Page 28

I stepped closer and as my boots crunched on debris littering the floor, Bryon’s remains stared back at me. His jaw had fallen open and the gag was half hanging out. His empty sockets gaped where his eyes used to be.

“You deserved worse,” I growled, my voice cutting through the silence and echoing back, soft and distant as if Alice were agreeing with me .

Shoving the memory aside, I turned my attention to the rows of cardboard boxes stacked along the wall.

This was why I was here.

Forty years of secrets. Forty years of nightmares.

It was only fitting that the evidence of every horror committed in this place serve as the fuel to burn this hellhole to the ground.

I yanked open the desk drawers, rummaging through the chaos of old papers and junk, searching for the matches Whitmore always kept here along with his fancy Cuban cigars he loved to brag about. He let me try one once and laughed when I nearly coughed up a lung.

Didn’t stop me smoking, though. Alice and I used to steal cigarettes from the staff and sneak out late at night, down behind the shed. Those precious moments were our way of escaping the horrors of this place—just two scared, broken girls pretending the world wasn’t as cruel as it really was.

Finally, I pulled out a box of Redheads.

Turning to the rows of archiving boxes, I grabbed the first one that was missing its label and dropped it onto the desk. Dust swirled into the light of my phone as I pulled off the lid.

My breath hitched. At the very top of the contents was the 1981 yearbook.

The year Alice came into my life. The year everything changed.

I peeled open the cracked and stiff leather cover, and my fingers trembled as I flipped through the pages, searching for her.

Rows of smiling faces stared back at me.

Kids who didn’t know what was waiting for them in this retched building.

Some of the kids didn’t even make it into the next yearbook.

Then I found her.

Alice Turnur. She’d been fifteen years old when she became an orphan and was dumped here, but she’d looked much younger.

Her picture was small, yellowing, and slightly faded, but her beauty still shone through.

Her hair framed her delicate face, and her eyes held that same quiet strength I’d always admired.

A tear spilled down my cheek as I ran my finger over the image, tracing her features like I could bring her back.

Alice. Sweet, fragile Alice .

Her father had destroyed her long before this place got the chance. Years of abuse at his hands had left her shattered, and when he finally snapped, killing her mother before turning the gun on himself, he’d made Alice an orphan.

But the abuse didn’t stop when she got here.

Not until I swore to protect her forever.

Alice could never kill anyone. Not even the fuckers who hurt her. She had too much light in her, too much kindness, even after everything she’d endured. I didn’t hold that moral ground. I didn’t have her softness or restraint.

I glanced at the skeleton slumped in the chair.

Bryon Baldock, the orphanage doctor. The man who was supposed to care for the children, but instead preyed on both boys and girls; he didn’t discriminate. He’d been the last man to ever touch Alice. The last man to steal pieces of her, she could never get back.

But he wasn’t just her monster.

He came and went as he pleased, causing terror with every visit to Angelsong, breaking lives and leaving scars no one could see.

Until I’d trapped him in this room for eternity, ensuring he would never hurt anyone again.

I hoped his final days were pure hell. He’d deserved every minute of that agony.

Placing my hand on Alice’s photo, I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. For a moment, I let myself think of her, the way she used to hum while braiding my hair, the way she would laugh at all my dumb jokes, her quiet strength that had kept me going when I thought I couldn’t survive another day.

I opened my eyes, closed the yearbook, and turned my attention back to the boxes stacked along the walls. These records documented every sin, every horror, and every ruined life.

But nobody cared. Not the police. Not the system. Half of them probably knew exactly what went on here and chose to look the other way.

I couldn’t trust the system to do the right thing with this information back then, and I sure as shit couldn’t trust them now.

Alice’s name would be in these reports, and the fucking media would twist her into a headline, rip her life apart all over again, reduce her to a statistic.

She deserved better than that. She deserved peace.

All the orphans did.

I would rather let it all burn.

And when the flames consumed it all, maybe Alice’s ghost, and all the others, might finally rest. Maybe even I could rest too. After all the killing was done, that is.

I pulled down another archival box, and as I tugged open the lid, dust swirled into the beam of the phone light like an angry ghost.

Baldock’s ghost.

Forcing myself to ignore that stupid thought, I reached for the first folder on the top of the box and my heart nearly stopped.

The name scrawled across the front of the manila folder was Fraser Madden.

It felt like someone had driven a knife straight into my chest.

I sucked in a shaky breath as the weight of his name hit me like a tidal wave.

Fraser Madden . . . the name I’d given to my other boy.

The child trafficking victim I’d been forced to look after.

The boy I should never have grown attached to, but who wormed his way into my heart until I loved him just as fiercely as I loved Thomas Wexler.

They may not have had my DNA, but they were my boys, and I loved them with everything I had.

