by Ryan Casey
She walked over to him. Slowly. Crouched right beside him. Stroked his fur, right down his head and his back.
“I know, pal. I know. I miss… I miss him too.”
And then he did something that made her feel a lot better.
He nuzzled his head right into her thigh.
She welled up a little when he did that. Smiled. That’s all she’d wanted, really. Some reassurance. Some show of affection. She’d appreciated it from Hailey yesterday. It felt… weirdly comforting.
But from someone as close as Rex, yeah, that made a difference.
“I’m glad you don’t hate me,” she said.
Maybe he should. Because this is on you.
“No,” she muttered. “No.”
She got up. Walked out the room. It was quiet in the house. So quiet that it felt unoccupied. Like nobody was here at all.
She remembered Geoff and Hailey coming back here with her, so maybe they were just asleep still. Or maybe they’d gone out and left her to sleep.
She hoped they were okay, wherever they were.
She climbed down the creaky stairs, Rex by her side.
Walked past the front door.
Walked towards the kitchen table.
That’s when she saw it.
Almost missed it at first. But it was there, on the floor, right by the door.
A note.
She went cold and numb right away.
A shiver crept down her spine.
That folded piece of paper.
A little speck of blood, right on the corner.
She walked over to it slowly. Not wanting to see its contents. Not really.
She reached down.
Picked it up.
Please be a coincidence. Please be something I just missed before.
She opened the note.
And when she read what it said on there, her entire body went numb.
When she read it, she threw it to the floor.
Her heart racing.
Breathing difficult.
Because those words.
Those words were confirmation of what she’d been trying to hide from.
What she’d been trying to run from.
What she’d been trying to avoid all along.
But now couldn’t.
She turned around. Walked into the kitchen area, grabbed her shoes. Then she went down into the cellar, packed a rucksack with food supplies.
With a knife.
And grabbed one of Max’s old hunting rifles.
She walked over to the door. Stood there. Shaking.
Those words replaying, again and again.
Taunting her.
There was no way she could deny what this was about anymore.
There was no way she could hide from it.
She looked down at the floor, at the note, and saw those words staring up at her once again.
I’ve taken them to where this all started.
You know where to go.
Face your crimes.
—Grace.
Chapter Twenty-One
Aoife saw the warehouse in the distance and felt really fucking sick.
It was a long time since she’d been here. Six months ago. She’d never had any intentions of coming back here. Wanted to keep this place firmly in the past.
But that note.
The note left at the door to Max’s cottage by a woman called Grace.
I’ve taken them to where this all started.
You know where to go.
Face your crimes.
She kept on replaying those words, again and again.
Where this all started.
She remembered the look in that woman’s eyes behind the balaclava. Those bright green eyes. She wanted to believe she’d got it wrong. Wanted to convince herself that it was all in her head.
Because what she feared was impossible.
Nobody could have survived what had happened.
Nobody could have survived what she’d done.
You know where to go.
She looked at the warehouse. It was bright. Middle of the afternoon. It’d taken her a while to get here. A good few hours. This place was out of the way. Well out of the way.
There were things that didn’t add up. If this was about what she feared it was about, then why take all this time to strike back? Why take six months?
Then she thought of Max.
Thought of him stepping out of the estate, smile on his face. Clearly so happy to see her.
Thought of him walking towards her.
Then the gunshot, piercing his chest.
Dragging himself along the ground, bleeding out.
The woman—Grace—walking over to him.
Pouring that gasoline over him.
Then dropping the lighter on him…
Aoife felt herself tensing up. Losing herself in the hatred again.
She didn’t give a shit who this woman was. She didn’t give a shit if she was who she feared she was, as much as she couldn’t see how that was possible.
She’d murdered Max.
She’d killed so many of her people.
And she’d destroyed her home.
She was going to pay for what she’d done.
Face your crimes.
That bitch had no right saying anything like that if she was who she thought she was.
Face her crimes?
Get a fucking grip on reality.
She walked slowly towards the warehouse. Rex close by her side. She didn’t want to let him out of her sight. The warehouse seemed quiet. Abandoned. Empty.
But she felt like someone was watching.
Hell. She knew damned well someone was watching.
She thought about Hailey. Thought about Geoff. And she thought about what Grace said to her too, about torturing her. About her not being ready to kill Aoife yet.
She hoped Hailey and Geoff were okay.
But she didn’t hold out much hope.
She got closer to the warehouse. She could feel her heartbeat pounding in her skull. She’d never intended coming back here when she’d left the last time. No reason to.
Besides. She didn’t want to remind herself of what she’d done that day.
Didn’t want to remember.
She reached the door to the warehouse and stopped.
Took a deep breath.
Then, she opened the door.
