Page 83 of Vengeance of Childhood Proportions

Even if I was fourteen years too late.

I opened my mouth to say…I still wasn’t sure what, but something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye, halting my words. Cocking my head, I reached into the tall grass beside Holly Marteen’s gravestone and picked up the mud-covered book. It was old and sodden from exposure, but I could make out the title and author on the cover at least.East Lynneby Mrs. Henry Wood.

I didn’t recognize the title, but found the barely legible inscription on the inside intriguing to say the least. Someonehad definitely been here, someone who knew Holly Marteen. Had they left this book here for Holly, or perhaps as a breadcrumb for me?

Holly,

I found this in the library discards and thought it was one you’d enjoy.

Mrs. P

I closed the book and thought hard. Who the fuck was Mrs. P.?

Chapter Fifty-Three

Jason

I walked upbehind Holly where she was standing in the shade of a tree across the cemetery from her lover boy. Despite that I’d chipped and neutered her gift to me, I couldn’t just leave Ro-Ro, my toy’s new female name, unattended in our apartment. She wasn’t potty-trained yet, and I really didn’t feel like cleaning that shit up.

The bunker was empty now that we’d gotten rid of the Clown Bitch and the Vomit Comet. That had been a fun one, pouring the epoxy resin over her while she was still alive and seeing the fear in her eyes as she choked on the clear viscous liquid. Clown Bitch was just annoying, and I celebrated her death by branding my new toy. I was even kind enough to treat the brand so it didn’t get infected.

Yeah, my toy was definitely regretting her decision to live, which brought a smile to my face. I didn’t care that Valentino had suspended my membership to his club for two months for lying about Holly’s submissive history. He thought that was a punishment, but I didn’t need his puny club now.

Not when I had Ro-Ro waiting for me in our new lair on the mainland.

We were done in Atelihai Valley. We’d spent the night removing anything of use before scrubbing the place from top to bottom. I had flooded it this morning, sealing both it and its horrid secrets up. We’d known when we started this that the increased police presence would eventually make it too hard to bring prisoners to Atelihai Valley, so Holly had planned to save certain people for last because they were not meant to be staged in this shit town. Since I couldn’t have my new toy with me last night, I’d left her secured to a construction horse in the old fishery building we’d taken over as our new torture chamber with the largest thrusting dildo I had in my collection shoved up her ass. I’d even been kind enough to put in a new set of batteries for her, not knowing how long I’d be away.

The tree Holly was hiding behind was far enough away that, even if the cop did see her, she was plenty fast enough to run away before he could approach. She shifted slightly, indicating she knew I was there.

“I didn’t realize you’d actually given me a gravestone.”

I shrugged. “I was fucking an embalmer around the same time. Christ, that woman was freaky—and that’s saying a lot coming from me. Wanted me to fuck her over the corpse both beforeand afterthe procedure. Asked her to fake the records of an additional body. It was her idea to order the gravestone too. Even fucked her on it after it was secured in the ground.”

Holly turned, her short brunette hair covered by a skull cap. I was surprised to see she wasn’t wearing contacts. I couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t had them on out where the public could see her and wondered if it had something to do with her stalking lover boy.

“You fucked her on my gravestone?”

“Actually, it was the one next to it,” I amended. Then shrugged, “She needed to know there was a body under us and obviously knew yours was empty.”

“Of course,” Holly deadpanned. “Details matter.”

I nodded. “Exactly. I hadn’t intended on needing it. But when we first talked about you going after your rapists, I figured it might come in handy.”

Holly turned back around. “Did they move the last four into the safe house?”

“Yup. We’ll have to silence the neighbors first.”

“Incapacitate,” she corrected sternly.

I let out a long overdramatic sigh, depressed at knocking them out instead of killing them. “If you insist.”

“You promised when you agreed to help me that there would be no senseless killing.”

I wondered if I was too old to roll my eyes and then decided that I didn’t care if I was. “Yes, Hols, I remember,” I said blandly. “Doesn’t mean it’s not a ridiculous rule.”

We both watched as her agent man squatted before the fake grave and started to clean it off. Fucking weirdo.

“Did you get what else we need?”

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