Page 46 of Cast Stones

Giving me a resigned smile, she nods and takes my offered hand, stopping only to retrieve the discarded red ribbon before I lead her out the door and down those rickety steps one last time.

I nod for Madi to continue walking toward the edge of the woods. Once she’s out of sight, I pull the lighter from my pocket and then the cloth I tucked into my back pocket. With one flick, an orange glow dances under the cloth, teasing the material until finally devouring it whole.

I don’t look back as I toss the burning cloth through the front door. Even as I hear the old wood crackle and hiss, I keep moving forward, following the scent of her floral perfume.

It isn’t until we’re both settled inside my truck that I glance in the rearview mirror at the orange ball of flames licking the sky.

Madi tilts her chin. “What now?”

I start the ignition, her simple question drawing the first smile to my face. “Now, we leave this evil behind…and seek others.”

Nodding, Madi slides across the seat and as she lays her head on my shoulder, I hit the gas, leaving the blazing inferno behind us as we drive away.

Toward a new life.

A new beginning.

And new justice.

Because for every sin that’s burned to the ground, somewhere, there’s another just sparking to life.

Epilogue

Four Years Later

The ribbon was my destiny.I know that now. I was just another Alice with a blonde braid and a future as white as the driven snow before I fell down his rabbit hole.

Since then, I’ve learned that regret is a wasted emotion. You take what you’re given in life and you shape your own salvation out of it. To paraphrase Luca: that ribbon led me out of a lie and into a truth. It led me to everything good in this world.It led me to him.

We grabbed hold of it together, and then we let it slip through our fingers, leaving a bloody trail of red behind us.

We crossed state lines for justice. We crossed international borders. In ten years, the tainted roots of the Divine Disciples of God had spread all over the world, but we took an ax to them all. Afterward, when there was no more evil to banish, we repented in a church of our own making.

These days, we live our lives according to another God—one who baptized us in the blood we spilled and rewarded our murder with new life of our own. We founded another home in Maryland, in the heart of another forest with better secrets. We have children now: a family—a brand new boy and a brand new girl who will never know our pain and misery.

Sometimes I find myself thinking about my life at sixteen. I consider the parameters of living with a lighter soul and ignorance, and I always find myself wanting. I think about my old high school crush, Evan, and I end up feeling empty. Luca gives me purpose. He fills me up, until I can’t take anymore. He loves me with the savageness that I demand. His needs and desires are just as depraved as my own.

My parents still mourn a daughter who switched to the other side of the law. My sister still mourns the ghost of a sibling whose Most Wanted picture taints the internet. Grady refused to share his stories with the press. Still, his shock will fade in time. Maybe one day he’ll see the real story behind the headlines, but I doubt it. Only Luca and I can claim to understand this madness. What we’ve achieved together is more important than the past. It’s the essence of everything. It’s a beast that still needs feeding…

There’s a new evil rising. Teenagers are going missing again. There are whispers of another sex cult, and another sick missionary to depose. It calls to me, like it calls to Luca. I saw it on his face yesterday as he was sitting on the front porch with our three-year-old daughter cuddled up in his arms. It’s the knowing that somewhere, somehow, another child is about to be ripped away from their parents’ safety.

It’s the knowing whatweknow...

I’m standing in front of the stove when I sense him moving behind me. I’m wearing a powder-blue, backless summer dress. He kisses the scar he gave me before he wraps his arm around my waist and slams our bodies together with a groan.

“The wages of sin is death, Luca,” I say, throwing my head back against his chest, feeling his cock stiffen against the curve of my ass as my words hit home.

When he smiles into my hair, I know it’s time to kill again.

The End