Sam and Scott, post meltdown, disagree on his view of getting along.
“Sara’s idea?”
“Not… entirely.”
“Hm,” Sam joined Scott on the balcony. “I thought I detected a thumb on the scales.”
“So what? Duncan got everything he deserved and then some.”
“I can’t deny he’d earned some justice,” Sam allowed. “But I’ve always felt you should allow your enemy to walk away with some face intact. Lest they find out who was at the core of it and manage to extract revenge.”
“Duncan’s not that smart.”
Sam jiggled his head, conceding the point. “So where does his anger go, then? When he wants revenge, and he will want revenge.”
Scott stared out at the bay. “Someone unlucky enough to get in the way, maybe?”
A nod. “Someone helpless. Someone who can’t defend themselves. Someone who can’t or won’t fight back. Someone little, so that the likes of him can feel big.”
“He needed to be taken down so that everyone could see what he was. And he needed to do it to himself.”
“But recording it? Making sure you have a relic of the event so you can gloat?”
“No. Not to gloat. To make sure he never hurts another girl again.”
“Do you think he can tell the difference?”
“He doesn’t matter. I want the whole world warned about him. He’s a rapist and an abuser and the kind of man who’d hurt a kid just because they got in his way. The kind of man who’d find a kid just so he could hurt them again and again and–”
“This isn’t all about Duncan.”
“Mr Winters used to talk about his glory days. About the things he used to do… when he was just a baby monster.” A shuddering, gasping gulp. “He was exactly like Duncan.”
“And you would stop him at every chance?”
“Every time I could.”
Sam sighed. “Remember what happened to Ahab, eh?”
“I’ve already been destroyed,” said Scott. “As long as he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
Sam stared out at the water. “There’s other ways to defeat monsters,” he offered. “I can show you how.”
“And nobody else gets hurt?”
“And nobody else gets hurt.”
They shook on it.
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