36. Jael
Grave - Grave - Nessa Barrett
A year later…
T he sea glitters like scattered diamonds beneath the afternoon sun. Water roll onto the shore in slow, gentle waves before retreating again, leaving white foam against the golden sand in their wake. I watch the shoreline in silence, lost in my thoughts as I scoop up handfuls of sand. The tiny grains slip through my fingers seconds later, only for me to repeat the motion and gather more like I’m building an invisible sand castle.
The sun’s out and shining bright and the sea breeze carries a salt in the air. Many would glance around and call this the perfect day.
For miles to come, nothing but crystal blue waters stretch out before me and the other tourists and locals wandering the beach.
For the first time in my life, I feel untethered.
As light as the breeze that’s blowing through so late in the afternoon.
If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be here—sitting in the sand, watching the waves, feeling this free—I wouldn’t have believed them. It feels dreamlike, a kind of heaven made just for me. No more dark, padded rooms or blood-streaked cabins in the woods. No more Midnight Society, no more endless, obsessive search for something just out of reach.
Instead, I’m graced with the rush of the tide and the powdery blue ceiling that’s the sky.
I cup another handful of sand, pressing it between my palms, enjoying how the grains feel both gravelly and silky, when a voice breaks through my thoughts.
“—the Cleaver murders that terrorized the city of Easton last year still remain one of the most infamous crime sprees in modern history. Authorities maintain that the investigation will be kept open until the person behind the murders is apprehended.”
The voice comes from a tourist a few feet away, reclining on a beach towel, phone propped against her thigh, the speaker volume turned up as she hides behind large sunglasses.
A crime podcast.
Her husband groans and shifts beside her. “Can you turn that down? Nobody wants to hear that crime junk on vacation.”
She huffs, but lowers the volume. “It’s interesting.”
“It’s about a serial killer. It’s depressing.”
“We have a very different definition of what’s depressing, Luke.”
Their bickering continues, soon veering into other topics like how Shannon always pays attention to her phone and how Luke can’t seem to stop being a Debbie Downer.
I sit listening nearby, slowly smirking to myself.
A part of me toys with the idea of wandering over to introduce myself like I’ve done so many times before when someone was mentioning the Cleaver case. I would wander over in whatever disguise I was wearing that day and strike up a conversation, fully aware the person was increasingly confused by how familiar I looked.
Kaden Raskova, dubbed the Cleaver, wasn’t the only famous criminal coming out of Easton.
Jael Hendrix was giving him a run for his money, and like him, she was on the loose. She was still at large to this day.
There have been the occasional sightings. Someone in Panama swearing they saw a young woman who looked just like her or a casual tourist in Thailand recognizing her at a street market, but they were all claims that led nowhere.
Part of what made it so entertaining staying on the go.
Today, I hardly look like the Jael Hendrix who had been pictured in the Easton Times —my hair’s an auburn shade that makes my dark brown complexion look radiant and I’m groomed and cleaned up well from the crazy-eyed girl smeared in blood and dirt, wearing torn clothes.
I’m almost an entirely different woman.
Before I can make up my mind about the couple bickering near me, a heavy hand clamps down on my shoulder.
I glance up and meet a face carved in scars, jagged and deep, twisting what was likely once-perfect symmetry into something brutal. Something grotesque to some.
But beautifully unique and special to me.
Bront?.
My little smirk progresses into an equally little giggle that I can’t stop. In the glowing sun, with tanned bodies in bikinis and swim trunks, surrounded by crystal waters, he stands like the hulking brute that he is—his uniform hasn’t changed. Neither have the large black combat boots he wears no matter the location.
“Never one to conform, are you?” I tease, though I take his outstretched hand without hesitation. He pulls me up to my feet with no effort, holding my hand in his as we set off across the sand dunes.
We spend most of our time together. Most of our time in companionable silence .
