Epilogue #2
He dragged himself back up and staggered down the hall to a bedroom, opening the wardrobe, and lifting a box down from the top shelf.
I snatched it and walked over to the bed, emptying the contents out onto the prissy bedspread, while he tried to argue with me.
“That’s private!”
Huh. What an asshole. All of Ren’s paperwork was here, as well as a bundle of cash, and two burner phones? Who the fuck was this guy, and what did he need all this shit for?
“You a spy, Dennis?”
He blinked at me, wariness filling his pudgy features, as I held up the money and the phones.
“I… always be prepared, right?”
There was something really not right about this prick.
I pocketed the cash and the phones, while he gasped and tried to lunge at me to take them.
I shoved him back, watching him land on his ass this time, and then I grabbed everything that had Ren’s name on it.
There was a stack of baby photos, and pics of Ren as a little kid.
“Are these all of Ren?”
He nodded warily, while I put together the fact that these photos were here, and yet there wasn’t a single fucking one on a wall that I’d seen. I pocketed those too, because Ren should decide what to do with them. They didn’t deserve physical reminders of the child they’d forsaken.
“Those are ours! They’re all we’ll have left!”
“You deserve to lose him completely. Dennis,” I reached into my pocket and dug out one of the phones, “if we check these and find out you were up to something disgusting and appalling, we’ll be back.
We’ll tear the skin from your bones, and make your wife wear it, before we kill her too. You got me?”
“Jesus, save us!”
I rolled my eyes. Yeah, that’d happen. I reached into the pile of stuff again, and lifted up the passport belonging to Dennis, who photographed even worse than he appeared in reality, and that was saying something.
“I’m keeping this too.”
“No! How can I travel? I need that!”
“Dennis, shut up and look at me. See my face? Remember it, because if I come back, you’re dead.
You try to find Ren or us, and you die. You both do.
You call the police about us, and you die.
You turn out to be a fucking perv, and I come back and kill you.
You’ll beg your god to save you, but he’ll ignore you, because you’re not worth his time. Oh.”
I hesitated, a grin stretching across my face.
“If you don’t want the full force of our entire organisation after you, you’ll obey me. There are hundreds of us. Thousands, even. We’ll wipe out every fucking pocket of anti-gay religious psychos we find, and we’ll start with you.”
He panicked, scooting across the carpet on his ass as I approached him.
“Stay here until we’re gone. Say nothing to your wife. We were never here. You never met us. One step wrong though, and we’ll find you, wherever you hide.”
I walked away. The guy was probably pissing his pants right about now, and you know what? That was fun. I was starting to understand what it meant to be a member of the Cross family. Life without restriction. Without rules or laws. Without fear. That’s what it boiled down to. Life without fear.
“Let’s go,” I said as I joined my family downstairs. Both were staring at me with interest, and I shrugged as I led us to the door.
“It’s done.”
“You killed him? Babe, I-”
“No, dammit. I have Ren’s paperwork, and uh… a little insurance to keep Dennis quiet.”
We stepped outside, and I watched Ren take one last look at the inside of the house before he nodded to himself and stepped out with us.
I took his backpack and popped it in the boot of the car as he climbed in, still cradling the gold watch, his only real keepsake, and then we were off, away from those fuckers, and heading back for normality, or our version of it.
Ren took his brand new laptop and gaming suite up to his room, and Ash and I video-called his parents to update them.
“So they’re still alive?” Gray said, scratching his jaw with confusion. “Did we teach you boys nothing?”
“Gray! There was no need to kill them! Right?” We both nodded at Dory, and I held up what I’d taken.
“These are Ren’s papers, so he has his identity, and whether he wants it or not is his choice, but it didn’t belong with them. This here is a wad of cash old Dennis had lying around, oh, and his passport. Fucker isn’t going anywhere without that.”
All three of Ash’s parents stared at me with surprise.
“What? I figured I’d put the fear of god into him, ha, pun intended, and fuck with him a bit. We can do what we like with this.”
“We could sell it on the internet. Some identity thief might want it?”
I grinned at Ash, and then I remembered the phones.
I dug them out and set them on the table, staring grimly at them.
I was afraid of what was on them. Were they used for worse things than they’d done to Ren?
He’d insisted they were just neglectful, but were they the key to something disturbing that we’d rather not know?
“Those belonged to fuckface?” I nodded at Gray, while Ash poked one of the phones with his fingertip, a grimace on his face.
“Is he some kind of kiddyfiddler?”
I shrugged. “No idea. I’m kind of scared of finding out what’s on these, but he really didn’t want me taking them.”
Ash’s dads exchanged a look that seemed to encapsulate an entire conversation in a split second. Freaky or not, their connection was beautiful to watch.