Who: Cole {a narrative} What: Denial and justification Where: 802 When: After this dies down Warnings: None
It seemed like a good idea. As soon as he'd listened to Ichabod's message and gone back to listen to Aaron's voice posts, he knew something had to be done. He couldn't just ignore the fact that Trenton had killed him and go on with his life. If he made the information public, then someone would go after him - probably Shane, although he didn't fully trust himself not to snap one day and confront him himself. He thought about it after talking to Micah, and he didn't see many options. Either they did nothing, went to the police and hoped something came from it, or they could do something about it themselves. They could make their own justice system within the building, since the actual system wasn't going to do a damn thing.
Cole knew the post wouldn't be received with open arms, but he didn't think it would be this bad. A good idea had been completely torn apart, and now he had no idea what to do. Did they stick with elections, or choose randomly? Was everyone to be required to be a part of the jury, or was five enough? What did they do with Trenton if he was found guilty, and what did they do if he was found innocent? Where did they draw the line between justice and revenge?
His head hurt and he forced himself to walk away from the computer, not wanting to read over the responses any longer. Ileana was wrong - it wasn't vigilantism and it wasn't like Lord of the Flies. He'd read the damn book a million times, and it was just a metaphor for human nature and majority versus minority or whatever the fuck Golding was trying to say about society. This was different. They weren't kids and they weren't stuck on an island - they needed justice. Justice meant that murderers didn't walk free and had to answer for their crimes. Revenge would have been killing the bastard and saving everyone a lot of trouble. Cole hadn't gotten that far, and he never would.
Cole spent a lot of the night thinking, and every time he began to think that maybe they'd been too impulsive, that maybe this wasn't such a good idea, he made himself think of the people this was being done for.
He thought of Aaron, angry about Shiloh and rushing up to confront Trenton, only to find Boyd looking lifeless and facing his own death a few moments later.
He thought about Boyd, being called every name in the book and still fighting, sweet and innocent and being drugged by that asshole until she was messed up enough for him to have his way with her.
When Salacia jumped up on his lap, demanding attention, he even thought of Jude; falling (no, not falling, being pushed) down the stairs and dying, not once but twice, while her murderer went on his merry way and never looked back.
This wasn't revenge. This was justice, because there wasn't enough of it in the world and he was sick of having to sit back and watch while people got hurt and the ones responsible never had to take responsibility. It wouldn't be easy, to set up a proper trial, but it wasn't impossible. Then Trenton could face the evidence and deny it like the scum that he was, only no amount of charm or money was going to save him this time. He'd have a defense, sure, but he was guilty and for once good had to triumph. For once justice had to be served.
Maybe justice and revenge weren't so different. Maybe they were even the same, sometimes. He'd spent his whole life being good and moral, and where the hell had it gotten him? He was living in the building from hell, being stalked by a psychopath and half the people he'd known were either dead or gone. It was about time things changed.