While Bront?’s ditched the mask, he’s still a naturally quiet person. I’ve learned to appreciate his silence, using it as a chance to settle what’s usually my chaotic mind.
But he communicates in other ways—nothing can beat the piercing stare of his dark green eyes or the firm, squeezing touches he gives me.
For the past year, we’ve lived like ghosts, slipping through cities, traversing across continents, never staying in one place for too long. Paris, Istanbul, Bangkok, Cairo. Moving, always moving, just the way I’ve always wanted. No roots, no chains, no expectations. Just the two of us, untethered, unstoppable.
Our latest stop has brought us to the charming, picturesque shores of Montenegro.
I lean into his side, tilting my head up to him. “Let’s go to Croatia next. Hop on a train and just disappear into the coast.”
Bront? doesn’t react at first, his expression unreadable as ever, but then I catch the faintest twitch at the corner of his lips. He’s amused by me, like always.
“Maybe,” he murmurs.
My heart flutters, pleased by his concession. Maybe is almost always a yes in his language.
We make it from the sands to the promenade, the aged cobblestone warm and bumpy beneath our feet. This area is alive with movement—tourists browsing little shops, vendors calling out their daily specials, the air filled with the scent of citrus and fresh bread. I scan the faces around us, watching the different expressions, a hundred different stories unfolding in real time.
“Are you happy with how things have turned out?” I ask suddenly, my voice soft.
Bront?’s hand tightens around mine, an answer in itself.
I press myself even closer to him, but just as I do, something catches my eye.
A figure, tall and lean, standing at the edge of the crowd. Dark hair unruly from the wind, features cut sharp like a male model, but there’s something cold and aloof about him.
There’s something unmistakably familiar about him.
My stomach clenches as a woman steps up beside him, tilting her face up to his with a small, knowing smile.
I go still at Bront?’s side, the shock so immense that I feel dizzy.
There she is right before my eyes— my sister .
Her thick braids are gone, traded in for a short, coily bob, and she’s a few years older since I last saw a photo of her, but I know my sister.
It’s her.
She curls into the side of the man she’s with like I’ve done with Bront?, and together the two seem content to walk the rest of the promenade.
Kaden Raskova, the Cleaver Serial Killer himself, is suddenly not so cold when he peers down at my sister and runs his thumb affectionately along her cheek.
As if sensing my gaze on them, my sister’s dark eyes find me out of everyone else in the crowd. She looks right at me with a gleam in her eyes and the same calm, content expression I imagine I have on my face.
Her silent stare tells me all I’ve ever hoped for.
She’s not angry with me. She still loves me. She’ll always be my sister.
But things are different now. We’re living two separate lives.
“Bront?,” I whisper as she looks away. I tug at his arm. “Do you… you see her, right? There she is!”
But as I point at the crowd filling up the promenade, she and Kaden have vanished. They’re nowhere to be found among the dozens of people milling about. The space where they were just standing is now occupied by other travelers, purchasing meat skewers from a vendor.
I swallow hard, my pulse still racing, hoping that Bront? will tell me what I saw was real. That’ll he tell me, or signal, that he saw them too.
But he doesn’t. He slips his arm around my hips and keeps me close at his side as if comforting me for what was an illusion.
Maybe I didn’t see them at all. Maybe my sister was never there.
I exhale slowly, letting the tension seep from my limbs.
Maybe… it doesn’t matter if she wasn’t.
Deep down, I know the truth. She’s still out there somewhere, living her own life, carving her own path the way that I am with Bront?. And in her own way, she still loves me.
Just like I will always love her.
But it’s time to move on. Time I let her go for good.
I turn my face up toward Bront? as we continue down the promenade. The sun is starting to set now, streaking the sky with deep amber and dusky pink. The fading light plays off the sharp lines of his face, the many scars that make him who he is. He seems to sense what I’m thinking and drops a kiss on my lips to solidify my thoughts.
It’s just us now.
Me and my shadow disappearing into the twilight.
THE END