38. Kip
KIP
The road cut through the woods like a scar, black and winding, hemmed in by silence.
Dog sprawled across the backseat, tongue out, content after pacing the halls of hell. Holland sat next to me, her knees pulled up to her chest, her expression unreadable in the glow of the dash.
I hadn’t said a word since we’d left. I didn't trust my voice not to crack. I didn't trust myself not to scream. Not after what that fucking bitch told me. Not after that.
My phone sat in the cup holder, and it blinked with movement.
Holland shifted. “Is that her?” she asked, nodding to my cell.
I nodded at the screen and watched Mother struggle to breathe, alone.
“Yeah. She’s still reaching for the mask,” I muttered.
“Good.” She glanced away, and I hit the button and put it on sleep mode. That was enough. “What did she say to you before we left? You’re clearly in your head about something. What happened?”
I gripped the wheel tighter. My knuckles burned. “You sure you want to know?”
She looked at me—not scared, not soft. Just ready.
I swallowed over the tightness in my throat. “She said my uncle’s still alive.”
Holland blinked, confusion creasing her brow. “But… I thought—”
“I thought he was dead too.” My fists clenched. “Hell, I fucking buried him myself. Closed the casket. Said the words. Lowered the fucking box.”
Silence pulsed between us. Then I added, “I never told anyone this before, but a few months ago … I dug up his grave.”
Her eyes snapped to me. “What?”
“Yeah.” I smirked. “It was the middle of the night. I was in a bad place. Hallucinating. Dreaming about blood and chains and him whispering in my ear. I kept seeing his face, hearing his voice in my mind, and I couldn’t make it stop. So I went to the grave.”
“What did you find?” Holland asked in a whisper.
I flicked my blinker, took a sharp turn toward the main road, the tires crunching the gravel. “Nothing. The coffin was empty. Only a damn locket sitting inside.” I glanced at her. “Yours.”
She gasped. “Mine?”
I nodded. “The one you had when you were a kid. I didn’t understand it. I figured I’d stolen it when I was drugged. Or maybe Mother or Vinny put it there, fucking with my head as usual. One more twist of the knife.”
“But Kip…” Her hand found mine on the gearshift. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I didn’t trust myself.” I let out a jagged laugh. “I thought I’d imagined it. That I’d hallucinated the whole damn thing. I’d been seeing ghosts for years. Why not one more?”
She didn’t speak. Just looked at me, her fingers tightening on mine.
“But now,” I said, “now I know I didn’t imagine shit.”
Her silence was permission, and I pulled over to the side of the road.
The forest breathed around us. Dog yawned as he sat up, his ears alert.
I reached into the glove box, removed a small velvet pouch, and opened it.
Turning it upside down, I dropped the locket into Holland’s outstretched hand.
She stared at it. Her forehead pinched.
“I lost this,” she said softly. “The night Ally and I were taken. It was ripped off my neck when they grabbed me.”
My jaw clenched and my pulse thundered in my ears.
“I think he was there that night,” I said. “Uncle Vinny. I think he’s the one who dragged you off. And I think he kept that locket as a trophy.”
She clutched it as though it might dissolve. “If he’s alive …”
“He’s not hiding.” My words were low. Cold. “He’s hunting again.”
She didn’t move or even blink. Holland stared at the locket as if it had started whispering secrets in her sister’s voice. Then her fingers closed around it so tight her knuckles went white.
She didn’t put it on. Instead, she stared at the thing like it might bite her; the chain was made of barbed wire and the charm held a scream.
“Are you going to wear it?” I asked.
She shook her head, barely breathing. “No. That girl wore it. The one who never came home.”
She slipped it into her coat pocket, burying it as if it were something sacred and venomous all at once.
I didn’t push. Some things weren’t meant to be worn. Some things only needed to be survived.
“You’re sure about Vinny?” she asked, her tone quiet. Controlled. Too controlled.
I nodded. “Yeah. She wouldn’t have told me unless it served her. She didn’t want to die alone, struggling for air. She even admitted she was going to die on her terms, but we took that choice away from her.”
Holland looked out the windshield as the sun set and the darkness pressed in.
And then—she fucking laughed, but it wasn’t a soft or sweet laugh.
