Chapter Text
Susan Peterkin
Susan Peterkin liked to think of herself as a good cop, maybe even one of the best. She believed in justice, fairness, and the duty to protect the innocent. But for years, a single memory haunted her, echoing through her mind like a broken record, a memory that refused to be forgotten. Night after sleepless night, Susan could hear the imagined screams of a boy a blonde haired kid with a goofy smile.
It had started innocently enough, on what was supposed to be a carefree girls' night out with her best friend, Larissa Genrette. Larissa a mom of three, was desperate for a break from the chaos of motherhood, and Susan was ready to let go of the weight of her job, if only for a night. They laughed over drinks, shared stories that only friends could tell, and for a while, the world felt light. But as the night wore on, their laughter softened, and a darkness crept into Larissa’s eyes, a weight too heavy for even friendship to share without breaking.
Larissa leaned in, her voice low and pained, each word carrying a confession that Susan would never forget. "Ah, I hate myself, Su," she murmured, her gaze distant. "I left him. Just like that, because Ward didn’t want him, and I thought it was for the best. And now, Ward has the audacity to cheat on me.”
Susan furrowed her brow, trying to keep up with her friend’s winding words. “Wait…you left who?” she asked, ignoring Larissa’s bitter mention of betrayal.
“My baby,” Larissa whispered, almost too low to hear. “I…I had a baby, Su. I slept with Luke Maybank, got pregnant, and I dumped him…just like that.” Her smile twisted, a cruel, self mocking grin that chilled Susan to her core. “Ward didn’t want the bastard, so…I got rid of him.”
Susan felt the weight of that confession settle over her like a lead blanket. She didn’t press her friend for more details that night; in the haze of laughter and shared secrets, they left it there, hanging in the air, a shadow she hoped would dissolve with the sunrise. But it didn’t. That small, bitter piece of information wormed its way into her mind, clinging stubbornly, growing heavier with each passing year.
Eight years later, the weight hadn’t lifted. Susan knew the boy now JJ Maybank, Luke Maybank's son. She saw him around town often, that bright-eyed kid with the bruises he tried so hard to hide. His goofy smile, quick jokes, and endless energy masked a pain she knew all too well. She’d ask him sometimes, whenever she saw him with a fresh scrape or a blackened eye, “What happened this time, JJ?” And every time, he’d laugh it off, saying he was clumsy or that he’d taken a tumble while playing. But Susan knew better; she saw it in his eyes a hurt that went far deeper than skin.
She knew that no matter how hard she tried to reach out, he would never let her in. His father, Luke Maybank, had made sure of that. JJ grew up hearing that cops were the enemy, that they’d been the reason his family had broken down, that his mother had walked away because of them. JJ believed it, with all the fierce loyalty of a child defending his last shred of family.
But what truly broke her heart was that JJ had every right not to trust her. She could have saved him, could have done something anything—but she had chosen to keep a secret for a friend, a promise that felt like a chain tightening around her soul. She saw the bruises, she heard the whispers, and yet, she stood by, bound by her silence, watching a child slowly break under the weight of neglect and abuse. Every time she looked into his defiant, distrustful eyes, she saw the boy he could have been the boy she had failed.
Sometimes, in the dead of night, the weight of her guilt pressed down on her so hard that she’d hear those imagined screams, feel the echo of his pain deep within her. She’d lie awake, haunted by the conviction that this boy—this vulnerable child with no one to trust would either never live to see his eighteenth birthday or end up lost in a prison cell before he ever had the chance to be free.
And as much as she wanted to believe she was a good cop, as much as she wanted to tell herself that she’d done her best, Susan knew there was one life she could have saved and didn’t. That was her curse. A secret that became her burden, a child she couldn’t save because she’d been too afraid to break a promise.