Page 55

And I planned to bury those, too.

I drove into darkness with my monster tied in the back, the engine humming beneath my hands. For the first time since my previous life, power replaced helplessness.

I am alive. I am saving my daughter this time.

Back at home, the concrete mixer churned slowly; a mechanical growl against a still winter night.

I stood over the barn foundation's skeleton, rebar stretching up like exposed ribs. A cigar burned between my fingers, flaring with each inhale. I'd checked every measurement twice. Ten feet deep. Reinforced. Secure.

At Charlie's request, I'd designed a shelter to go beneath the new barn. Hidden in plain sight, engineered to house two families, stocked with rations, backup power, clean water filtration, radiation shielding. Everything we'd need if the world cracked open again.

When I presented the idea to Sloane, I expected resistance. Questions. Suspicion. She surprised me, turning the concept over with that quiet, deliberate grace she carried then nodded.

"That's smart," she said. "Just in case."

No interrogation. No probing my motives. No asking why I'd drawn schematics months before Charlie even mentioned a shelter. Her trust was the most precious gift I'd ever earned.

I knew from the very first shovelful of dirt that this shelter would also serve as a tomb.

A monument to my vengeance. The only missing piece was the monster I needed to bury in it.

Cold concrete pressed into earth like judgment while above, we'd build something else: a home.

A haven. A contradiction like my double lives.

But most importantly, a safe place for the one he tried to take from me.

The mixer groaned as I released the hatch, watching thick gray slurry pour into the wooden mold. I turned to my truck, staring at the already-lowered tailgate.

The bundle remained: black tarp, rope, shifting slightly with muffled sounds.

I grabbed it like drywall I'd carried a thousand times, muscles barely registering the weight. Give or take, he was a hundred pounds of dead weight.

Well, he isn't dead yet.

I carried him to the foundation's edge, his moans growing louder before I dropped him with a heavy thud. A muffled yelp sounded through the duct tape, and I fought the urge to kick him to death, to crush his balls beneath my boots and listen to him scream .

I crouched beside the bundle, yanked the tarp enough to reveal his face. Eyes wild, red-rimmed, drowning in panic. Jeremy Rogers, according to the license I'd left in his car. Middle-aged, soft, already sweating through his collar despite the night air.

This pathetic fuck took her from me.

"Jeremy," I said quietly, like greeting someone I'd passed in church.

His eyes screamed when his mouth couldn't. I grabbed his hair, forcing him to face the pit below. The concrete rose, slow and steady.

"You hurt someone I love," I told him, voice flat. "You sold children like objects. You built a market for monsters."

My heart beat against my throat like a steady reminder of what I must do. "And one day, you tried to take mine."

He shook his head violently, sobbing into the tape.

"But you found me instead of her," I continued, tightening my grip. "I saved her. And now I'm going to bury you."

Panic seized him as he twisted uselessly, but I was far stronger.

Ah fuck it.

I stood and stomped repeatedly where his balls should be, ensuring I used enough force to crush at least one. He convulsed, screaming into the tape. The smell of piss leaked from his tarp-wrapped body.

That's just the start of what you deserve, mother fucker.

I lifted and tossed him into the pit where he landed with a wet thud. He barely missed being impaled by a piece of rebar.

Pity.

I watched him writhe hopelessly, concrete already halfway up his chest. He screamed into the duct tape, the noise smothered by the mixer's drone.

Hmm, good thing we are far out from anyone. I looked back at the mixer. The extra quicklime I added should mask any smell .

No one would question me out here. Not my family, not the neighbors nearly a mile away behind trees I hadn't cut down, yet. I'd worked enough late nights to make this unremarkable. I flipped the mixer to high speed, watching as thick pour slowly engulfed the man below.

I didn't look away; not even as his eyes disappeared beneath gray. I watched until movement ceased, until breath stopped, until sound died. Only wet silence settling into finality. Into stone.

I should feel something. Remorse? Guilt? But all I feel is a satiated relief.

I stood for awhile afterward with my lit cigar, watching it dry, hardening like my resolve. The stars overhead seemed farther than usual, indifferent, as the air stilled after the mixer went silent.

No turning back from this now… not that I even want to.

Sloane had begged me to do things the right way with Angie; made me promise not to hurt her. But for this?

Fuck, I didn't flinch.

I thought of Violet from my previous life. Of my endless questions from years of not knowing. Of how desolate and empty I'd been after her disappearance.

Then I remembered the images on this monster's laptop and what he'd planned to do to her had I not intervened.

You're goddamn right you didn't flinch.

The cigar burned out in my hand, last embers dying as I tossed it aside. Night stretched into morning, and I heard the rumble of distant thunder before I walked the mile back toward the house.

That morning, rain fell heavy around the warehouse and nearby woods, as the forecast said it would.

It would have been more than enough to wash out my tire tracks and render any of my footprints illegible.

Thankfully, at the house we barely got a drizzle; not enough to prevent my new cement foundation from drying just fine.

Almost like Mother Nature herself is helping me bury that monster.

Weeks later, the town paper ran a short piece about an abandoned car near an old warehouse. Inside, a laptop left open, contents disturbing enough for police to request information.

I knew what they'd find. A catalogue of horror and digital confession of Jeremy Rogers. Thousands of videos. Each one was someone's son or daughter. Each one was someone's Violet.

I read it over coffee while Sloane hummed in the kitchen, her voice soft as she baked cookies. The kids tore through like wildfire, trailing laughter.

I will do it again in a heartbeat if I ever need to.

I knew what I'd done would stay buried: concrete and bone, silence and sin. Whatever came next, I'd carry the truth like a scar beneath my ribs, telling myself I did what needed doing. My regrets were few. My resolve, absolute.