Page 77 of The Hellkeeper

Damien. The Hellkeeper.

My Hellkeeper.

Still lost in thought, I reach for the nurse call button and press it.

Those old scriptures, the myths that filled my childhood with fear, maybe they weren’t myths after all. Maybe they were warnings. But the Hellkeeper, no matter what, has always been on my side.

The nurse arrives and begins fussing over Margaret. I step away and go stand beside Damien.

The news wouldn’t shut up about what happened. A fire, they said. An accident that spread too fast, swallowing everything in its path. Nothing survived. And the bodies? Burned to ash.

I don’t feel guilty for the people I knew my whole life. They tried to kill me, and they would’ve succeeded if Damien hadn’t found me first.

I’m just as morally gray as he is. And I wouldn’t change a thing.

The police were on me the second I returned. Questions. Suspicion. It was overwhelming.

But Damien has friends in the right places. Friends who made things easier. They fed me a story, one I had to repeat like I believed it. Damien chased the truck, which made the masked men panic and throw me out before they got caught. Simple. Believable.

No link between us and the burning village. No bodies to analyze, no bullet holes to explain.

Everything was reduced to ash.

No evidence. Just a freak accident. A fire that spread too fast, too wild, leaving nothing behind. A shootout with no suspects or motive. And just like that, we walked away clean.

As soon as the nurse finishes checking on Margaret and leaves, I rush back to her.

I hesitate, but the question has been sitting heavy in my chest. Even if it’s not the right time, I can’t keep it in.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Margaret looks at me like she’s been waiting for this moment but dreading it too.

“I didn’t know how,” she admits. “At first, I was scared. You came from them. And for a long time, I thought maybe… maybe they sent you here to drag me back.”

I shake my head. “Never.”

Damien stays nearby. He never really leaves me. But he doesn’t interfere.

“I know that now,” she says with a deep breath. “But back then? I had to be sure. I had to protect myself. After a while, I saw too much of myself in you, Amelia. I knew you were just like me. I didn’t know how to confess that.”

Why did she take the risk? Why take me in, even if she thought I might be one of them?

“But if there was even a one percent chance that you were like me, if there was even the smallest possibility that you ran away from them, I couldn’t risk leaving you out in the cold. I might as well have laid next to you.”

That’s Margaret. A saint.

“I should’ve told you,” she sighs.

“You don’t have to feel guilty, Margaret.” I try to reassure her.

She laughs weakly and brushes away a tear. “We both know that’s not how guilt works.”

I don’t want to dwell on the past anymore.

It’s behind us.

Now?

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