Ok so I'm redoing the story I wrote before, hopefully it will be better, I'm leaving the old one up, the prologue is pretty much the same so you can skip it if you read my first attempt. Anyway, hope you like it, let me know if not or what I can improve, thanks :)


Prologue

Harley watched the blood seeping out of the cracks in the skull, bludgeoned beyond repair, it was difficult to make out facial features anymore. She had kept smashing with the baseball bat long after he was dead. Hatred for the lowlife scum still burned in her, glaring at the dead man, she viciously kicked his side, the corpse heaving to the side before falling back to its original position. She scowled, he had died too quickly; it was no fun hurting a meat sack.

With an angry yell she threw the baseball bat at the wall across her watching it bounce off and roll to a stop. Slowly the fire inside her started to die down and she heard whimpering sniffles coming from across the room. Her eyes darted up quickly to see the small form huddled against the wall looking at her in horror, tears streaming down her puffy face with her hands clamped over her mouth.

Regret and worry filled her but that was pushed aside when she saw the fresh bruises forming on Ellie's face and arms. Anger rose up again but she forced it down in favour of helping her friend. She started forward, but Ellie flinched back from her, breathing hard and terrified eyes looking at the corpse at Harley's feet before back to Harley and slowly inching back.

"Its ok now" Harley said lamely, clenching her fists, unsure how to proceed now.

"He can't hurt you anymore, its ok now"

Stepping forward again, to reach for her, Ellie shrank back, squeezing her red eyes shut covering her head with her hands.

"Please don't hurt me," she blurted out.

Harley froze. A sick feeling in her stomach, seeing her friend flinch away from her in fear, looking at her like she was a monster. Pain and hurt bubbled up inside her as she drew back trying to find words to say to reconcile the situation, but anger reared its head again.

"He was hurting you, he was going to rape you, I saved you!" she burst out. Instantly regretting it when she saw Ellie wordless shook her head in denial.

"He loved me, we were together; he wouldn't do that"

Harley stared at her incredulously. Speechless, she knew Ellie was infatuated with him, but couldn't she see what was happening? He was abusing her and Harley hadn't acted before because Ellie had begged her not to, but when she had come over tonight and seen Matt holding Ellie down by her throat, choking her while trying to get his belt off, something inside Harley had snapped.

"He was a monster" Harley bit out.

"No you're a monster, you killed him, we were in love and you killed him." Ellie whispered. Her wild eyes darted up to look at Harley before flickering back to Matt's body.

"Murderer, you murdered him" Ellie's voice getting higher and louder before something inside her broke, and she launched herself at Harley, uncoordinated arms swinging wildly, while she screamed and cried. Tears streaming down her face as she bawled, unintelligible sounds pouring from her mouth. Harley held her wrists and let Ellie punch and slap her.

Almost numb inside, she watched Ellie exhaust herself, hits getting weaker before she slid to the floor and just cried, loud and ugly, red faced with fat tears streaming down her face.

Harley stood there. Staring at her friend, oddly no sympathy forthcoming, she waited for a feeling of empathy but nothing came. Only a strange feeling of emptiness and loss filled her now.

Calmly she walked over to the phone and called 911, Ellie's parents were away for the weekend, and no one would come otherwise.

She didn't remember anything of what was said, but soon the sounds of sirens in the distance came closer with red and blue flashing lights before cars parked in front of the house.

Everything was a blur as she watched people lead Ellie away and setting up markings around the body. A police officer stood in front of her and after a moment she realised he had been talking to her.

"I'm sorry can you repeat that please?" Harleen said, firmly back in control.

Blinking the cop repeated.

"I'm officer Robertson, are you the one who called 911?"

"Yes" she said, calm rational settling over her before she took in the officer; he was fairly plain, with earnest brown eyes.

"Please come with me, there's some questions I'd like to ask you"


She sat waiting in the police station; she hadn't seen Ellie and doubted she ever would again. Ellie would never forgive her now, not that it would have changed anything.

The doors burst open and Harleen's mother bumbled through, looking around wildly. Eyes fixing on Harleen she rushed forward to envelop her.

"Harleen are you alright?" she cried hugging her before drawing back to look into her eyes, relief at seeing she was ok.

From there everything went quickly, she had already answered all their questions and had a medical check up to make sure she was fine.

Her mother drove her home in silence, parking the car they got out and walked up to the front door. It wasn't a fancy neighbourhood, but wasn't terrible either. Harleen focused on the curling paint on the door flaking off while her mother struggled with the keys. Finally it opened and they both walked in.

Harleen calmly walked into the kitchen and started making hot chocolate, she had already showered and been given spare clothes by the police since hers had been splattered in blood.

Her mother watched from the door before reaching forward to grab her wrist. Eyes meeting she begged her.

"Please Harleen, these things can't keep happening, this time its ok, it counts as self defence. No one is going to blame a 14-year-old girl for defending her friend from being violated by a 17 year old line-backer" she exhaled slowly "But this isn't the first time you've had violent outbursts. Sooner or later someone will connect the dots and you won't be seen as a victim anymore. Do you understand Harleen?"

Frightened eyes watched her warily and she froze staring at her distraught mother, who took a deep breath before continuing shakily.

"Harleen, I love you but you need to stop this, you need to learn to control yourself, I know sometimes, you have…. moments… when you change…"

She made a frustrated sound "I don't know, I don't understand you but Harleen please, please they will take you away and lock you up, please for me, please try."

Pleading watery blue eyes bored into her as her mother begged.

"Please this needs to stop, promise me, there won't be a next time, no more fights, no more beating people up and no stealing - don't deny it, I find stuff in your room, but please, I love you and I don't want to see you get locked up." She paused and leaned back to watch her "I want what's best for you, please do this for me, no more, ok? Can you promise me that Harleen?"

She was torn, looking into her mother's eyes she could tell; she had pushed it too far this time, they both knew she got into fights and stole stuff sometimes, but she never got caught and rarely lost a fight. But she had crossed a line today; she had never killed anyone before.

They could argue that it was self-defence, she was helping her friend, but unspoken, they both knew she had enjoyed it. Her mother wouldn't accept it, or ever even say it out loud, but she knew. Harley like doing whatever she wanted, she had her own idea of right and wrong, which rarely matched up with the legal definitions.

But now was time to choose, she had felt it coming for a while: to be Harley or Harleen?


Please comment or give constructive criticism, thank you :)