"Love In The Margins"

prologue

Eleanor

4 years ago

I turn the doorknob, exhausted and dizzy from school. I stumble inside. "I'm home," I mumble, but no one answers.

Something feels wrong. My heart starts to race. It's quiet, far too quiet. Then the smell hits me. Metallic, thick, unmistakable. It's blood.

I freeze in the doorway, my backpack slipping from my fingers and hitting the floor with a dull thud. My chest tightens as panic claws its way up my throat. I start running toward the source of the smell, my footsteps echoing too loudly in the hallway as I shout for them, my voice cracking, "MOM!..DAD!"

I stop outside my parents' bedroom. A dark red stain seeps from beneath the door, spreading slowly across the carpet. My hands shake as fear takes over. I don't reach for the handle. My father said leaving fingerprints at a crime scene was too risky. So instead, I slam my shoulder into the door, again and again even as pain shoots through me, my body moving on pure instinct alone. I pull back and slam into the door with all my strength finally throwing it open.

Blood was everywhere, coating the walls, the bed, and the floor. The smell was overwhelming making my vision blur. My parents lie motionless on the ground, twisted and broken, their eyes staring at nothing, for a moment, my mind refuses to process what I'm seeing, and my legs give out.

I drop to my knees beside them, my hands trembling as I press two fingers against their necks, praying for a pulse, but there was none.

Their lips were blue, and their skin was ice-cold. A sob escapes me before I can stop it. Tears spill down my face as my head drops to my hands.

My father was a detective, and I had grown up knowing that danger followed him like A shadow. Every time he left for work, there was a quiet tension in our house, an unspoken understanding that his job carried risks most families never had to think about. Still, he was careful. He guarded his identity fiercely, keeping our names and faces hidden from the people he dealt with, sealing his work life away from our home as if secrecy alone could protect us.

He always told us not to worry. He said he had everything under control. He promised that no one would ever find us, that his cases would never bleed into our lives. I wanted to believe Him, and most days, I did

But I also knew he was reckless in his own way. He pushed too hard, chasing leads that others would have abandoned, and refused to step back even when the danger was obvious. I saw it in the way he came home late, exhaustion carved into his face, in the quiet arguments he thought we couldn't hear. I believed I hated that part of him as much as I admired it.

I told myself that if anything ever happened, I would be ready. That I would protect them. I imagined warnings, threats, signs that something was coming, something that would give me time to act. I believed danger would announce itself before tearing everything apart

It didn't

One ordinary day was all it took for everything to be taken from me, leaving behind nothing but silence and blood and the terrible knowledge that secrecy wasn't enough.

Then a faint rustling came from behind me.

My heart slams against my ribs. I look up and see my father's gun lying near his limp hand. Without thinking I grab it, the weight unfamiliar and terrifying. I turn around, my breath ragged, my hands slick with blood and tears as I raise the weapon.

The man is covered in blood, his clothes soaked and his face smeared with it. He was the one who did this. I know it in my bones. I point my gun at him, my arms shaking so badly I can barely keep it steady. Our eyes meet, and something about him makes my stomach twist.

He's young, too young. He doesn't look much older than me, maybe five years at most. For a split second, confusion cuts through my terror. My finger tightens on the trigger.

Sirens wail in the distance, growing louder by the second. The sound slices through the moment like a blade. His eyes widen, and then he turns and runs, disappearing before I can decide whether to pull the trigger

The gun slips from my hand and hits the floor. Leaving me kneeling in a room soaked in my parents' blood, surrounded by silence once again, knowing that nothing will ever feel the same.

The sirens arrive too late to change anything, Red and Blue lights flood the house, cutting through the darkness as officers rush in, weapons raised, voices sharp and urgent. Medics follow close behind, but their hands still the moment they see my parent. Someone gently pulls me away from the room. Another wraps a blanket around my shoulders, though I cannot feel its warmth. Questions blur together. Names, times, face. I answer mechanically, my voice hollow, my eyes fixed on the hallway where the murderer disappeared.

In the days that follow, the house becomes a crime scene and my life becomes evidence. I'm questioned again and again, every detail picked apart, every memory replayed until it hurts. At the funeral, my father's former partner, Vincent, stands beside me, a quiet, steady presence amid the grief. He had worked on cases with my father for years. He knew the risks. He knew the costs.

When he offers to become my Legal guardian, his voice is Careful, like he's afraid I might break if he speaks too loudly. I say yes without hesitation. I've already lost everything that made this place home.

Two years pass

And in those years, my grief sharpens into resolve, now living under Vincent's roof. I bury myself in case files, court rulings, anything that teaches me how justice is built and how it falls. When the lead finally resurfaces, I'm ready. I help connect what was missed, follow what was ignored, and stand there when the handcuffs close around the person who destroyed my family.

A year after the murderer's sentence is confirmed, the letter arrives. A full-ride scholarship to Harvard for criminology. I hold it in my hands and think of my parents, of my father, of the badge he carried and the life it cost him.