Page 79 of Vengeance of Childhood Proportions (Till Death Do Us Part #7)

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Holly

Emmet’s long, curly hair was greasy in my grip.

I’ve had some shit days in my life. Some god-awful days, and one specifically hellish day that ended with a rope around my neck.

I don’t know where the last three days fall in the lineup.

I felt…empty. I was going through the motions—breathing, eating, sleeping—but it meant nothing. There was no purpose, no motivation.

I’d spent the past two days being lectured by Jason on how foolish I’d been, how he trained me better, how he’d warned me not to get involved with Master Mal… I listened to it all, taking it in silence. Because he was right. He was beyond right.

I had no business getting involved with Master Mal. It was selfish and stupid and reckless. After everything I’d suffered through in my life, I’d wanted the escape, the sanctuary, he offered. Hadn’t I deserved that? Didn’t I still deserve it?

But it wouldn’t matter. It couldn’t. I’d killed someone in front of Master Mal. It was over. My stupid ‘experiment’, as Jason called it, was a failure. “This is why emotions are for fools, Hols,” he kept saying.

I’d fallen for the last person on this planet that I should have, a man who was unknowingly hunting me.

I should have run from him the moment I turned on that barstool and saw him crowding over me.

Looking back on it, I hadn’t been out for love, never even thought the emotion possible for me.

I wasn’t twisted like Jason, but certainly broken.

All I’d known in that moment was the feeling of safety around Master Mal.

It was intoxicating, and too hard of a pull to ignore.

I felt like I had a boulder sitting on my chest. I couldn’t breathe whenever I thought of Master Mal or remembered the fear on his face the last time I saw him.

I couldn’t even talk to him because I knew what he’d say and do.

He was a cop. I was a killer. There was no other option, no alternative route.

He’d likely put the cuffs on me himself.

Jason was right to call me a fool.

Now I wasn’t just broken, but a broken fool.

Time wasn’t helping. I’d destroyed my phone within minutes of killing Dominique.

I saw Master Mal being stopped by the police and knew I had limited time to get back to his house to retrieve my things.

There was nothing I could do about my owl mask that was still in Master Mal’s car.

I knew better than to be sentimental towards things , and I never had been before this, but there was an overwhelming amount of sadness in my soul every time I thought about the fact that I’d left that mask behind. I wanted my mask back.

I was done in Alaska. I wanted a new start, wanted to forget this entire fucking state and create a different life for myself.

Everyone on my list was now dead. There were only two more men who owed me their lives.

Jason’s car was packed with his new toy secured in the trunk.

The fishery was burning now as I walked inside the hospice facility on Douglas Island.

For the first time in a long time, I was out in public without a disguise.

No wig or contacts, no mask or glasses. I was wearing jeans, boots, and a long sleeve turtleneck sweater.

I knew the cameras would catch me. I wanted them to.

This wasn’t reckless, though. I’d always planned on making the former sheriff see me .

No one was at the receptionist desk. Jason had hacked into their computers and was wreaking havoc on their alert system for over an hour. All the staff were running around trying to see which alarms were real and which were glitches.

I walked inside unimpeded and hung a left. The large facility had over a hundred beds, but most of the alarms were going off in the north wing, opposite of my path. I didn’t see a single soul on my way down the long hall to room seven-oh-two.

I didn’t knock. Manners had no place in my life anymore.

Jason and I had a stop to make in the lower forty-eight, and then we were free to go wherever.

The world was our oyster, and all that bullshit.

Funny, how I kept thinking about my mask that I’d had to leave behind. It was my favorite, after all.

Clyde Renfrew was lying prone on his bed.

His oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose, fogging up with each struggling breath.

I’d seen the sheriff around town in my youth.

One didn’t grow up in a small town like I did without knowing the sheriff, but he’d never been more than a figurehead to me.

I knew his son from school and that seemed to be it.

Until he’d failed me.

Had he even known my name before that day?

I recalled seeing him outside my hospital room the day after my rape.

I’d been grateful to see him, believed that I would get justice because Sheriff Renfrew was there.

How utterly wrong I’d been. I couldn’t even call myself na?ve, because what fifteen year old wouldn’t believe that the police were there to help her after the most terrifying and horrific experience of her life?

It was Hagley who had begged for the sheriff to make my attack “go away”, but I couldn’t help wondering if the sheriff would have done so anyway.

After all, it was his son who had organized it.

I pushed the hospital table over his knees on the bed, making sure not to catch the wheels on the wires attached to the man. I picked up the remote that controlled the direction of the bed. The motor whirred as the top half of the bed rose.

Clyde Renfrew blinked awake. His heart rate and breathing picked up the moment his eyes landed on me at his bedside. I waved to him, but did not remove my thumb from the button until he was upright.

Then I slammed his son’s decapitated head on the table with a squelch.