She could still smell smoke in the air. Burning, catching in her nostrils. A reminder of what’d happened. A reminder of Max, too.
It made sense. In a horrible, fucked up way, she’d been in denial. Because the method. The way she’d done it. The way she’d killed him.
It added up.
It all added up.
She stepped inside the warehouse. Her footsteps echoing against the cold metal of the floor. If her heart started beating any faster, it might just burst out of her chest.
She could see something in the middle of the warehouse.
Didn’t want to look at it.
Didn’t want to see it.
Didn’t want to remember.
She walked around it. Up some steps, up to a platform. The same place she’d stood that day six months ago.
The place she’d held the match.
The place she’d dropped it from.
She walked towards the end of the platform. Still not wanting to look. Not wanting to see.
But knowing she had no choice.
She stood there. Held her breath.
Then, she looked.
On the floor, right in the middle of the warehouse, she could see a circle.
A circle just like the one she’d created all those months ago.
In the middle of it, she could see bones.
Skeletons, staring up at her.
She felt sick. They were still here, just like she’d left them. And even though they were just bones now, she swore she could see terror in their eye sockets. Pain on their faces.
She heard a footstep behin
d her.
Heard the floor creak.
When she turned around, she saw someone standing there.
The woman.
The woman with the balaclava.
Green eyes staring right at Aoife.
Rifle in hand.
Pointed at her.
“I knew you’d come.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The second Aoife saw the woman—Grace—standing there at the opposite side of the platform, rifle in hand, she lost all sense of her surroundings.
“You,” she said.
Grace stood there. Black balaclava over her face. Those piercing green eyes staring at her from behind it. Rifle in her hands pointed right at her.
“Didn’t take you long to figure out where I’d be,” Grace said.
Aoife walked towards her without even thinking.
“Not another step,” Grace said. Lifting her rifle.
But Aoife didn’t hear her.
She just kept walking towards her.
A bang.
A bang, right at her feet, stopping her in her tracks.
The blast from the rifle.
“I warned you,” Grace said. “Not another step.”
“I don’t give a fuck about your rules, you murdering bitch.”
“You have a nerve saying that after what you did to my people.”
“Your people? The fucking cannibal cult, you mean?”
“You really think we were all on board with that?” Grace shouted. “You really think we wanted that? That we didn’t want to break free just as much as you did? Do you really think there weren’t things going on behind the scenes? You saw it yourself. My people. They… they stood up for your people. They died for your people in the end. And how do you thank us? By leading us like cattle to slaughter.”
“Like you did to—”
“I didn’t do a fucking thing. I found a home for me and my sister. I tried to survive the best life I possibly could knowing full well what was going on wasn’t good. I felt guilty about it, every single day. And when we finally got a second chance—when we were finally free—you set us on fire. You burned us. You took that chance from us.”
Aoife tasted sick in her mouth. She didn’t want to hear the genuine sadness in this woman’s voice. Didn’t want to acknowledge that through all her twisted logic, she might actually have a point.
She thought this.
Then she remembered Max.
“You didn’t give Max a chance,” Aoife said. “He… he was a good man. And you killed him. You burned him. You burned so many people.”
The woman lowered her head just a little. “I know you won’t believe me when I say I’m sorry. But I am. I really am.”
“Bullshit. I’m really supposed to believe that crap after what I saw you do?”
“You looked me in the eyes when you dropped the match,” Grace shouted. “You looked me in the eyes, and you saw me begging. You saw me crying. You looked me in the eyes as my people all died around me, and you had a chance. As my sister burned to death right next to me, begging for my help. You had a chance to try something. Anything. But instead… you just turned away.”
Aoife saw Grace walking towards her, then. Rifle still raised. Pointed.
Saw her step further into the light.
Rex growling by Aoife’s side.
“And now I have to live with it. Not just the memories. Not just the nightmares, every single night, which were already bad enough after everything I was forced to do under Christopher’s rule. But the scars. The actual, physical scars. I can’t even look at myself anymore. I can’t even let anyone else look at me. Because… because I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed of what I am. And that’s because of you.”
She stood there. Rifle pointed. And Aoife wanted to throw herself at her. Any second she got close to feeling any kind of pity, she remembered Max. Screaming. Then burning.
The smell of his burning body sticking in her nostrils.
“So what now?” Aoife said.
“What now?” Grace said. “That’s all you have to say? What now?”
“You have Geoff. You have Hailey. They’re my people. I won’t beg. But they don’t deserve whatever you’re planning on putting them through. If you have to put anyone through anything… it’s me.”
Grace looked at her through that balaclava. Her green eyes darting from side to side.
