Kill the Puckers

Chapter 1

The Inciting Incident

“Are you nervous?” I ask, squeezing Katie’s hand in mine as we walk down the long hallway.

There are just a few people here at the moment, but it won’t be long before it’s filled shoulder-to-shoulder.

The only reason it’s not jam-packed right this second is because they gave Katie advanced notice to get to the courthouse prior to the verdict being read.

As soon as everyone else knows it’s going to happen, this hallway will be overrun with journalists, hockey fans, and the same kind of rubberneckers who slow down on the highway to get a peek at the carnage any time there’s an accident.

They’re parasites. All of them. And they’ve all been salivating for a verdict for the four and a half days the jury has spent deliberating.

“I’m fucking terrified, Alyssa. What if they didn’t believe me? What if they let them all go?” Katie asks, her honey-blond hair swaying as we walk.

“They won’t.”

“But what if they do?”

I sigh. I wish Katie’s mom, Jeanette, was here, but she got called into work three hours ago when the hospital ended up short-staffed and couldn’t make the drive from Portland to Seattle with us.

Katie told her it was fine, but I don’t think it is.

Not really. Nothing is fine right now. I think Jeanette should’ve blown off work entirely.

Being on call is a big part of why I went straight into private practice. Fuck that shit.

“Then you will feel unbelievably sad and frustrated. And on the way home, we’ll buy every ice cream flavor the grocery store carries, and then we’ll go back to my place and eat until our stomachs explode.

But either way, you will be fine. It might not look like it, but there’s more than one way to put things right, and you’ve already lived through all the worst parts of this hellscape. ”

“I’m pretty sure they’re going to let them all go. Nothing is going to happen.” Her blue eyes are bright, and her fear is apparent in the way her eyes move over our surroundings.

“Is that why you’re in head-to-toe black today?”

“Yes. I feel like I’m going to my funeral.”

“Even if this goes badly, Katie, they won’t get away with it,” I promise. The air feels heavy, and I’d like to chalk it up to the fact that it’s near the end of August and the courthouse is an old building, but I know that’s not why.

She nods, squaring her shoulders as I release her hand and pull the courtroom door open.

All five sets of defense attorneys are already seated on the other side of the bar, as are the prosecutors.

The defense attorneys look like a freaking army.

Their clients aren’t here yet, though. I’m sure they plan to make an entrance.

They’ve turned every part of this trial into a media circus and defamed Katie as much as they possibly could while narrowly skirting the gag order put in place by the judge.

I’m certain that many of the tabloid articles came about directly from them.

If they have no qualms about gang-raping an unconscious, drugged woman, they won’t have any qualms about speaking to the so-called press just because the judge told them not to.

I fully expect them to be among the last to show up today.

I’m certain they want to parade up the courthouse steps, like they’re the victims in all of this.

Fuck them all. I’m not sure how they could possibly get away with it.

But I’ve thought that so many times about so many rapists, and these ones are professional athletes. Hockey players. Scum.

Katie and I sit down on the hard bench, and the prosecutor turns to talk to Katie, explaining what will happen. Telling her that regardless of what the verdict is—guilty or not guilty—she has to remain composed.

Sure, I think. Let’s add insult to injury.

The prosecutor must pick up on my fury, because he says, “That goes for you too, Ms. Reed.”

“Doctor,” I state.

“What?”

“It’s Doctor Reed,” I reply shortly. Normally I wouldn’t care, but I don’t like this asshole and his ‘remain composed’ bullshit.

I want to burn this fucking building down, and I want to do it with Katie’s rapists locked inside.

I want to hear them scream, and I want to smell their skin charring as the fire cooks them from the outside in.

And then I want to douse them in ice water and put them into the burn unit.

That way, if they recover, we can do it all over again.

The prosecutor nods but says nothing else.

The minutes tick by with agonizing slowness, and Katie takes my hand again.

Her palm is clammy against mine, and I can feel a small tremor in her fingers.

I wish Jeanette were here. I wish her dad, Craig, hadn’t died three years ago.

I wish I’d gone with her to that concert in Seattle and been at the bar with her afterward, that night last year when all of this happened.

I wish… Fuck. I wish I’d at least thought to bring a few Xanax for Katie.

The noise in the hallway on the other side of the courtroom doors has been steadily increasing for the past twenty minutes.

It sounds like a dull roar. Like waves crashing in the distance.

Another few minutes pass before the door opens and the noise comes flooding in more rapidly than the people.

I check my watch. Five more minutes until they’re supposed to read the verdict.

The first of the hockey-douchebags walks past the bar railing dividing the courtroom to sit next to his attorneys.

Garret Fischer. A center for the Black Bears.

He’s tall and thin with dark blond hair and blue eyes.

He’s the one who initially hit up Katie at the bar.

The one who bought her a drink and invited her back to his hotel room, where the other four were waiting.

Katie might’ve been up for having a one-night stand with Garret, but she never had the chance to make that decision because the last thing she remembered before waking up naked on the hotel floor in a puddle of piss, was leaving the bar and walking across the street.

When she woke up, she found her clothing scattered around the suite, and as she was gathering it, trying to make her escape from the room, one of the assholes cornered her with his phone, and demanded she say she agreed to sleep with all five of them on video.

She was still half-naked at that point. A five-foot-three-inch half-naked woman, with her back to a literal and figurative wall, with a six-foot-five-inch fully clothed man boxing her in.

I saw the video. He had her pressed into a corner, wearing only her bra.

You could see the whites of her eyes all the way around her irises.

She was terrified. She would’ve said anything to get out of that room and away from him.

