Page 5 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

I took the next finger. This time the knife dug deeper into his chest on the follow-through. He howled, body convulsing under my weight. Tears streamed down his face. “Okay. Okay. Three. Maybe four. I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.”

I waited.

“There’s one buried at the riverbed at Westside Park,” he said, words breaking between gasps. “I dug the hole myself.”

“How old?”

“Twelve.”

I let that sit. Twelve years old. Another family without answers. Another body that needed to be found.

I stood.

Colt was a wreck on the concrete. The sobbing had faded to ragged breaths. Blood covered his shirt and slicked the floor beneath him. Two fingers were gone from one hand, one shoulder bled freely, and neither leg would ever carry his weight again.

“You’re going to kill me,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You’re going to die for it. You know that. Thomas will hunt you down.”

“Mm.”

He laughed. Wet. Broken. It turned into a cough. “Wait till Thomas hears you’re alive.”

I crouched beside him one last time, close enough that he could see my eyes.

“He won’t,” I said. “Not from you.”

I drew the knife across his throat in one clean line and stepped back so the spray missed my boots.

He didn’t last long. I watched him bleed out. No wild exhilaration came. No rush like I had imagined for years. Just something quieter. A tiny crack in my soul, a fraction less raw than it had been an hour ago. I would take it.

Less than a minute later, I got to work. Someone would find the body soon. Publicity would follow, not just because of how he died but because Colt mattered to the pack.

I cleaned carefully, scanning for hairs, fibers, anything that could tie me to the house. One eyelash near his shoulder went into a bag. Every surface I had touched got wiped down. I retrieved the cameras from the living room, kitchen, and bedroom, then slipped back out through the window.

The night air felt crisp and clean, almost jarring after the basement. Bag over my shoulder, I moved through the shadows and didn’t look back.

At the rental car I opened the trunk and pulled out the plastic tarp I had stashed there earlier. I spread it over the seats, then climbed in. No visible cameras. No neighbors awake. I drove the speed limit.

Halfway home the thought I had locked down in the basement finally surfaced. Not regret, I didn’t regret killing him, but something quieter. In a small, vulnerable corner of myself I wondered what my family would think of me now. Whether they would look at me with fear. Whether Harmony would still know me.

I let it sit for a moment, then pushed it down. It didn’t change anything.

I left the Civic on a quiet forest road, well away from houses and cameras. I would return it tomorrow. Then I slipped into the woods with the tarp and pack.

Deep enough in, I stripped, soaked the clothes and tarp in burner fluid, and burned them. Gloves and weapons went into the backpack.

I shifted, gripped the pack between my teeth, and ran. The forest swallowed me. When I reached the hollow tree I had scouted earlier, I stopped just long enough to push the backpack deep inside, then kept moving.

Around five a.m. I reached my back porch and shifted back. The air was cold against my bare skin. I retrieved the spare key and slipped quietly inside. The house was silent. My roommates were still asleep.

In my bedroom I went straight to the shower, letting the warm water rinse away the last traces of the night. After toweling off and combing my hair, I pulled on an oversized T-shirt.

One last thing before sleep. I sent Brian the location—Westside Park. Riverbed. Twelve years old. He would route it through channels that wouldn’t lead back to me.

I crawled into bed and let sleep pull me under.