Grant’s father is dead. And Grant felt every second of it.
I walk toward Grant’s mother. She sees it coming. Her whimpering turns frantic, breath hitching as her whole body strains against the ropes. Her eyes flick to the phone on the table like it might save her.
Grant’s voice breaks through the speaker, hoarse and panicked now, stripped of rage. “Please! Please don’t do this. Please. I’ll do anything. I swear. I’ll disappear. I’ll give you—.”
I stop in front of her chair.
“Seth didn’t even get to ask you not to do what you did to Samantha. He didn’t get to beg.”
Grant yells. “Brooke, please. Please. She did not—”
“Samantha didn’t deserve any of it,” I cut in. “She didn’t know Richard was evil. She didn’t know what you and Richard were capable of.”
I lean closer to his mother. She's crying openly now, tears sliding down her face into the blood on her collar.
“But you knew,” I continue. “You knew exactly what your sons were. You knew what your family did. And you are going to die with that knowledge.”
I lift the bat.
“I’m sorry, Evelyn. But this is for Samantha.”
I swing.
The bat crashes into her skull with a wet, crushing sound. Bone caves in immediately. Blood sprays across the wall behind her in a wide, uneven fan. She screams once, a thin, broken sound that dies before it fully forms.
I swing again.
The barbed wire tears into her face, ripping skin loose, nails punching deep. Her head snaps sideways, neck twisting, chair rattling violently as the ropes hold her upright. Blood pours down her chest in thick streams.
Grant is screaming now. Not threats. Not promises. Just raw grief tearing itself apart through the phone speaker.
I bring the bat down again.
Her jaw shatters. Teeth scatter across the floor. Her mouth opens and closes uselessly as choking sounds spill out.
One more swing caves in the side of her head completely.
Her body goes slack.
I lower the bat slowly, breathing steady, arms heavy, blood slicking my hands and dripping to the floor. The room goes silent except for Grant screaming through the phone. There is no one left alive to shield him from it.
While all of this happens, Beau moves through the house.
I smell it before I see him again. Gasoline burns the back of my throat with every breath. By the time I straighten, the mansion stinks of blood, bile, and fuel, layers of rot and fire waiting to meet.
Grant is still screaming through the phone. Threats. Rage spiraling into hysteria now that there is no one left to hear it but me.
I lift the phone closer to my face and look straight into the camera.
“Don’t worry, Grant. You’ll meet them all soon in hell.”
I end the call.
Beau steps up beside me, eyes scanning the room once, taking in the bodies, the blood, the ropes still creaking faintly as they settle.
“You ready?” he asks.
I nod.
