Page 52 of Carved

That understanding is rare. Precious, even.

I don't expect you to write back—this life you're building with your aunt looks peaceful and good, everything you deserve after what you survived. But if you ever need anything, if you ever want to talk to someone who knows the whole truth about that night, this P.O. Box will reach me.

Take care of yourself, Delilah. The world needs people like you—people who can see darkness clearly and aren't afraid to call it what it is.

K.

I read the letter three times, each pass revealing new layers of meaning. The careful way he acknowledges our shared experience without explicitly incriminating either of us. The recognition of the performance I have to maintain while validating the truth underneath. The suggestion that what happened between us was significant, unprecedented, something that changed him as much as it changed me.

But it's the final paragraph that makes my breath catch.The world needs people like you—people who can see darkness clearly and aren't afraid to call it what it is.

He sees me. Really sees me, not as a victim to be pitied or a child to be protected, but as someone capable of understanding and confronting evil. Someone who can look at monsters and call them what they are instead of making excuses or pretending they're something else.

Someone like him.

I fold the letter carefully, matching his precise creases, and slip it under my mattress next to the confession tape. Two pieces of evidence that the most important night of my life actually happened, that Kent Shepherd exists and remembers me with something approaching respect.

But he's wrong about one thing. I do want to write back. I want to tell him about living in this bright, safe house where people ask about my preferences and worry about my wellbeing. I want to share how strange it feels to be treated with kindness instead of suspicion, to have my opinions matter, to sleep without listening for footsteps in the hallway.

I want to tell him about the media circus, about watching the world celebrate a monster while I perform appropriate grief. About the weight of carrying secrets that could destroy the careful mythology being built around Harry Jenkins.

I want to tell him thank you again, because three days haven't diminished my gratitude. If anything, the contrast between my old life and this new one has made me more aware of exactly what he gave me when he decided my father needed to die.

More than that, I want to understand him. Want to know how someone becomes capable of delivering justice when the system fails. Want to learn about the methodology, the philosophy, the careful precision that transforms murder into something approaching art.

I want to know if there are others like my father out there. Other monsters hiding behind badges and authority and community respect. Other victims who need someone to see them clearly and act when no one else will.

Because Kent was right about something else, too. The worlddoesneed people who can see darkness clearly. People who aren't afraid to call evil what it is.

People who understand that sometimes monsters have to be killed.

I retrieve a sheet of paper from the desk Janine set up for my schoolwork, testing different pens until I find one that flows smoothly. The letter needs to match his careful presentation, his attention to detail. If I'm going to respond to a killer, I want to do it right.

Kent,

Thank you for your letter. It means more than you know to have someone who understands the truth about that night.

You're right that I have to perform grief for a man who terrorized my childhood. It's exhausting, but I'm learning to think of it as practice for the person I'm becoming. If I can convince a room full of police officers that I'm heartbroken over losing my father, I can probably convince anyone of anything.

The life I'm building here is good. Safe. But it's also temporary, in a way. I'm not content to just heal and move on and pretend none of it happened. I want to understand how people become monsters, and I want to learn how to stop them.

I meant what I said that night. You did the world a favor. My father was exactly the kind of evil that hides behind respectability, and you saw through it when everyone else was fooled.

I'd like to write to you again, if that's okay. I'd like to know you. More.

D.

I read the letter twice, checking for anything that might incriminate either of us while still conveying what I want him to understand. That I'm not just a traumatized victim looking for healing. That I'm someone who recognizes the value of what he does and wants to be part of it somehow.

That I'm not afraid of the darkness—I'm interested in learning how to navigate it.

I fold the letter with the same precision he used, slip it into an envelope addressed to his P.O. Box, and tuck it into my backpack for mailing tomorrow when Janine takes me to the store.

The first letter in what I somehow know will become an extensive correspondence. The beginning of an education I can't get in any classroom, from a teacher who understands the most important lesson of all:

Sometimes the only justice available is the kind you take for yourself.

And sometimes, if you're very lucky, someone else takes it for you and teaches you how to be grateful instead of guilty.