Page 13 of Infamous
She looked back once, wide-eyed, grinning. “Come on!” she shouted, her voice catching. Then she ran harder.
I let her go. Let her believe that she was in complete control of her destiny.
My body moved on instinct — breath even, pulse steady, every step pulling tighter. I didn’t rush. I wanted her to feel me behind her. To feel the dark closing in.
Her laughter started to crack. The woods swallowed her sound; her perfume turned sour. She was losing the high. Panic had a different taste — bitter, metallic. I knew that taste. I waited for it.
Her phone light flickered ahead, bouncing off trees. She was spinning now, disoriented. The forest looked the same in every direction. The first crack in her mask.
“Okay, enough!” she screamed, voice shaking.
No answer. Just wind.
Branches clawed at her skin as she stumbled forward. Her breathing turned ragged, uneven. “Where are you?! This isn’t funny!”
But it was. Not the kind of funny that made you laugh — the kind that made the world tilt.
She burst into a clearing, gasping. The moon hit her face — streaked mascara, trembling lips, sweat shining on her throat. She looked alive now, truly alive. Fear did that.
She spun, searching for a way out. There wasn’t one. The woods held still, listening. My silence folded around her like a shroud.
“Who’s there?” she whispered.
I stepped forward, slow enough for the ground to groan beneath me. “You wanted to be hunted.”
Her body locked, shoulders stiff, breath snagging in her chest.
“Congratulations,” I said, my voice cutting the air between us. “You got what you paid for.”
I stepped out of the dark slow and deliberate, like a nightmare stepping into the daylight.
Her pupils blew wide. Her mouth opened and closed—no scream, just that single trembling inhale before her body remembered how to move.
She ran. Legs tangling, breath ragged, a graceless scramble that looked more like panic than prey.
I closed the distance without hurry. My hands locked on her waist and hauled her back. She hit the dirt with a sound that tore the night. The world punched the air from her; she rolled, hands clawing at me, nails raking my forearms.
She fought with the panic of someone who still thought it was a game. Laughter bubbled from her—high and brittle—like a thing that didn’t know how ugly it sounded. It grated against me. Every sound she made rewired my hatred tighter.
“Is this what you wanted?” I said, voice low enough to shake the trees. The words sank into her, pushed something raw and animal out of her chest.
She clawed and kicked and writhed, energy spent on illusion. I had twice her size and the patience to wait her out. I pressed her down until the leaves ground into her skin. Her breath came in jagged gasps. I saw Billie in every hitch, the same eyes gone wrong with fear.
When her pleading slid into mangled, wet noises, I let the memory pull me past mercy. Nothing she said or could say would bring Billie back. There would be no apologies, no bargaining that made sense. There would be only this moment.
I pressed until the motion stilled. Her limbs went slack. Her eyes glazed and rolled. When the body went quiet, I didn’t let go right away. Letting go felt like forgiveness, and forgiveness was a currency she didn’t deserve.
The woods listened as I breathed. The silence that settled after was a hard, terrible thing. I should have felt triumph. Instead I felt hollow, as if some part of me had been ripped apart.
I dug until my hands cramped and the soil stuck under my fingernails. The ground was cold and heavy, reluctant to give up its shape. I dropped her into the pit without ceremony, the body folding like a paper thing. I poured gasoline over the clothes and struck a match. The flames took with a bright, obscene hunger. Watching it burn felt like both penance and proof; when the fire died back I covered the ash with handfuls of earth until the earth swallowed the last light.
When the dirt was finally level again, I dropped to my knees. My arms were shaking, my fingers split and raw, packed with mud and blood. The air burned in my lungs like it was punishing me for breathing. My chest ached — not from the digging, but from the way it felt cracked open, emptied out, like something vital had been scooped from inside me and buried along with her.
I stayed there long after the fire died, the heat giving way to cold. The world had gone silent around me. My hands trembled in my lap, black with ash, and my throat was raw from smoke and grief. I waited for something — guilt, relief, maybe peace — but nothing came. There was just the hollow space behind my ribs, the echo of what I’d done replaying in my head.
The night didn’t feel cleansed by it. It didn’t feel like justice. It felt exposed — raw and ugly, stripped down to its bones. Honest in the way only violence can be.
I told myself Billie could rest now. I needed to believe that. But deep down, I knew better. The only one resting was Stacy. And I’d buried what was left of myself right there beside her.
