Before There Were Angels

by Sarah Mathews

  They then questioned whether Stevie had stabbed her and I was covering up for him, but Rafaella had declared categorically that it had been me, not him.

  So the invisible man got it. He may still be in prison. Nobody has seen or heard from him since.

  Not the real invisible man, of course. Zack was doing just fine, only slightly frustrated that he hadn’t managed to see Rafaella off once and for all. “I should have stabbed her twice. I should have stabbed her forty times. What was I thinking?”

  Privately, we told Officers Martinez and Nielsen the whole truth. Rafaella had been stabbed by Zack and, unfortunately for them, and fortunately for him, not only was he beyond their jurisdiction, we was living in an entirely different realm entirely.

  The officers laughed. I think they even believed me. They said they hoped that Zack didn’t turn his hand to other crimes because there would be no stopping him.

  In parallel proceedings, I dropped my charges against Belle for her knife attack on me and we were all home again in no time, teasing Belle about her sudden desire to hang curtains all around the house.

  But behind our high spirits and our excitement at being united, untouched by the criminal injustice system, we knew that Rafaella lived on and that this time she would be even more vengeful than before. She was never one to forgive a kindness, never mind to forget an attempt to murder her.

  She would be back.