Written in 20  minutes. No time for reread or typos.

Jason was relieved when Jake and Aiden agreed to drive back to Port Charles with Max in the SUV while he took Cameron in Elizabeth’s car. He wanted some time with Elizabeth’s oldest son away from the younger boys.

If Elizabeth wouldn’t tell him what had happened that night, Jason was going to get the bottom of no matter what. He had a terrible feeling that they had begun to repeat the same mistakes Jason and Sonny had made nearly ten years ago with Michael.

He hugged Jake one more time before closing the door. “I’ll see you guys at my place,” he told Jake through the window.

“You’ll make sure Mom and Cam are okay?” Jake asked. He swiped at his nose. “I don’t know what happened, but they got in a fight with someone, and my phone broke—”

“They will be okay,” Jason told him. “Take care of your brother. Thanks again, Max.”

“Anytime. Come on guys,” Max said, as he put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot. Jason turned back to the other car and the sullen teenager sitting in the passenger seat.

Jason got into the driver’s side and started the car, but didn’t put it into reverse. He looked over at Cameron’s hands. The knuckles were bruised and scratched. He could see a black eye blooming on the teen’s face.

“Do you remember Claudia Zacchara?” Jason asked.

Cameron blinked at him, turning his head. He wrinkled his face in confusion. “What? Uh. Yeah. Yeah. She—” He scrubbed his hands over her face. “Yeah. I remember her. She kidnapped Carly. And Michael—”

His voice faltered. “Michael killed her to protect Carly.”

“Yeah,” Jason said. “And it was self-defense, but I made the mistake of thinking I could protect Michael from all of it. We covered it up. Sonny and I tried to make it go away. And it made Michael look more guilty.”

“He went to prison.” Cameron looked at him “So did you. I remember Mom crying about it.”

Jason exhaled slowly. He’d made Elizabeth cry a few times over the years. “Whatever happened—”

“I killed him,” Cameron said flatly. “Is it normal not to care? Because I don’t. I’m glad. I’d do it again.” His eyes were fierce now, flashing with that same light he recognized from his mother—and maybe some of the recklessness of his father. “You should have done it a long time ago.”

“Yeah. I thought I had,” Jason muttered. He finally put the car into park and pulled out of the spot. “How did it start?” he asked.

Cameron was quiet for a long time—Jason wasn’t sure he’d say anything, but once they’d pulled onto the highway and were headed back towards Port Charles, he finally spoke. “I’m not sure. I wasn’t there when it started. I was—”

He grimaced. “I was sneaking back in. I was out with Joss. And Oscar and Trina.” He stared at his hands. “That feels like a thousand years ago,” Cameron murmured.

“Has Franco been coming around a lot since your mother moved?”

“I don’t know that either,” Cameron admitted. “Mom—you know, she takes forever sometimes to see how terrible people are, but usually once she makes up her mind, she cuts them off. You know, like Lucky. And Nikolas.” He waited. “After she found out Franco was lying about who you were—how long he’d known—he moved out. And I didn’t really see him around.”

“Okay. Then why was he there last night?” Jason asked. On the left side of the car, the sun started to peek out over the horizon.

“I don’t know,” Cameron repeated. “I was just—I was trying not to make any news, and I went past my mother’s room—” He swallowed. “And I heard—I heard a weird muffled something—then I knew—I heard crying—so I went to the door and started to push it open—”

Jason’s knuckles clenched on the steering wheel. “What happened then?”

“Mom was on the bed and she—her mouth was gagged—Franco slapped her and was on top of her trying—” Cameron swallowed hard. “She was struggling, trying to get him off her—”

Jason pressed the pedal down harder and the car lurched forward. “Did he—”

“No, I don’t think so. She, ah—” The teenager’s voice roughened. “She was still dressed. “But I don’t know. I just—I saw red. I reacted. I shoved him off her, shoved him into the wall and started punching him. And he was—we were just fighting, and I guess Mom tried to stop him from—”

Cameron touched his throat. “His hands—” He exhaled slowly. “Mom—she’s tiny. I mean she’s strong and all, you know, but it doesn’t mean—he just picked her up like a doll and threw her into the wall. She didn’t get up right away, so I went after him again. I grabbed something—I don’t know—a baseball bat, I think. Mom always keeps it upstairs.”

He exhaled slowly. “I hit him and he fell back. He hit his head on the corner of the dresser and laid there. Mom got up and took the bat from me, then she—she was scared he wasn’t dead. So she told me to get my brothers out of there.

“He’d tied them up in their rooms,” Cameron continued. “Aiden untied himself first, I think, and called 911. It must have been Aiden, because Jake would have called you sooner.”

“You just—you hit him with the bat once?” Jason repeated, frowning.

“Yeah, and then he hit his head. But it was my fault—”

“That’s not how he died.”

Cameron stared at him. “But—”

Jason stared at the road ahead of him. “He was stabbed repeatedly with a butcher knife in the kitchen. They found him in the kitchen. Not the bedroom.”

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