Once she said it, though, he edited the video down to just that part and deleted the part where he told her she couldn’t leave until she said it.

When she made it out of the hotel room just after noon, she was wearing only her jeans and bra.

She was unable to find her underwear, shirt, socks, or shoes.

She got into an Uber barefoot and topless and went straight to the nearest emergency room—the one at Harborview Medical Center—to report the rape.

The hospital performed a rape kit and called the police.

After the police showed up, Katie made an official statement accusing Garret Fischer—the one she left the bar with—and Rhys Steichen.

She also accused Matt Davidson, Joey Carmichael, and Brandon Miller, whose names she only knew because hockey-douchebag and confirmed idiot Rhys Steichen gave them to her when he forced her to make the video saying she willingly had sex with all of them.

They found semen from all five men as well as signs of vaginal tearing.

What they didn’t find was any sign of date-rape drugs, because it had been too long between when they’d drugged her and when she’d woken up on the floor of the hotel room for them to still be detectable in her system.

More than twelve hours, and all bets are off.

But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence—regardless of what the defense attorneys tried to say.

Hopefully the jury is smart enough to understand all that.

But a single woman against five of the Black Bears’ star athletes, who’ve never had rape accusations publicly leveled at them?

It doesn’t matter that it’s most likely because the other women they’ve done this to were too afraid to come forward and stand up to the scrutiny of trial with no guarantee that justice would be served.

Not Katie, though. Katie decided to scream it from the rooftops, figuring that at the very least it would warn other women about what kind of men they are.

But the odds aren’t great. I know it’s true, even if I’m unwilling to say the words out loud to Katie. I don’t see how anyone could possibly believe this is what consent looks like, but… People don’t believe women. I see it personally and professionally all the time.

Matt Davidson walks past the bar next. He’s got dark hair that’s just this side of black, and he’s the most muscular of the bunch.

Then Rhys Steichen. He and Matt are both defensemen—apparently the team’s top defensive pair.

Rhys is missing one of his upper front teeth, and he looks like shit.

I want to pull the others out, one by one, with a pair of pliers.

Fuck that asshole in particular for making my little cousin record that video.

If they let these bastards go, I’m going to do it.

I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but I’m going to rip every fucking tooth from his mouth.

Brandon Miller and Joey Carmichael—the left and right wing, respectively—show up together. They’re both tall, generic-looking white guys with slim builds and brown hair.

Another minute goes by, and there’s smothered laughter, followed by glances in our direction from all five rapists.

I want to leave Katie sitting on the bench so I can go wipe the smirks off their faces, but I don’t.

I might have six inches on Katie, putting me much closer to their sizes, but every one of them is still bigger than me.

Plus, it’d be five on one, and they’re professional brawlers.

If they get off, none of that will matter, though. I’ll make sure of it.

Judge Withers enters the courtroom, distracting me from my thoughts of revenge, and we stand as the judge makes his way to his seat.

Once seated, he explains to the room that the jury has reached decisions for all five men and we’ll hear their verdicts momentarily, however he expects everyone to remain calm and composed regardless of the outcome.

That finished, the judge looks at the bailiff. “Please bring in the jury.” The door on the side of the courtroom opens, and he says, “All rise for the jury.” Twelve people come shuffling in and take their seats. “The jury has reached a verdict?” Judge Withers questions, looking at the foreman.

“Yes, Your Honor,” the foreman says as he stands. He’s a fifty-something-year-old white man who’s balding and slightly overweight. His eyes have been looking everywhere but at Katie.

Fuck. My stomach drops and bile rises in my throat. It’s ‘not guilty,’ I think. ‘Not guilty’ for all of them. My grip on Katie’s hand tightens.

“On the count of Rape in the First Degree against Joseph Carmichael, how do you find?” the judge questions, apparently going in alphabetical order.

“Not guilty.”

Katie lets out a quiet sob, and her hand clenches around mine. I think I might throw up. I decide I’m going to aim for those assholes if I do.

“On the count of Rape in the First Degree against Matthew Davidson, how do you find?”

“Not guilty.”

The questions continue and, each time, the response is ‘not guilty.’ When the last charge is read and the last answer is also ‘not guilty,’ the courtroom erupts in cheers.

The judge bangs his gavel. “Order!” he demands, sounding pissed as he casts a sympathetic look in Katie’s direction. It seems like at least Judge Withers believed her, even if the idiots on the jury didn’t. “Would the state like to poll the jury?” he asks.

The prosecutor glances back at us, where Katie is quietly sobbing. “No, Your Honor.”

“Very well. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are free to go. Thank you for your service. Gentlemen,” Judge Withers says, looking at the defendants with distaste, “you are also free to go.”

After another raucous outburst, and a glare from Judge Withers, people begin filing out of the courtroom. The piece-of-shit scumbags smirk as they walk by.

Katie and I sit on the bench until the room empties, and the prosecutor eventually turns to us and says, “I’m sorry, Katie. I can escort you out the rear of the courthouse if you want to avoid the media.”

Katie says nothing for a moment. Finally, she uses her sleeve to wipe away her tears and responds, “No. Thank you.” She looks at me and says, “Let’s go crash their celebratory press conference, Alyssa.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. If they can talk to the media, so can I,” she answers defiantly.

“Alright. Let’s do it.”

We get up and walk out of the courthouse into a sea of reporters, all of whom swivel their cameras and microphones away from the rapist assholes the second they see Katie.

“Katie Stanton! Katie Stanton!” is shouted through the crowd.

Katie waits until they quiet and then says, “Let me tell you what those men did to me.”