"Sometimes, all you need is not love, all you need is knowing that someone, somewhere, cared whether you lived or died. And this boy didn't have that." Reporter after the Virginia Tech shootings

Frank and Joe skipped most days of the defense's turn for the trial.

This was for purely selfish reasons. They didn't have school, since it had been suspended for The Duration (which was exactly how they had put it). Instead, they hung out outside the courthouse, watching the mob scene from the other side.

They weren't alone. They sat with Benjamin Fleet. He had boycotted the trial. In the time the Hardy brothers spent staring at the courts from the park across the street; Ben had used them as sounding boards and confidants.

Ben had been, and still would be, a football player for Bayport. He and Joe knew each other well, and went together like macaroni and cheese. Though Ben wasn't the brightest kid, he understood things in a way that Frank couldn't even begin to see. Ben's specialty was people. He had the kind of personality that looped you in, making you feel as if you'd known him forever when you've only been talking to him for five minutes. His voice was low, smooth, and he walked the same way. His eyes, usually bright with fire and interest --- Ben, like Joe, refused to believe anything bad about anyone --- were dimmed and cold as he talked in hurriedly.

"It's just my dad, you know? I don't think I'll ever understand why he's defending this monster. I can't forgive him. Not yet. That kid killed so many people --- a lot of my friends. Why doesn't he get that?" He sipped more of the energy drink he was holding and glared at the court house and mobs of people and media around it as if the place itself was the source of his problems.

Frank sighed quietly and looped his arm around Joe's neck. His younger brother was nodding off again, the warm day drawing him in. Joe seemed to be sleeping more and more often. Maybe it was the nightmares that kept him up at night. Frank made a mental note to ask Joe about it the next time the boy woke with a scream at two in the morning.

"Did you hear what your dad has to say about it?" Frank asked, feeling Joe tense as his hand accidently brushed against the younger boy's chest. It was still sore, more than Joe let on.

Ben's eye's were bright with righteous indignation. "He says the usual stuff. That someone has to do it. That justice has to be fair, and everyone has the right to a fair trial. All the crap about innocent until proven guilty. Then he said that that monster is someone's son. That's when I stopped listening."

Frank didn't know who he agreed with, whose side he was on. On one hand, he'd been brought up by an ex-cop, who was all for letting the system dole out the justice. On the other hand, this boy, Roffman, had taken the system upon himself, and had passed judgment as he saw fit. He'd killed brothers, sisters, kids, a father, in the name of justice.

Who was right? Which side would win?

On the last day of the defense's trial, Frank and Joe went early and barely managed to get a seat in the back of the court room.

It had been all over the town that today Jacob Roffman himself would be testifying. No one was going to miss it. By the appointed starting time, the entire town, it seemed, was either inside the court or spilling out the doors, onto the steps outside. Frank could see all of Bayport High there, waiting for the answer to the question they'd been asking each other for months.

Why?

Why had so many died? Why those people? Why the younger ones…Freshmen, who hadn't even known Roffman? Why the special-ed girl, Caitlyn, who loved the color yellow and would say hello to everyone in the hallway, whether she knew them or not? Why the middle of October? Why Bayport High? Why them?

When Roffman was brought in, chained by hands and feet, the crowd booed as if they were at a football game. There were hisses, jeers, and insults hurled at the boy as he made his way slowly up to the witness stand.

Though Roffman had been present every day of the trial, it was the first time Frank had really seen him since school that day, for it was been Roffman in the parking lot when the Hardy's were about to be late for school. Prison had made the boy thinner, though it hadn't done anything to get rid of the glint in his eyes as he looked at the crowed before him with the dethatched stare of a scientist observing lab rats.

Mr. Fleet, Roffman's defense attorney and Benjamin's father stood up with him. He also received hisses, though not half as many as Roffman. "State your full name and age for the record." He said quietly.

"Jacob Nathanial Roffman, and I'm seventeen."

