Greg was in first period listening to Mr. Smith talk about some kind of war that happened years ago.

'War doesn't change and whatever the test is about, we'll pass,' he thought, gazing out the window.

That's when he saw the janitor getting out of a car parked in the school lot.

'Long meeting last night?' Greg questioned himself as he watched the parked car turn out and drive off.

Greg's mind started to wander but it was interrupted by his phone suddenly vibrating in his pocket.

'We don't have anybody who would call us except Mom and Dad, and they never text me us during class, let alone call.'

Greg was obviously confused, but ignored it until class was over.

When the bell rang, he immediately pulled his phone out and saw a text from his father and a few missed calls from him, too.

The text read:

Greg, get your work for the day and meet me down at the front office. I already signed you out.

The last time his parents pulled him out of school for anything was when his grandma died, so he wasn't looking forward to whatever was happening. Finding boredom in it rather than concern.

Packing up his things, he headed towards the front of the school where his father was waiting, coaxing him into his patrol car the moment he saw his son approaching.

Once settled inside, Jack drove off without a word, the silence so awkward that it even nagged Greg.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking over to see an uncharacteristically serious expression on his father's face.

"Terra was attacked last night."

Greg was somewhat surprised, but didn't say anything either way, letting Jack continue.

"She was found by a jogger in the woods and then taken to the hospital. She was beaten pretty badly and almost had her damn neck snapped."

'We don't have an emotion for this, really,' Greg's mind rambled, knowing that one mere second of initial surprise wouldn't cut it. His father was probably going to expect a certain reaction, but he didn't and did know how to act all at the same time.

Why?

"We're going to her now, okay? She's in and out of consciousness, but she keeps asking for you and when she fully wakes up we need to get the details about--"

Jack caught himself, realizing that this wasn't just another case, this was a personal one, especially for his son.

Whenever he needed to take a situation serious for a change, he would go into what his wife called Cop Mode. It worked on the job when he talked to other victims, but this was his son and he should probably be a lot better at consoling him by now.

"We're gonna get this sick freak, Greg," Jack said through gritted teeth as he pulled into the hospital parking lot.

When they made it to Terra's room, it had a slight chemical smell, the usual scent of heavily and properly scrubbed surfaces.

The first thing Greg noticed, though, was just how swollen and broken Terra looked.

'Innocent people get hurt all the time, but she's different... People want us to feel something... She wants us to feel something...' he sighed to himself, clenching his fists.

"Mr. Matthews, the other officers want to speak with you," a nurse said, addressing Greg's father who hesitantly left his son, unsure of what to really do for him.

Not sure what to do either, but for a completely different reason, Greg slowly walked up to the battered girl's bedside.

"Did you answer any of their questions yet?" he asked softly, flinching when one of her not so swollen eyes flew open.

"Yes, but they kept repeating the same ones, so I went to sleep," she replied weakly. "They won't do anything to him..."

As Terra's voice fell another voice raised itself outside the room.

"We're gun get dat son a bitch fer all he's werth!" Cletus hollered followed by muffled cries of what Greg could only assume was Martha.

"Sounds like he's already planning on how to cash in on this," Greg scowled, disgusted by the man's greed.

"Rich people aren't always above the law, though," he peered back down at Terra, addressing what she said about the cops not doing anything to "him", assuming that's what she meant.

"Yes, but politicians are and so are their kids," she said, what wasn't swollen on her face reflecting pain.

It took a second for Greg to process, but when he did, he was equally surprised and also not.

"I guess Chad didn't like me being so bold in front of his friends," she continued, slightly tearing up. "I tried to fight back, but he was too strong. He just kept ripping my clothes and then..."

Terra fell into uncontrollable sobs and Greg, still completely lost on how to emotionally react, just gripped her hand tightly.

"I'm sorry for my mistake," he mumbled to her, avoiding eye contact.

"It wasn't your fault..." she sniffled, not able to really move much.

Those words echoed in Greg's head over and over, and it just kept going, the words getting louder as Terra passed out and nurses rushed in.

They echoed as Jack rushed his son out of the room to shield him from what was happening.

They echoed as he witnessed Cletus asking everyone around him for gas money to leave his scarred and even more traumatized daughter.

They echoed as he eventually made it back home, going into his room and throwing on that dark jacket and pulling out his hammer from under the bed.

They even echoed as he stood inside the empty Wilson house, Greg ultimately confused by his own actions.

"Why are we here? It would make more sense to kill the janitor tonight," he whispered softly into Chad's mirror as he stood in the boy's room, staring at his reflection.

"We both hate making mistakes, and leaving Chad unattended is an unacceptable one," his reflection responded.

Unfazed, Greg approached the empty bed and peered under it, pulling out a DVD of Advanced MMA.

"Looks like he did some research for once," Greg scoffed before continuing to look around.

"He did this because we mocked him. He started steroids after we beat him. We created this problem," his reflection called out to him from the mirror.

"He did all of this on his own. He hurt Terra, he used drugs, he made those choices," Greg argued, glaring over at it.

"We pushed him into it, though. We could have lost to him, we could have let him give us a beating, we degraded him at every turn!" his reflection snarled back.

Greg scowled and turned to Chad's medicine cabinet which he found after wandering into the boy's connected bathroom.

"No way he keeps them in here," Greg grumbled, but when he pulled it open, sure enough, the steroids were in plain sight.

"Dianabol, Deca Durabol, HGH extract, parabol, testosterone..." Greg muttered to himself as he rummaged through them. "Using one of these could give him complications at his age, but if he were using all of them he's nothing but hormones wrapped in muscles and flesh."

Shutting the cabinet, Greg surveyed the bathroom counter that was covered with papers about steroid use along with several needles and a journal.

"Guess we aren't the only ones who keep records," Greg muttered, snatching the book and flipping through it before quickly slamming it shut.

"Guess we aren't the only ones who write things like that," his reflection now mocked from the bathroom mirror in front of him.

"This is why we hide ours," Greg said flatly, sliding the book into his jacket before pulling out his phone to pull up Chad's popular social media page.

"He may be a Frankenstein monster, but at least he's a monster that's easy to track," he said, looking at a recent post that told him Chad was still at the gym.

"His mom shouldn't be back from the wine tasting anytime soon, and daddy is at a late night meeting with the next lucky lady he decides to lay with."

"Well, let's get to it," his reflection scoffed as Greg pulled out a vile of his own.