“I want to let them go. Really, I do. But then… then I think of what you did, and I think about how you did it, and I want to hurt you. I want to hurt you so, so deeply. Do you know my sister was right there with me when it ended? That when my blindfold melted away, I had to watch her burn, too? She didn’t want any of what Christopher was doing. We just… we just went along with it because it was the safest option. And it was hard to get away. Hard to be a deserter. We weren’t proud of it, but we did what we had to do to survive, and we hoped Christopher would get his comeuppance one day. I watched her scream. I watched her eyeballs burst in the heat. I watched her burn right before my eyes. And there was nothing I could do but escape. Climb on the burning bodies and escape.”
Aoife lowered her head. She felt a bit dizzy. A bit sick. “Where are Geoff and Hailey? And where are the rest of your people?”
“The rest of my people?”
“Someone held me back. When you killed Max, someone held me back.”
Grace laughed, then. And it was the first time Aoife had heard her laugh. “I don’t have any people. You took all my people away from me.”
That didn’t add up. The shit about the people in Morecambe. And then the person holding her back when she watched what happened with Max. “Then who… who held me back?”
Grace sighed. “I want to show you something. Come on.”
She turned around, and Aoife saw her window of opportunity.
She saw her chance.
A chance to get to her.
A chance to attack her.
A chance to…
Grace turned around. Pointed the rifle back. But this time, at Rex. Not at Aoife.
“Don’t even think about trying anything. I really, really don’t want to have to kill a dog. Another dog, anyway.”
She turned around again. Walked down the steps. And as much as Aoife wanted to resist her, as much as she wanted to fight her… she followed her.
Because she feared for Rex.
And she feared for what she was going to find, too.
She reached the bottom of the steps.
Saw Grace standing right at the back of the warehouse. Right by a door. An open door.
“Come on,” she said.
Aoife wasn’t sure she could get anywhere near her without ripping her fucking face off.
But the gun pointed at Rex.
And that threat of something happening to Hailey. To Geoff. All looming over her.
She reached the door.
Looked inside.
Heart racing.
Body totally tense.
When she saw who was in there, she froze.
Hailey was on her knees. Bind around her mouth. Tears streaming down her face. Blood trickling from her forehead.
But it was the person behind her who really caught Aoife’s eye.
The man standing there.
Pistol in hand.
Pointed right at Hailey.
“Hey, Aoife,” Geoff said. “I’m sorry about this. Really, I am. But she left me with no choice.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Aoife saw Geoff standing there, pistol to Hailey’s head, and she couldn’t quite believe what the hell she was seeing.
Hailey was on her knees. Gagged. Tears streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes looked dark, and her hair looked a mess. Looked like she’d been through shit on her way here.
But it was the sight of Geoff behind her that really got to Aoife. Because she’d grown to trust the guy. Hadn’t started off that way. Didn’t particularly like him at first. Okay, didn’t particularly like anyone at first.
; But Geoff in particular, she’d changed her opinion of. He was a bit set in his ways. But he seemed a reasonable bloke underneath all that macho exterior.
And seeing him like this now… she just couldn’t make sense of it.
She even forgot about her animosity towards Grace, just for a moment.
“What the hell?” was all she could say.
Geoff had a pistol right against Hailey’s temple. His eyes were wide, and he looked at her like he was having a hard fucking time here. Like he was sorry.
But it wasn’t enough. Because he was working with the enemy. He was working with the woman who’d destroyed her home. Who’d killed Max.
And for that, she felt nothing but rage.
“I know it’s hard to get your head around. But—”
“Hard to get my head around?” Aoife said. Barely able to contain her composure. “Hard to get my head around? That’s all you can say? Really?”
“Aoife—”
“This woman destroyed our community. She killed Max. And she…”
It hit her, then. Hit her like a punch to the gut.
“Someone held me back,” Aoife said. “Someone… someone stopped me from getting to Max. Stopped me from helping him. From saving him.”
Geoff looked away. And it was that look away that told Aoife all she needed to know.
“It was you.”
“It wasn’t easy,” Geoff said. “Max was… Max was a good man.”
“How can you say that?” Aoife shouted. Inching forward. It was only that gun to Hailey’s temple that stopped her moving any further. “How—how can you say that when you let him die? When you watched all our people die?”
“What I did wasn’t easy, Aoife. But neither was what happened that day here at the warehouse. What you did. To all their people.”
“Bullshit,” Aoife shouted. “You stood there with me. You were as much in it as I was.”
“And I’ve felt fucking terrible about it ever since,” Geoff said. “It’s haunted me. Kept me awake at night. And when I got wind about Grace, out in the woods… when I ran into her, I knew I had to make amends.”
Aoife couldn’t speak. She couldn’t wrap her head around what she was hearing.
“She had me on my knees. She made me beg for a second chance. And I told her I’d help. I told her I’d do whatever the hell I could to help. Because what we did to ’um… sick as they are, they didn’t deserve that.”
