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My grip on the knife tightens. My arm shakes.
“She was innocent,” he says, almost to himself.
So was I.
“We all just… looked away.”
“You let it happen.”
He closes his eyes. “We let a lot happen.”
I let the silence stretch until it starts to hurt.
“You think that distance you put between yourself and the man you were is enough to be forgiven? A lifetime of penance wouldn’t be enough.”
He doesn’t answer.
“You’re right,” I continue, voice low. “This isn’t about forgiveness. It never was.”
Levi looks at me again, and for a moment, there’s something like peace there. “I never expected it. I just wanted you to know… I never forgot you. I see your face every night.”
“You don’t get to remember me,” I whisper. “You don’t get to carry me like a scar. I’m not your penance.”
My hand finds the rhythm again, thumb against index finger, like counting down seconds.
“I killed Kerr,” I say, soft and steady. “He begged. Shitting himself as I sliced through his flesh.”
Levi closes his eyes.
“Then there’s Mr. Wolfe. The town thinks he disappeared. That he just walked off. But I kept him alive for a month. A whole month. Hooked him up to IVs. Cut him open, stitched him closed. Fed him, kept him breathing. I wanted him to feel every second of the misery I felt every time my father made me walk down those goddamn cellar stairs.”
Levi exhales a sound that’s too close to a sob.
“You think they’ll find the others?” I ask. “They won’t. Spoiled meat doesn’t leave bones behind. Not when you have pigs. You’d be amazed what they’ll eat.”
He looks like he wants to vomit. I hope he does.
And then his voice shudders again.
“Wait,” he whispers. “There’s still danger. Closer than you think.”
“Who?” I demand. “Give me a name.”
He shakes his head, eyes fluttering closed. “He watches. Always has. He was there at the beginning. He’ll be there at the end.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s all I can give you.”
I lean closer, my mouth near his ear. “Then you’ve given me nothing.”
For a split second, I hesitate. Just long enough for an old memory to crack the surface, dirt under my knees, the cold of the cellar floor, his voice echoing in some sermon I didn’t understand.
He was there, too.
I press the blade in.
The knife slides in clean, so clean it’s almost surgical. The point splits skin with barely any resistance, slicing through tissue and muscle as if the blade were meant for him. His gasp isn’t a cry. It’s a small, sharp intake of breath, wet around the edges, like he’s inhaling his own regret. He doesn’t scream. His mouth opens like it wants to form a word, but the only thing that escapes is a bubbling, broken sound. Not quite a death rattle, not quite a prayer either.
