Epilogue #2
When he finally pulled back, he stared down at me with raw reverence, brushing his thumb over my swollen bottom lip.
“You’re unbelievable,” he murmured. “Just so fucking perfect.”
I smiled weakly as he helped me to my feet, though my legs were still trembling badly enough that I immediately swayed toward him. A soft laugh escaped his lips, and before I could protest, he scooped me into his arms.
Pine needles crunched beneath his boots as he carried me through the trees toward the lake house, his hoodie wrapped tightly around me. Somewhere above us, branches shifted softly in the wind, moonlight slipping through them in fractured streaks.
I was wrapped up in the arms of a man who looked like he belonged in every cautionary tale I’d ever been told growing up, and yet I felt impossibly safe.
When we finally made it back inside, I caught a glimpse of myself in the entryway mirror as Rhys flicked the light on. “Oh my god,” I muttered, rubbing the side of my head. “My hair’s full of pine needles and… god, what even is this?”
“Looks like sap,” he said. “Why don’t you go wash it out while I start dinner?”
I gingerly rubbed my head again. “You don’t mind?”
“‘Course not.” He gave me a playful slap on the ass. “You know I can cook unsupervised.”
I snorted and rose onto my tiptoes to peck his cheek before heading upstairs to the bathroom.
By the time I finally finished showering, and my hair was mercifully free of sap and leaves, the entire lake house smelled incredible. Something rich and savory drifted through the air as I made my way back downstairs, enough to make my stomach growl.
“Okay,” I called out. “Whatever that is, it smells amazing.”
I stepped into the kitchen to find it empty apart from a saucepan simmering softly on the stovetop and a timer glowing on the oven. Forty-two minutes remaining.
“Rhys?” I called out, turning back around. “Where’d you go?”
A faint burst of voices and dramatic music drifted through from the sunken living room, so I followed the sound down the short set of steps and found him stretched across the sofa watching TV.
He glanced over as I walked in. “Too loud?”
I waved a hand dismissively. “No, it’s fine.” My attention shifted toward the news segment playing on the screen, and I dropped down beside him, curling one leg beneath me. “Have we missed anything major while we’ve been up here?”
“Actually, yeah.” Rhys hesitated slightly, forehead creasing. “You just missed a story about Blackpine. Somebody finally bought the land.”
My brows shot up. “Seriously? Who?”
“Some bigshot film producer. David Barber.”
I frowned slightly, trying to place the name. “Is he the guy who makes all those slasher movies?”
Rhys nodded. “Apparently he’s turning the old campground into some kind of horror-themed retreat for adults,” he said. “People will pay to stay there for a week and get ‘immersed in an authentic slasher experience.’ Basically a giant interactive horror movie.”
“So Jesse was right,” I said, nodding slowly. “He said this exact thing would happen.”
“Yeah.” Rhys leaned back against the sofa cushions. “I guess it’s not that surprising. People love places with real history attached to them. Especially fucked-up history.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and found a flood of unread messages waiting in the group chat I shared with Jasmine, Jesse, Wren, and Tamsin. Most of them were variations of: ‘What the fuck’, ‘JESSE CALLED IT!’, or ‘Absolutely not’.
I laughed softly under my breath before setting the phone aside and shifting closer to Rhys’s side.
“I can’t believe people would actually pay to get chased through the woods by guys in masks,” I said, lips curving in a playful smile. “They could just get their boyfriend to do it for free.”
He laughed quietly and reached over to ruffle my still-damp hair. “That’s true.”
A red-and-white ‘brEAKING NEWS’ banner flashed across the screen, and both of us fell quiet as the volume of the broadcast filled the room.
“This just out of Seattle,” the reporter onscreen said, standing on courthouse steps while cameras crowded behind her.
“Ethan Mattner has officially been released after serving just eight months of the life sentence handed down following his conviction last year. The ruling comes after the Washington Court of Appeals determined that a key piece of evidence used during the trial was obtained through an unlawful warrant, forcing the judge to vacate the conviction despite stating there was still ‘substantial evidence of guilt.’ Prosecutors say they intend to retry the case, but Mattner has been released pending further proceedings.”
I sat up straight, eyes widening. “What the fuck? He’s out?”
Rhys straightened too. “He’s that rapist, right?”
“He attacked nine women,” I said, nodding. “I interviewed a few of them when they came to New York for that survivor advocacy summit in January. Voices Unbroken.”
The summit was part of the biggest sexual violence awareness campaign in the country. I’d spent three days interviewing survivors, activists, and legal experts for a long-form feature piece.
“One of the women was left permanently disabled by what he did to her,” I went on, stomach churning.
“Fucking piece of shit,” Rhys muttered.
“Another one of his victims died by suicide,” I said, voice softer now. “After those videos came out.”
“The ones his cellmate recorded?”
I nodded slowly, a cold feeling creeping down my spine as the memories resurfaced.
Ethan Mattner’s cellmate had managed to get hold of a smuggled phone inside the prison, and he’d secretly filmed him laughing about the attacks, mocking the women’s appearances, their trauma, even the way some of them had begged for their lives during the vicious assaults.
The clips had spread online within hours.
“I just can’t believe they let him out,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “They know he did it. He literally admitted it in those videos. And that’s on top of all the evidence they already had against him.”
Rhys’s mouth flattened into a grim line.
“The legal system can be all kinds of fucked up sometimes,” he said.
“And if he’s one of those Mattners, that explains it even more.
That family has obscene amounts of money.
So they’ve probably had an army of lawyers digging for loopholes ever since he got arrested. ”
My shoulders sagged, and I let out a heavy sigh. “God, it’s just so fucking unfair,” I muttered, shaking my head again.
Ethan’s smug face filled the screen then, smiling at all the reporters shouting questions at him while security guided him down the courthouse steps.
My stomach turned.
I glanced over at Rhys and realized he was scrolling through something on his phone. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Just checking the weather in Seattle,” he replied casually. “I’ve heard it’s really nice there this time of year.”
I blinked at him. “The weather?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged lightly. “I was just thinking… maybe a vacation could be nice.”
“We’re literally on vacation right now.”
“I know, but you’ve never been to Seattle before,” he replied.
“And it could actually work out well for you professionally too. You could reach back out to some of Mattner’s victims and do follow-up interviews about how they’re coping now.
What his release means for them. Whether they feel failed by the system. ”
“They must be terrified,” I murmured, rubbing at my temple. “But they’re probably getting flooded with requests already. Every journalist in the country is going to be chasing statements after this.”