The real Fraser Madden had been abandoned as a baby, just like me. He was only nine years old when they found his body.

Nine!

He’d been such a wonderful boy, full of life, funny, clever, a little bit naughty, but just enough to make you laugh instead of scold. His smile could light up the darkest room, and his high-pitched giggle was infectious.

And someone had taken all that away.

I never knew how he died. Never knew who had killed him. Those were the questions that had gnawed at me for years.

The urge to rip open the folder and devour every word inside was overwhelming. My fingers itched, trembling as they hovered over the edges of the file. I wanted, no, needed to know.

But I didn’t have time.

I still had to look after Alice.

With a deep, shuddering breath, I set Fraser’s folder on top of Alice’s yearbook and turned back to the shelves.

My movements were sharper now, more purposeful.

I grabbed another box and yanked it down, and not even bothering to open the lid, I tipped it upside down, dumping the contents onto the floor.

Papers and photographs spilled out, scattering across the concrete like dead leaves in the wind.

I grabbed another box, repeating the move, then a third. The pile grew into a chaotic mound of damning evidence. Files, photographs, payment ledgers, the cancerous records of a corrupt system that had thrived on the suffering of children.

Some of the kids managed to escape this place and move on with their lives, hopefully into nice foster families. Alice didn’t have that luxury. She went from here to Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum. She wasn’t mental. She was sad. Suffering. Lost. She didn’t need electric probes; she needed love.

When she was finally discharged from that fucking disaster, after it, too, was shut down when bodies started piling up, I took her in. Cared for her. Loved her like she deserved. Pretended none of the horrors had happened.

Maybe the other kids did that too. Pushed down the nightmares, convinced themselves the horrors were just their imagination.

If this evidence went public, it could bring shame to these kids. Force them to relive their trauma.

Burning it all was the right thing to do.

The air grew thicker, and the weight of the past pressed down on me as I reached for the box of matches. My hands shook as I struck one and the tiny flame flared to life, dancing against the shadows of the room.

I took a long, calming breath, staring at the pile of evidence in front of me then tossed the match onto the papers.

The flames caught, licking hungrily at the edges of the documents, curling them into ash. The fire grew quickly, consuming everything: the lies, the pain, the names of the monsters who had destroyed so many lives. The records of the atrocities that were finally being silenced.

I grabbed the yearbook and Fraser’s folder from the desk and using my phone for light, I charged up the stairs .

A tear slipped down my cheek, hot and unbidden. I swiped it away with the back of my hand, my jaw tightening.

I hated that I was crying.

Crying felt weak, and I couldn’t afford to be weak. Not now. Not when I was so close to finally putting this whole fucking mess behind me.

At the top of the stairs, the orange glow cast flickering shadows on the walls. I didn’t bother to seal the door. With the amount of paperwork in that room below, this whole damn place would be ashes within hours.

I didn’t look back.

I had done what needed to be done.

The past would burn. And with it, this place would finally die.

I raced out of the orphanage. The half-moon hung directly above, casting its silvery glow over Cooper’s crumpled body in the dirt.

I slowed as I reached him, my breath coming in heavy, ragged gasps.

Blood pooled beneath his twisted form, soaking into the cracked earth like it was trying to bury the evidence for me.

I shook my head, my chest tightening. His family would mourn him.

They would curse the world for taking him too soon.

But he’d brought this on himself. Cooper wasn’t an innocent victim. He was a criminal, as corrupt as the bastards who preyed on the orphans inside Angelsong. He’d made his choices, and those choices had led him here.

Maybe I should write it all down and tell the world how easy it was to corrupt a cop like Cooper and show how quickly he’d sold his soul. But what would be the point? Nobody would care.

They never cared.

I tore my eyes away from his body, grabbed my bag from the saddlebags on the motorbike, and paused to pump a few bullets into the Tesla. The tires exploded and the windscreen shattered. I shot out the motorbike tires, too, and put one through the engine.

Take that, you fuckers.

I climbed into the cop car. The leather seat felt cold against my back, but my hands were hot and shaking as I gripped the steering wheel. My head pounded, and my chest was tight, like I was suffocating.

And then Alice came rushing into my mind.

Her body was in the trunk.

My heart ached, and my head felt like it might shatter. It was cruel that she was back there, stuffed into the trunk like some forgotten package.

Alice deserved more than this. She deserved peace.

My breath hitched, and a sob clawed its way up my throat, but I swallowed it down. I couldn’t fall apart now. Not yet.

I turned the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life. As I pulled onto the driveway, the orphanage loomed in the rearview mirror. A tiny glow flickered in the corner of the building, faint but growing.

I didn’t stop to watch it burn. I didn’t need to.

The flames were taking over now, doing what I couldn’t . . . erase the past.

But I was getting there, and soon every single person who had ever wronged Alice and me would be dead.