Page 132 of He Sees You

Another car. Dr. Wallis arrives, the pediatrician who did all our school physicals.

He hears Hamilton screaming, tries to run, but Cain is faster.

Tackles him in the snow, drags him inside.

"Dr. Wallis," I say conversationally. "You gave me my vaccines. Told me I was growing up strong and healthy."

"Celeste, there's been a misunderstanding?—"

"Did you tell that to the girls you examined for 'freshness'? Did you give them lollipops too after violating them?"

Cain holds him while I work.

Not with the gun—too quick.

With a knife, the one Juliette gave me.

Each cut is for a girl he hurt.

By the time I'm done, he's begging for death.

I don't give it to him yet.

Father McKenzie arrives next, clutching his rosary.

The priest who baptized me, heard my first confession, gave me First Communion.

He enters praying.

"Father," I greet him. "Come to give Last Rites?"

"Celeste, my child, this is not God's way?—"

"God's way? You raped children and called it God's way?"

"I never—I only counseled them?—"

Sterling finally breaks his silence. "Stop lying, McKenzie. They know everything."

The priest looks at my father, then at me. "Your father sold you to the devil."

"No," I correct. "He tried to. But I chose the devil myself."

McKenzie dies with his rosary shoved down his throat, choking on the beads he used to count his sins.

Three more arrive in quick succession—council members, business owners, pillars of the community.

Cain and I work in harmony, a wedding dance of death.

One holds while the other cuts.

One shoots while the other watches the door.

We're painted in red by the time the eighth buyer arrives.

The last is someone I don't expect. Mrs. Barnett, my third-grade teacher.

"Hello, Celeste," she says calmly, surveying the carnage. "I always knew you were special."