Page 49 of Carved

Maybe she's right. Maybe the girl who helped position a dead body with clinical precision, who felt satisfaction watchingjustice being served, who carries a confession tape like a shield against the world's lies—maybe that girl can become someone who helps people.

Just not in the way Janine imagines.

I finish my breakfast while she talks about mundane things—grocery shopping, redecorating my room, maybe getting a pet if I'd like one. Normal concerns for a normal life, the kind of conversations that happen in houses where safety is assumed rather than fought for.

But upstairs, hidden in my backpack between schoolbooks and spare clothes, sixty-three minutes of recorded truth wait like a time bomb. Evidence of everything my father really was, everything the world will never know about the man they're mourning as a hero.

Kent gave me that tape for a reason. Not just as proof, but as power. The ability to control the narrative if I ever need to, to defend myself against anyone who might question what really happened that night.

Someday, I might need to use it. Someday, someone might threaten the new life I'm building here in Janine's bright, safe house. And when that day comes, I'll have the tools to protect myself.

Because I learned something important last night, watching Kent work. Sometimes monsters have to be killed. And sometimes, if you're very lucky, someone else does the killing for you.

But if you're not lucky—if you're alone and threatened and no one's coming to save you—you learn to save yourself.

The confession tape is insurance against that possibility. A reminder that I'm not as helpless as I appear, not as innocent as everyone believes.

I'm Delilah Jenkins, daughter of a dead monster, keeper of dangerous truths.

And I'm finally, finally free.

***

The phone starts ringing at nine-thirty, just as I'm finishing my second cup of coffee. The sound cuts through the peaceful morning like a knife, sharp and insistent in ways that make my shoulders tense automatically.

Janine frowns at the caller ID. "Metro Times," she says, declining the call with a quick swipe. "Vultures."

Before I can ask what she means, the phone rings again. Then again. By the fourth call in five minutes, Janine turns the ringer off entirely, but I can see the screen lighting up with incoming calls every few seconds.

"What do they want?" I ask, though part of me already knows.

"You, sweetheart. They want to interview the grieving daughter of the hero cop who was brutally murdered." Janine's voice carries disgust that she doesn't try to hide. "The story's already hitting the news cycle. 'Decorated Officer Slain in Own Home.' They're playing up the tragedy angle, the devoted single father raising his teenage daughter alone."

The words hit me like ice water. Hero cop. Devoted father. The same lies that have followed my father his entire career, now being carved into stone by people who never lived with his fists and his rage.

"Can I see?" I ask, surprised by how steady my voice sounds.

Janine hesitates. "Honey, I don't think that's a good idea. The coverage is…sensationalized. It might be upsetting."

"I need to know what they're saying." The words come out firmer than I intended, carrying an edge of authority that makes Janine's eyebrows rise slightly. "Please."

She studies my face for a moment, then nods slowly. "Okay. But we're doing this together, and we stop the moment it becomes too much."

She retrieves her laptop from the living room, setting it on the kitchen table between us. The Metro Times website loads slowly, and there it is on the front page: a photograph of my father in his dress uniform, looking every inch the professional law enforcement officer he pretended to be.

"HERO COP MURDERED IN BRUTAL HOME INVASION"

The headline makes my stomach clench, not with grief but with fury. Home invasion. As if this were random violence instead of justice delivered with surgical precision.

Janine reads aloud, her voice growing tighter with each paragraph. "Detective Harold Jenkins, a fifteen-year veteran of the Metro Police Department, was found dead in his home Tuesday evening. Jenkins, who received multiple commendations for bravery and community service, leaves behind his sixteen-year-old daughter, Delilah, who discovered the body upon returning from work."

I watch myself perform appropriate reactions—a sharp intake of breath at "discovered the body," a slight tremor in my hands that could be grief or shock. But inside, I'm cataloging the lies with clinical detachment. Multiple commendations for bravery. Community service. The careful construction of a mythology that erases sixteen years of systematic abuse.

"Police Chief Morrison described Jenkins as 'a pillar of the community' and 'the kind of officer who made us all better,'" Janine continues reading. "'This isn't just the loss of a good cop, but the loss of a devoted father who lived for his daughter.'"

The phrase "lived for his daughter" makes me laugh, a sound sharp enough to cut glass. Janine stops reading, concern flickering across her face.

"Sorry," I say quickly, composing my expression back to appropriate grief. "It's just…that's not how I'd describe it."