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Clyde grabs his father by the collar, hauling him forward with a strength that looks impossible for someone shaking that hard. The pew scrapes under the force, wood grinding against wood.

“You stood there,” Clyde spits, voice broken glass and grief. “You stood there while he touched her. While she cried. While she begged…”

His voice cracks. Just once. Devastating.

He shoves Warren back, hard enough his head thuds against the pew behind him.

“She was a kid,” he chokes out. “She was just a kid.”

Warren only smiles, weak, but pleased, like this is all going according to some sick script. “That was the point,” he whispers.

Clyde’s face shatters.

Not anger now, not even rage anymore. Just grief so deep it could drown the world.

He steps back once. Twice. Like he needs space to breathe but can’t find any.

His eyes glisten, but no tears fall. He looks like a man who forgot how to cry years ago and is remembering all at once. His voice is barely audible when he speaks again. “She wasn’t weak,” he whispers. “She was hurting. She asked me to walk her home once,” he says, so quiet it’s barely there. “Just from the church to the corner. She didn’t want to go alone.” His jaw works. “I told her to stop being a baby.” Then louder raw, breaking. “She was hurting!” Clyde screams.

His knees hit the floor. He doesn’t look away from Warren. Not once.

Not even when his voice turns to ash. “And you let her die.”

Warren looks down at his son, unbothered, almost bored.

“Your sister was given every opportunity to rise,” he says, voice calm as scripture. “But she refused correction. She clung to weakness. To softness. To sin.”

Clyde’s breath shudders in his chest, quiet but violent, like he’s absorbing the blows. Warren keeps going. “She could have been saved if she’d submitted, like Lydia did.”

He turns his gaze to me, lips curling, and back to Clyde again.

“You mourn her because you never understood her purpose. She was meant to be broken. That’s how girls become useful. That’s how they become pure.”

Clyde’s fingers flex against the floor. He’s trembling, but he’s not crying.

He’s changing.

Warren doesn’t notice. Or he does, and he welcomes it. “You think grief makes you righteous?” Warren asks, head tilting slightly. “It makes you weak. Just like her. Cry for her if you want. I won’t. She was a sacrifice, just like Lydia should have been.”

Clyde goes still.

Utterly still.

Warren smiles. “Some people are born to hold the knife, son,” he says softly, his eyes flitting to me. “Some are…”

Warren is still talking when Clyde moves. No warning. No shout. No hesitation. His hands slam into his father’s chest, driving him backward into the pew.

The wood cracks. Warren’s breath stutters out in a surprised grunt.

“Cly—” he starts, but the word never finishes.

Clyde’s hands are around his throat, steady, sure.

Certain.

Warren’s eyes go wide. He claws at Clyde’s wrists, but Clyde doesn’t loosen his grip, not this time, not ever again.

“You. Don’t. Get. To. Speak.” The words come out low, spit flying from his mouth. I’ve never seen such fury.