Page 5 of Sorrow

The heat coursing through me turns quickly to anger as he shuts the door behind him, and all I can do is slam my fist against the rotting wood.

I hate him.

3

The first night without Boo here is harder than I thought it would be. The fridge hums, the walls creak, the animals skitter just outside my window. All noises I’ve grown up hearing, and yet... they’re somehow more sinister when you’re alone.

When I was a kid, maybe seven or eight, my father told me that the best way to beat my fears was to embrace them. If I told him I had nightmares, he told me they were basically free scary movies. If I told him there were monsters under the bed, he told me to sing them to sleep. That they were my friends, and they just wanted a little company.

Every night for years, I sang those monsters a lullaby. It seems silly now that I’m grown. The real monsters aren’tsupernatural beasties who hide under children’s beds or inside closets, they’re human. They walk and talk just like the rest of us. People like The Sons. Like the man who killed my parents. Like Hayes. While he may not be as violent as the others, he’s just as cruel. He simply has a different medium.

Ugh, I need to stop thinking about him. Rolling over, I stuff my thin pillow up under my chin and snuggle a little deeper under the blankets. It’s just the wind, those sounds. Just the mark of an old, old house, suffering from years of neglect. Just a product of a girl who has always been afraid.

Nothing changes, nothing moves.

Not even me.

––––––––

“Sam, where you at?”

Snapping my head toward my brother, I utter “huh?” before my brain processes what he said. “Sorry. I haven’t been sleeping well lately. Are you okay?”

Boo’s eyes look darker now, sadder. I can tell I’m not the only one struggling with sleep. “Two more buildings burned down last night. I missed those motherfuckers by a hair.”

Anxiety twists in my gut. I know he’s a good cop, I do. But when you’re up against three untouchable, never-leave-a-trace psychopaths, is there even such a thing as good enough?

“What do you mean?”

“They burned the old distillery down, and something told me they were doing it to punish Old Man Hanson. So, I went to Hanson’s house to warn him and found that on fire too. Pretty sure I saw Madoff’s truck speeding off.”

“You didn’t go after them?”

“Nah. I had to make sure Hanson and the dogs got out. Those things are practically Cape Frost mascots.”

He’s not wrong. Brutus and Reina are jet black Belgian groenendaels, which look like a supernatural cross between a malinois and a collie. They’re large, powerful creatures who basically have the run of the place since Hanson always knows they’ll come home.

“Did they get out?”

The knot in his jaw ticks. “Reina did. Brutus is okay, but he won’t walk right for a while. His left paw got burned pretty badly when he dragged Hanson out by his collar.”

Tears fill my eyes and tension coils in my gut. “Who would do such a thing?” I ask. It’s hypothetical, but he answers anyway.

“The fucking Sons. I’ll get ‘em though, Sammy. They’re bound to leave something behind at some point. Their daddies can’t protect them forever.”

If they don’t, I have a feeling Hanson’s sons might just come up with a little vigilante justice of their own.

“Just be careful,” I beg quietly. “Promise me you won’t go after them on your own.”

“I can’t promise that. It’s my job. You know that.”

No, what I know is that he took up the mantle of some heroic cop when our parents’ bodies showed up in Bleak River eight years ago. He dropped out of school to go to the police academy and had his own beat when he was younger than I am now. He had no business being a cop then, and no business being one now. They caught the bastard who murdered our parents. Why wasn’t that enough?

“Don’t look at me like that,” he warns.

“Like what?”

“Like you pity me or some shit. I know what I’m doing. All I’m saying is that ifbackup is too far away, I’ll do what I have to do. Have a little faith in your big brother.”

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