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I will not die like this.
With a roar I bucked my legs, throwing him off me. His head hit one of the gravestones, giving me the time I needed to straddle his body and stare down at his hideous face. A face I’d dreamed of pummeling.
I started punching and didn’t stop. His face was like clay beneath my fist, and I was an artist working on his masterpiece. Sid’s nose broke on my fourth punch, gushing blood down his mouth and chin. Throughout it all he laughed, laughing at my anger and pain, laughing at everything he’d done to me.
I wanted to grab his head with both hands and smash it against the gravestone, to finally kill him. His laughter almost made me do it.
Then I saw the gravestone next to his head.
Theresa Alexandra Hawkins
Born: March 1, 1994
Died: March 19, 2021
My parents’ grave was next to hers, side-by-side in the daylight. The two gravestones seemed like they were judging me. Watching to see what kind of man I’d become.
I was filled to the brim with fury. I had to let it out, to channel my wrath into the man who had taken everything from me. I craved it more than any drug.
But the gravestones stopped me. I was on the edge of jumping over the cliff, so close to murdering this man, but I couldn’t do it here. Not in front ofthem.
And if I couldn’t do it here, I couldn’t do it anywhere.
The rage nearly overwhelmed me, but then it receded.
Sid’s laughter bubbled up from his bloody face. “What’s. The. Matter?” he struggled to say. “Too. Pussy. To. Kill. Me?”
I gave him one last backhanded punch for good measure, then wiped my bloody fist on his shirt. “Too much of a man to kill you.”
Sid laughed like that was the funniest joke in the world, but he was too defeated to do anything else.
My right arm still stung, but I managed to hold the crowbar in it while dragging Sid across the cemetery with my other arm. We passed through the gate and into the parking lot, where Charlotte was still waiting on my bike.
“Oh thank God!” she cried, sprinting forward to hug me. Fire flared up from my gunshot wound, but the sweetness of her embrace was stronger than the pain in my shoulder. I held her close and put my nose in her dark hair so I could smell her scent. Anything to remove the stink of Sid from my nostrils.
She kissed me, then licked her lips. “You taste like dirt.”
“I bet I do.”
She gestured at Sid, who was laying on his back with his eyes closed. “You didn’t kill him?”
“No,” I said. The revelation was part satisfaction, part disappointment. Like the last bite of a chocolate cake before looking at an empty plate. “But he almost killed me. I’ve gotta admit, Peaches. I was hoping you’d come charging in there to help me.”
Her eyes widened with outrage. “You told me to wait here!”
“Since when do you listen to what I tell you?”
“Since now.” She shrugged. “Plus, it was good advice. If I went in there with you, he could have grabbed me and used me against you. If I’ve learned one thing in my time in Eastland, it’s that I don’t want to be the leverage someone uses to hurt you.”
I held her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. “We’ll never have to worry about that again, Peaches.”
Right as I said that, police sirens drifted through the woods toward us. Not from the back road we’d just used to enter the cemetery, but from the main road coming from the diner. I arched an eyebrow as they drew near.
“Okay, so I only listened tomostof what you told me,” Charlotte admitted.
I pulled her back into a one-armed embrace. “I forgive you, Peaches. But just this once.”
We held each other close as the police arrived.
