The first time someone died because of me, I was fifteen.At least, that was what everyone said.I still remember the night.The rain had been falling for hours, beating against my bedroom window while I sat on the floor with my knees pulled against my chest.I was waiting for my mother to come upstairs.She never did.Instead, my father found her.After that night, everything changed.People stopped looking at me the same way.My relatives whispered whenever I entered a room. My classmates moved away from me at school. Even the neighbors who had known me since I was a child suddenly had reasons not to visit our house.Because wherever I went, something terrible happened.And somehow, I was always there.One death became two.Two became three.Then I stopped counting.Years later, the police would call it a pattern.The newspapers would call me a psychopath.The internet gave me worse names.But nobody ever asked me the one question that mattered.Why would I kill the people I loved?I didn't.I swear I didn't.But try telling that to a detective when every victim has your fingerprints somewhere in their life.Try telling that to a grieving family when their son was found dead after spending the night with you.Try telling the world you're innocent when photographs of you standing beside the victims keep appearing after their deaths.I learned a long time ago that people don't need proof to hate you.They only need a reason.And I gave them plenty.Tonight, another person was dead.I stood behind the police line, staring at the flashing lights illuminating the dark streetI slowly raised my eyes toward the buildings across the street.And there he was.A figure standing behind a window.Watching me.He lifted one hand.Not waving.Just letting me know he was there.Then the lights inside the building went out.I couldn't move.Because suddenly, I remembered something I'd spent years trying to forget.A boy standing outside my school when I was fifteen.A boy who always seemed to be there.A boy whose face I could never remember.And a voice I'd heard only once.“Don't worry.”“I'll always be watching.”I had spent years believing I was being punished for something I hadn't done.I was wrong.Someone had been protecting me.And everyone he believed was a threat...had been dying for it.