Page 112 of The Lies We Steal

“I…I don’t know-”

“We saw the flash drive.” I stop him from even trying to deny it. I wasn’t here to question him or get more information on the dealings of what he was into. I had enough evidence with the drive to know the police would look into anything we didn’t take care of ourselves. I came here to listen to him confess.

I was prepared to become judge, jury, executioner.

Like most evil disguised as humans, his mask melts right off his face. He knows he can’t deny it, he is aware of what we have seen. It’s either own up to it, hope that we respect him for admitting it, or go out like a bitch.

“I’m assuming one of you was fucking her? That’s why I’m here?” He mocks, rolling his body so he is sitting up on his knees, his greasy hair falling in his face a bit as he spits on the floor,

“The X was just to make her more pliable for the buyer. She’d been sold the day I picked her up from the library. I didn’t know the dumb bitch would die from it. Cost us money we didn’t have to lose.”

Blind rage takes hold of Rook at the sound of someone insulting Rose, taking the opportunity to acquaint himself with Greg. He twirls his bat, swinging the aluminum stick like a knife through butter, and crushing it across Greg’s side, sending him flapping in the air with a harsh thump.

I silently hoped it punctured a lung.

“You don’t get to speak about her. Not like that, fucking crook.”

It was the first of many painful lessons we would be teaching our professor tonight.

He mewls into the group, pressing his forehead into the dirt, eyes crossed in searing pain. Thatcher takes the sole of his Oxford clad shoe, pressing it into the same set of ribs that had just taken a major league swing and punts him onto his back. I felt the tightening in my chest, the pressure increasing across my entire body. Feeling it in my hands, my neck and jaw muscles as my fury built higher the longer he spoke.

“You think killing me makes it any better? You’ll be just as bad as me, nothing but a killer. This won’t bring her back!” He yells, spit flying from his mouth like white bugs. “She’s dead. Nothing you do will change that.”

I’d been waiting months for this. Spent sleepless nights thinking about what I would do if given the opportunity to get my hands on the person who took Rosemary from us. Burst of memories play in my mind. Of Silas, of Rose, all the good, all the bad.

That was what no one was getting.

We knew she was gone. We knew that no matter how much blood we spilled she wouldn’t come back. She was gone.

We just didn’t fucking care.

I stride forward, “No, it won’t,” twisting the axe in my hands so the blunt end points outward, “But it’ll make me feel a fuck ton better.” I slam the end of the weapon into his throat.

The sound of kindling breaking over a tree crackles through the bottom floor of the house. Greg’s windpipe splinters in his throat from the strike of the back of the axe. The brutal choke that falls from his mouth would make me cringe if I wasn’t so amped up on how good this felt.

High pitched breaths and wheezes is all he can manage. Not another word will come from his mouth.

It’s then that Silas steps forward.

Hands calm, eyes like coal. He stands over Greg, peering down at him so that he can take a peek into what a living human looks like when they lose their soul.

The Grim Reaper gave up his duties for tonight, handing them over to Silas so that he could sentence a dirty soul to whatever hell awaited him.

This had always been the plan. This had always been his kill. The retaliation he felt would make it up to Rose, because in his mind, he should have been there that night.

Rose was walking home from the library because of a fight they had. I still didn’t know what it was over, but instead of waiting for Silas to pick her up she left on her own.

Whatever his last words were to her were said in anger.

I’d give anything to know the thoughts that swirled in his mind right now as he stood face to face with the man who ended his girlfriend’s life.

With subtle grace, he drops one knee down beside him, straddling his chest and pinning him to the floor with his weight. The floorboards creaked with the disturbance and all we could do was watch, waiting for the moment Silas needed us.

“I hope it’s hard to breathe.” His voice is gravelly as he wipes the dust off his vocal cords, “I hope every single breath feels like razor blades carving your throat wide open.”

His hands, wide, large and powerful sink down onto Greg’s face. Slipping his fingers behind his skull to hold him steady, and allowing his thumbs to brush over his eyelids.

Greg coughed and fought for air, fear of death becoming more apparent and he couldn’t even scream for help that might’ve saved him.

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