Page 80 of Beautiful Revenge

The Next Morning…

Briar has been fairlysilent since she killed her mother last night. Neither of us have prodded her to talk about it, knowing she just needs time to process everything.

Devon helped her shower and clean the blood from her body last night while I finished digging the hole behind the shed. I already moved their bodies out and dumped them inside it before Briar even woke up.

“You ready?” I ask, holding her against my chest while Devon douses everything in gasoline. We’ll burn their bodies and the shed, then bury it all deep within the earth once it’s burned to ashes, leaving nothing behind.

“More than ready,” she says softly, leaning into me.

Devon tosses the can into the pit and moves over to us, handing Briar the matches.

“Are we ready to torch this motherfucker?” he says, trying to cheer her up, and she giggles.

“Hey, that’s my line,” I grumble, getting Briar to laugh harder.

“Don’t worry, Dyl. You’ll always be my sexy pyro nerd,” she promises, smiling up at me.

I sigh, nodding like giving in is so difficult. “Fine, I guess you can light it up this time.”

Devon snorts as Briar laughs, standing on her toes to kiss me gently on the lips. “Such a sacrifice, bro. How will you ever survive?” he teases.

Briar relaxes in my hold, turning around to stare at everything before us. “They deserved worse,” she whispers.

“They suffered, Brie. They can’t all be extremely gruesome, baby,” I tell her, kissing her head.

“You did good, babe,” my brother says, cupping her face in his hands.

Briar sniffles and nods, gently pulling away from the both of us before striking a match and tossing it into the pit. Flames quickly engulf their bodies, surrounding us with the smell of burning flesh as she strikes another match and tosses it at the shed.

Once everything is burning, we move back several feet to watch the flames dance in the morning air. Everything is quiet for a while as we hold her tight and listen to the crack of the fire before Devon speaks.

“What do you want to do now, princess?” he asks her gently.

She doesn’t take her eyes off the fire, but with every passing second, her body relaxes more and more until she yawns.

“Go back to work,” she says. “Teach the classes and live our lives. I want to do what we’ve always done.” She lays her head back on my shoulder. “We’ll keep searching, anonymously turning assholes in with mountains of evidence, and when we find a really bad one, we’ll kill them.”

Devon nods, turning back to watch the fire.

“Sounds like the perfect plan to me,” he says.

“I love you both more than I can ever put into words,” Briar says, her body shaking with silent sobs.

I squeeze her tighter, bending down to whisper in her ear.

“We love you more than you’ll ever know, Briar.” I kiss her neck softly while Devon moves in front of us.

“You’re our entire goddamn world, princess. And don’t you ever forget it.”

THE END

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