish!"

I didn't give him another second to speak.

The claw hammer in my hand traced a cold arc through the air and came down hard on Eric's other intact ankle.

Crack!

The sickening sound of bone snapping rang out, layered with his piercing scream.

I looked straight into the camera, my voice flat and icy.

"That's the second one. You've got two hours. If you can't produce the full video, I'll use this hammer to smash every bone in his body, inch by inch. And then I'll pull out every tendon, one by one."

-

Shrill police sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer by the second. Below the building, flashing lights sealed off the entire block.

Special response units in black tactical gear moved into position. On distant rooftops, snipers took aim.

I looked at the scene unfolding beneath me and let out a dismissive smile.

They had no idea that this place, the newest academic building at Anteopold University, was my project from start to finish. I was involved in the site selection, the structural design, and the final review of every construction drawing. Every blueprint, every detail, passed through my hands.

I knew exactly where the load-bearing walls were weakest, where the cameras had blind spots, and which ventilation shafts avoided every infrared sensor.

If it weren't for Sandra Pauley, I would've been standing at the very top of this field, not a man who gave up his career to orbit his family as a stay-at-home husband.

My phone rang, sharp and sudden.

Sandra.

I answered and put it on speaker.

Her voice exploded through the phone, hysterical and shrill.

"Bradley, have you lost your mind? Stop this right now! This is a crime! Do you even know what you're doing?"

I laughed softly.

"Judge Pauley, your response time today is a lot faster than when you were supposed to get justice for Monica. Where's the video? Where's the full recording I asked for? Did you bring it?"

What answered was silence.

Then, a ripple of movement broke out in the crowd below. Sandra stepped out of a patrol car and snatched the megaphone from the officer in charge.

Her voice shook, thick with tears. "Bradley, calm down. Please, calm down! I know you're hurting. I'm hurting, too. Monica was like my own sister."

She stood at the edge of the police perimeter and opened her arms toward me.

"Come down, okay? As long as you let Eric go, I'll do anything. I'll quit being a judge. We'll leave this place and go somewhere no one knows us. I'll stay with you for the rest of my life. We'll start over, alright?"

The live chat melted all over again, moved by her so-called devotion, flooding with praise for her and pleas for me to stop.

[Gosh, his wife is incredible. She's giving up her career for him!]

[Yeah, come down already. Don't hurt innocent people. Don't throw away such a good woman.]

[This is real love. Someone wake this crazy man up!]

I laughed until tears spilled out.

"Hahaha. Start over? Sandra, did you forget something? The night Monica jumped off this building, why was your phone set to Do Not Disturb?

"Oh, right. I remember now.

"Because you were too busy partying with Eric at the most upscale club in town, celebrating his 20th birthday!"

I faced the camera and spoke evenly.

"From the moment she was locked in that art room to the moment she jumped, three full hours passed.

"Monica called you 27 times. Twenty-seven! And you didn't answer a single one!

"You wiped your call log clean, sure. But the carrier's backend records should still be there, shouldn't they, Judge Pauley?"

I lifted the blood-soaked claw hammer and aimed it at Eric's already shattered leg.

The intent in my eyes was no longer hidden.

"Stop acting. I only want the video."

I stared coldly at the woman below, who was frozen in place by my words.

"Sandra, you're afraid I'll keep hurting him, that he won't take the pain and end up confessing everything. Like how the two of you lay in a hotel bed, talking about how to cut the video, how to destroy the evidence."

My voice wasn't loud, but through the speaker, every word carried clearly to everyone listening.

Sandra's face drained of color.

"Oh," I added, sharp and deliberate, "and you're still wearing his favorite wood-scented cologne. Don't think I can't smell it."