When lectures finally let out, the campus spilled into the parking lot in a swarm of backpacks and laughter. Alden cut through them with the slow, deliberate stride of someone who expected the world to bend to his mood. Tonight there was a party, and he intended to go — the kind of party that required a certain arm candy, a girl who would turn heads beside him. He wanted distraction, and he wanted it now.
He reached his car and froze. The front tire lay half-flat against the asphalt, the rim kissing the ground like a wounded thing. For a breathless second he simply stared, then a string of curses broke free. My new car? He had five cars, but this one mattered. Brand new. Expensive. Personal.
His eyes snapped to the car beside his. Jeff's vehicle sat close by — parked there the same morning, before the fight. Alden's jaw clenched. The thought came like a knife: Jeff did this. It was the easiest, angriest explanation.
Across the lot, Jeff was walking toward his car, head down in thought. When he looked up he saw Alden watching him with a stare sharp enough to cut. For a moment Jeff wondered if Alden would apologize; the gesture seemed as possible as the sky falling. But the look on Alden's face said something else entirely.
"Who could've done this?" Alden barked before Jeff even reached the tire. The accusation rode in the words.
Jeff stopped short. "What?" he said, confusion making his voice thin.
"You want to avenge this way?" Alden spat. "Is that how you get even?"
Jeff's laugh was automatic, edged with disbelief. "Are you drunk or something?" he shot back. There was no trust left between them — only a taut wire of anger waiting to snap.
Alden stepped closer. "You can come and open my mouth, you scum," he said, the words low and dangerous.
Jeff's restraint cracked. "Excuse me. I want to leave," he said, turning for his car.
Alden shoved him back. "Where do you think you're going?"
Jeff shoved at him in return. "You can also open my mouth."
Tempers flared like a match to dry kindling. Alden, face hard, moved to the front of his car and rifled through the trunk. Jeff's eyes followed the motion, every muscle coiled for a fight.
Alden found what he was looking for — a nail, a shard of metal, something mean and small. Without warning he bent to the tire and pressed. The hiss of air was cruelly satisfying. "I'm going to do exactly what you did to me," he said, voice flat.
Jeff's shout was immediate and raw. "My new car—are you crazy?" He stepped forward, hands up and angry, and in the scuffle the bottle that had been rolling in the footwell came loose. Alden grabbed it, swung, and the glass fractured with a hard, horrible sound.
The edge of the broken bottle connected with Jeff's head. Blood appeared bright and startling against his skin. Jeff's knees buckled. He crumpled to the ground as the world tipped sideways.
Silence fell first, then the parking lot erupted into chaos. Students who had been passing by converged, phones already out, voices sharp with alarm. Someone ran for help. Hands fumbled for a phone; someone else pressed a soggy shirt to the wound. Alden stood frozen for a long second, the adrenaline wearing off and leaving something cold and hollow behind.
"Jeff!" someone screamed. The name sounded small and fragile in the open air.
Jeff's eyes fluttered once and then closed. He went limp. The gathered crowd moved like a tide, lifting him gently onto a waiting stretcher minutes later. Voices barked orders; someone called an ambulance. The siren that followed seemed to tear the sky in two as the paramedics worked quickly, deliberate and professional amid the stunned students.
Alden stared at his hands, at the little lines of blood on his knuckles, at the crushed tire and the fallen bottle. The anger that had fueled him a few heartbeats ago curdled into something else — something raw and trembling. Regret didn't come easy to him, but it slid in now, slick and unavoidable.
They loaded Jeff into the ambulance and it pulled away with lights flashing and a stubborn scream. The parking lot emptied as if the incident had been contagious. Alden remained, rooted to the spot, watching the taillights until they were gone, the reality of what he had done settling over him like a weight he could not lift.
Alden stared at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. The parking lot, once a blur of shouting students and flashing lights, had dulled into a gray smear in his head. Did I just kill Jeff? The question thudded in his skull, heavy and relentless. Panic rose like bile in his throat. He had to get away.
He called for Jovi. The twin arrived almost immediately, breathless and alarmed. Jovi kept asking what had happened, leaning forward as if he could pull the answer from Alden's lips. Alden said nothing. He only barked at Jove to drive — and Jovi obeyed, hands white on the steering wheel.
They did not speak on the ride home. Jovi's voice fell into small, worried questions that Alden ignored. The house swallowed them both. Alden bolted up the stairs and into his room, pushing past the bathroom door and letting the hot water wash away, but the steam could not cleanse the image of Jeff collapsing, the broken bottle, the red that had flashed so bright.
When he stepped out moments later, Jovi and Jovan were there, their faces drawn. "What's wrong, Alden?" Jovan asked, voice sharp with fear.
Alden could barely form the words. "I killed Jeff," he said instead, and the confession landed between them with the force of a brick.
Jovi and Jovan erupted at once. "What? How? Why?" Jovi shouted, hands flying.
"You're going to jail!" Jovan cried.
Alden shrugged, the motion small and hollow. "Why? I did the right thing."
"The right thing?" Jovi repeated, fury and disbelief warping his tone. "Alden, you can't—"
A desperate knock sounded at the front door before Jove could finish. Alden's stomach flipped. He already knew. He knew the police would come. He knew what the rest of the world would want: answers, punishment, headlines. He swallowed down a breath that felt like glass.
He went down. The front hall smelled faintly of perfume and disinfectant. Officers stood waiting; faces he had seen only in passing at charity events and neighborhood meetings looked formal and unreadable. They read him his rights and placed the cold cuff around his wrist. For a moment everything slowed — the clink of metal, the rustle of Jovan's shirt, the quiet whimper from Jovi — then they led him away.