Page 66 of Absolution
“You’re hurt!” I exclaim. “Where’s your phone? I’ll call an ambulance.”
His fingers thread through my hair, grounding me to him. “I’m fine,” he promises. “It looks worse than it is. Head wounds bleed a lot.”
“But you were unconscious,” I protest.
“For a few seconds,” he reassures me. “We can’t call an ambulance, or the authorities will come to the property. I need to clean up this mess.”
My gaze finds my dead uncle. I simply stare at his body for several seconds, and I realize that I don’t feel a shred of distress or remorse.
He was going to hurt Dane, and I stopped him.
He hurt me, and I made him pay for it.
No one will ever suffer at his cruel hands ever again.
I turn back to Dane. “What do we do now?”
He traces the shape of my purple curl with reverence. “My brave Abigail,” he praises. “I need to get patched up. Then I’ll destroy the evidence. You can wait outside in my car. I’ll handle this.”
I shake my head. “I’m not leaving your side. You’re the medical professional, but you’re injured. I’ll be right here if you need me.”
His lips twist in a lopsided smile. “My wife is so fierce. Whatever you say, my queen.”
Ten minutes later, Dane’s head wound is bandaged, and his face is no longer covered in blood. He made quick work of treating the gash with a first aid kit that we found inthe downstairs bathroom. I’m calmer now that his eyes are fully focused, and he’s able to walk in a straight line without wavering.
We return to the armory. Uncle Jeffrey looks smaller in death, diminished. The shadowy figure that haunted my nightmares has been vanquished: he’s flesh and blood. Fallible.
I’ve slain my own personal monster.
Dane moves with unhurried steps, his posture relaxed and utterly unbothered by the dead man. He crosses to the humidor and selects a cigar. Then he grabs a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet.
I lift a brow at him. “Are we celebrating?”
“We’ll celebrate later,” he reassures me. “I’m destroying the evidence.”
He drags Uncle Jeffrey’s body into one of the green leather armchairs beside the drinks cabinet.
He pours two fingers of whiskey into a crystal glass before tipping it so that the alcohol spills onto my uncle’s ruined chest. A discarded newspaper sits on the small table beside the armchair, and Dane sets the empty glass atop it. His fingers loosen around the bottle, and it smashes on the floor.
I jolt slightly at the sound of shattering glass, but I don’t say a word of protest. I simply watch while he lights the cigar and places it on the newspaper. The paper curls as it begins to burn. Dane waits for flames to lick the antique wooden table before kicking it over. The spilled whiskey acts as an accelerant, and fire races to the alcohol-soaked cream rug.
“Let’s go,” he rumbles, picking up the bloody bayonet. “We’ll drop this in the river on our way back to Charleston. Where’s the fuse box?”
“This way.”
His hand wraps around mine, and we both walk out of the armory.
In less than two minutes, we’ve cut the power and made it out of the house. Dane is leading me toward his waiting car, but I pause and turn.
“Wait,” I request.
He seems to know what I need. His arm drapes over my shoulder, holding me close as we watch the orange glow in the armory grow brighter. It takes several, long minutes for the fire to spread across the first floor. With the power off, there will be no alert to the authorities that the place is burning. And the families who lived on the plantation left in disgust when my story went viral.
There’s no one around to stop the destruction of the historic mansion where centuries of evil have taken place.
Flames gradually engulf the nightmarish house that I used to call home. The fire is cleansing, searing the toxicity of my past from my soul. I watch it all burn, imprinting the scene on my memory so that I can paint it later as a reminder that I’m free. I survived.
When the house is nothing more than a glowing skeleton of its former self, I finally turn to Dane.
