Page 111 of The Lies We Steal

Just another person addicted to how it feels when you do something bad. I ripped away her idea of what she thought she wanted, shedding light on how all the dark parts of her were her power.

I tore her down, just to build her up, only to yank the flooring right out from underneath her. Watching her crumble before my eyes.

But that was what had to be done.

I could not afford to have her poking around, getting involved where she shouldn’t be, asking me shit she doesn’t understand.

It was better to break her heart now. Get it out of the way before something worse happened. Before she built this imaginary world with me in it, shoving me into a dream I had no business being a part of. Expecting me to be something I am not. Something I will never be.

I wanted this, I thought.

So why the fuck did I feel this way.

With ease I pull into the driveway of the condemned house, right outside the weak metal gate that does a shit job of keeping people out. The no trespassing signs are so old that rust holes have started to eat away the words.

Rook is out of the vehicle before I’m even in park. Electricity courses down my arms as I look up at the small two-story brick house. The night had come fast, it always does during this time of the year and the liberating task at hand we’d all been anticipating was only a few minutes away.

A gust of strong wind picks up a pile of leaves, carrying them across the brown yard, the draft howls through the house, slipping inside the damaged roof and between the cracks of the boarded windows.

The last time I saw this place it housed a dead body. Tonight, it would do the same.

I step around to the back of my car, while Rook opens the trunk. Headlights blind me as Thatcher’s vehicle comes into view. Both him and Silas pull in next to me, cutting the engine and stepping out.

We don’t talk, no words need to be said. We know why we are here and that pressure hangs heavy on each of our shoulders.

“Catch.” Rook mutters, tossing a long-handled axe in my direction.

I snatch it from the air calmy, squeezing the wood in my palm, feeling the weight of the weapon in my hand. The chisel-shaped blade flashed in the night. And ideas for all the ways I could kill someone with this appeared in my mind’s eye.

Hearing the sound of distorted wails as Thatcher and Silas walk from the back of their car, each of them carrying a half of the body of a restless Greg West. He fights, trying to kick his duct taped feet free.

We follow their lead through the dead yard, up the unstable front steps and through the entrance of the trap house where we had found Rose.

Stepping inside was similar to walking into a time machine. The last time we’d been here, Rose laid motionless on the same floor that we toss Greg onto. The boards on the floor creak with his weight, head banging onto the ground as he tries rolling around.

Thatcher and Silas had waited outside of his house after we left the carnival, waiting for the perfect moment to snatch him up as he walked to his front door. Just when he thought he was going to be able to kick his feet up on the couch, click through the sports channel, Thatch had ruined it. Grabbing him up and throwing him in his trunk.

Consequences of all of his actions up to this point made the air thick.

Spilling blood for our revenge. Tempting the scale of moral compasses just to feel the relief of vengeance on our souls. If I ever got caught, I wouldn’t regret it.

Even if I rotted in a prison cell for the rest of my days, this would have been worth it.

They would always be worth it.

I was ready to hear Greg say the words. We had followed the breadcrumbs and they’d led us to the person we’d been looking for. I just needed to hear the words.

Rook rips the tape off his mouth, the sound of skin and hair tearing echoes, and shit immediately begins to pour out of his mouth,

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“As a unit?” Thatcher ask, “Too many things to count.”

Greg shoves his feet into the ground, trying his hardest to push himself away from the four of us. It’s kind of pathetic actually, the last feeble attempts of a trash human being.

“Did you mean to kill her, Greg?” Thatcher asks ignoring his question, “Or was it just dumb luck that she was allergic to the Ecstasy?”

It’s interesting watching someone who had up to this point been completely confident that no one would ever know what he did. It’s interesting seeing the shock register in their ratty eyes and they begin to think, oh shit I’m in trouble.

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