MELISSA WALKED BACK TO HER CAR, leaving the gravestone of Marcus Sullivan to lie lonely in a field of green. And though the memory of her brother was more of a data point than a living, breathing emotion, what she felt was the anger of a lost lifeline. The grave marker was the pivot point in history that changed everything her life was meant to be. She was supposed to have her mother, her father, a normal life filling photo albums with birthday parties and graduations, weddings and holidays.
The aunt who had taken her in was not a mother. Her childhood in South Falls was robotic, automated. She was looked after but not cared for. Life had been hollowed out, and all that she was given was a shell of an existence.
Marcus, in death, was luckier than she had been. He had missed out on the tragedy that his death, his murder, had unleashed.
And it was murder.
That was one point that she always, always, took to heart.
And Michael was the one who had done it all.
Now, in this corner of the world where nobody bothered to look, after years of brewing the resentment in her heart and the resolve to finally bring justice—complete justice —for Marcus, the board had been set so incredibly in her favor that all Melissa had to do was follow through. The town had tried to kill Michael. They had failed. She could prevail, all while having no fear of anyone ever linking her to the deed. She was absolved ahead of time. All accusers complicit in what would be the perfect cover.
Melissa could walk right up Main Street, shoot Michael in the head at high noon, and no one in town would dare say a thing, lest their own guilt be brought out into the light. Their own hearts would stand convicted should they even dare to speak.
All she had to do was wait. Wait for Michael to show himself.
But where was he?
Melissa pulled the car to the main road and sat thinking.
To the left was Coldwater, to the right was the old cabin. Her old home. Michael’s home. The faint smell of burning graced her nostrils as she saw a truck approach from the east. It sped past her, and in the driver’s seat she saw Haywood. He was alone, his face determined. Her gut told her to go to Michael’s—something, some reason, that was the place to go.
She turned right and headed for the cabin.
A mile from the turnoff, she saw two men walking, headed back to town. As she drove past, she eyed them and she could feel their eyes upon her. The interaction was in slow motion, but she recognized them as part of Haywood’s posse. She had seen them before, masked by the windshield of a pursuing truck. Two more accomplices.
The men slowly grew smaller in her rearview mirror. Melissa noticed, before she turned onto the dirt road and into the cover of the forest, that they had stopped walking and were watching the car as it veered off toward Michael’s.
The woods were awash in a gray smoke that hung heavy in the trees. The smell of fire came through the vents on the dashboard, and even with the windows rolled up, the fumes were becoming almost unbearable.
Melissa drove up to the cabin and saw hellfire leaping into the sky, burning the house down to its foundation. The only thing saving the forest from incinerating was the dead ring around the cabin, which kept the flames contained like a giant fire pit.
Whatever memory she had of the place was now ash and charcoal.
The smoke blew in scattered gusts, the heat hitting her in waves.
Before her was hell on earth.
But there was more.
Through the haze she could see a body lying on the ground. Blood pooled in the dirt around one of the legs.
Melissa pulled the collar of her shirt up over her nose and mouth, jumped out of the car, and ran to the body. She grabbed the man’s legs and dragged him toward her car. Her breath pushed against the fabric that covered her face as the heat and suffocating stench of the fire forced its way into her mouth. She pulled and pulled until the vehicle blocked the heat from the fire. She rolled the man over and looked down on him.
There before her, unconscious, beaten and bloody, was the murderer of the life she should have known. The destroyer of everything she ever wanted. There, lying in the dirt, was her brother Michael.
Her heart leapt in her chest. He was here. The time was right now.
She went around the car to the driver’s door, opened it, and pulled the gun from its hiding place. Without thought, without hesitation, Melissa walked back to where Michael was comatose on the ground. She aimed the pistol at his head and committed herself to finally bringing justice into the world.