It was the kind of laugh people made right before they lit a match and set shit on fire.
“She said it like a final confession,” Holland whispered. “Like it was holy. Like her last sermon before starving to death in a house she turned into a tomb.”
Her chest rose. Just once. Then, “Good.”
She turned to me, lifted her chin, and squared her shoulders.
“I hope she dies trying to scream,” she said. “I hope she calls for help and no one comes. I hope she feels the same helplessness she sold us into.”
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have to because she was right.
“But Vinny …” The muscle in her jaw tightened. She removed the locket from her pocket and stared at it. “He was worse than her. She convinced herself all her work was for God and good intentions. He didn’t need either. He liked it.”
She glanced at me. And I saw it then—the unraveling. The girl trying to hold herself together with a skeleton made of rage.
“I used to dream about him,” she said. “Not my father, who was also a part of it. Him—the Pied Piper. His breath in my ear. His hand on my shoulder. The way he smelled like peppermint and bleach.”
My fingers flexed against the wheel while Holland kept talking.
“He used to quote scripture. While he watched. While he bid on girls like they were cattle.” Her voice dropped to a hiss. “He told me I was lucky. That my red hair made me worth more.”
She stopped and looked down at the locket again. Then she did something I didn’t expect.
She opened the car door and got out. Rain was misting and she stepped into it like a baptism with her head tilted back and eyes closed.
Dog barked once, but he stayed put.
I got out and came around to her, but I didn’t touch her. Not yet.
She spoke without looking at me. “Do you believe in fate, Kip?”
“I used to,” I said. “Before I learned monsters get to write their own destinies.”
She stared straight at me as storm clouds danced across her features.
“Well, I believe in revenge,” she said. “And if your uncle is alive?”
She reached for my hand. “I’ll help you find him. But I want to help kill him.”
The rain kissed her skin in tiny droplets.
And I watched each one like it was a holy thing, like the sky itself was paying tribute to her. To this moment.
She stood at the side of the gravel road, red hair soaked, fists clenched, trembling—but not from fear. From purpose. From fury. From the weight of everything she hadn’t said until now.
She was fire made flesh. Not fragile but forged. Every breath she took was a refusal to be silenced. And I loved her for it. I ached for it. I wanted to fall to my knees before it.
I stepped closer, slow. Careful. Like I was approaching a wild thing that hadn’t decided whether to run or rip out my throat.
There was power in her, something brutal and sacred, and I didn’t flinch from it. I worshipped it.
Let the world fear her. Let them look away.
I never would.
I was hers, and she didn’t even have to ask.
“Okay. And for the record, I would’ve killed her,” I said softly. “If you hadn’t come with me. I would’ve put a pillow over her face and watched the life drain from her.”
She looked at me, something fragile flickering beneath her gaze.
“But your way was better,” I added. “Quieter. Colder. You gave her exactly what she gave us.”
A slow, bitter smile curved her lips. “No blood. No bruises. Just time and silence—and her own sins. That’s fucking justice.”
I wrapped my arms around Holland and pulled her to me. We stood there, two devils pretending to be human under the weight of too many ghosts.
Then she asked, barely a whisper, “Do you ever wish you could forget it all?”
I didn’t answer right away. I focused on the trees instead. The mist curled between the branches and I thought about the road we still had to walk.
“I used to,” I said. “But if I forgot it, I wouldn’t remember who to kill.”
Her laugh was a broken thing. “You really are fucked up.”
I kissed the top of her head. “So are you, but you’re perfectly mine.”
She looked up at me, and for the first time, I saw it. Not just pain. Not just rage. Understanding. Not the kind you speak. The kind that lives in your bones, under your skin, behind your eyes.
“I’m tired, Kip,” she said. “Of being hunted. Of waking up with ghosts in my chest and bruises I didn’t earn.”
I brushed my knuckles across her damp cheek. “I won’t let anyone touch you again,” I said. “Not him. Not anyone.”
She nodded once. “And I won’t let anyone hurt you either.”
She reached up, brushing a raindrop from my temple. Then she whispered, “If we burn, we burn together.”
I held her tighter, and for the first time since I was a kid, I didn’t feel alone. I felt … seen.
We weren’t healed. We weren’t whole. But we were ours.
And that was enough to start the war.