Mr. Fleet shifted his weight from one foot to the other, he licked his lips, he glanced at the door. The Hardy's had known, even before Ben told them, that to put Roffman on the stand was suicide. He could not, would not, help the case, not unless he apologized, pleaded insanity, or pulled another crazy stunt. In the end, Fleet just asked the question burning the throats of everyone there. "Why?"

And Roffman smiled widely, brightly, cruelly. He leaned forward, talking slowly so everyone could hear him. "They started it."

It was as if all the air in the room had been sucked out. Everyone was silent, staring, not moving, not daring to blink. Hands were clenched, eyes were narrowed, they were ready to spring, to pounce, to devour. They were ready to hate him. But it was silent.

"From kindergarten I was picked on, because I was smaller and didn't like to play rough. I was told to toughen up, to ignore them. People preached about 'turning the other cheek.'" This last part couldn't have been said more sarcastically. "Nothing worked. It just got worse. By middle school I was the nerd, the geek, the loser with no friends. By then there was a definite hierarchy, starting with the jocks and cheerleaders, going down though the drama kids, the class council, the good citizens. It ended with me, at the bottom."

"It got to the point where I didn't want to go to school. I spent all my time on the computer, making up games, scenarios of what could happen. I wanted to move, to drop out, something. It needed to get away."

He looked up, and his eyes were no longer malicious. They were young, and pleading, and scared. "They started it. I was the butt of all the jokes for twelve years. People were dared to ask me on dates, just to prove they did it. But I got to end it."

Now his hands were folded, as if he was talking to a class of very young students. "In the beginning, it was much bigger, you know. I was going to plant a bomb --- it's not hard, if you know the shifts of the guards and the ways in and out of the building. I was going to have that go off on the third floor. Half the school would have been killed."

"But I worked down from that….I didn't have the time. People keep asking why that day, of all days? Well, most of the kids at Bayport High could tell you that. You see, there was a new rumor going around about me. This one claimed that I was in love with Carrie Garner, our princess."

Frank glanced at John and saw the boy put his arm reflexively around Carrie, glaring daggers at Roffman.

"It was then that I realized I had to do it soon, and I had to target specific people. I wanted everyone involved in that rumor to be dead, and I wanted everyone who had ever bullied me or anyone else to be reminded of me every day of their lives. So I got my dad's guns, and bought enough bullets for everyone in the school. Just in case."

Frank looked around the room. Some people had tears streaming down their faces. Some were openly sobbing. Most looked angry, and frustrated, and confused, and Frank felt himself lose faith in their justice system. What kind of world did they live in where people like Jacob Roffman got the same rights to life as good, kind people he had put six feet under?

"I remember everyone I shot. A boy in my homeroom, who's friends had often pushed me around." Frank pulled Joe closer to him and felt his brother shaking under his embrace. "Carrie Garner and her boyfriend. Jocks from the wrestling team and football team. Anyone, everyone."

The crowd was ready to spring. A low moan, a sob was stirring in the undercurrent, growing rapidly, gaining strength. They were beyond anger and grief. They wanted revenge. There was no reason given for their sons', daughters', friends' deaths. It was like they didn't even matter.

Roffman wasn't done digging his grave. He continued as if the hostility of the crowd didn't bother him, enunciating every syllable. "Everyone asks me if I feel remorse for what I did, if I feel bad for the people I killed. I always tell them the same thing --- I'd do it all again. They started it. They deserved it. I was doing people a favor."

That was all the people could take. Officers were required to keep people from lunging at Roffman. The jurors were even on their feet screaming. In the back, it was as if all of Bayport High had banded together and were crying, yelling, asking again and again the one question that had never been answered; why?

In the middle of it all, one last bullet was fired. In the middle of the mob, someone had shot Jacob Roffman, and the monster that had pulled Bayport apart at the seams, the seventeen-year-old demon, was killed.

One more chapter. We're almost there.

As always, please review.