Chapter 42
Agatha
I pull on black leggings and the green shirt with Medusa on the front, the one that says the female gaze in crooked letters. After twisting the top half of my hair into a loose knot, I pin it until it looks like I meant it that way. I slip into Crocs and stomp down the stairs.
The boys are hunched at the table like a jury. Papers, a map, empty cups. Garron looks up with that even face. Corwin grins like he owns the world.
I pour a coffee because the ritual steadies me more than anything. I carry the mug to the table and slide into the spot between Corwin and Garron.
“What’s the plan?” I ask.
Garron keeps his voice flat. “We’re going to watch Michael for a few days. Learn his not-at-church routine. When we know enough, we move.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Okay.”
Corwin drops his jaw like I have given him the wrong answer. “That is it? Just okay? We plan on killing your father, and you only say okay?”
I laugh, a hard sound. “He stopped being my dad a long time ago. I left when I was eighteen, and I have not talked to anyone from that town since. I do not miss them. I miss what they might have been, but I made do. I built my family with Kira and Lorna and Chad. Behind the Lens is my life. It is more than a job.”
Corwin leans in like he loves the drama. “So that's why you didn’t want us to touch Kylo.”
“Yes,” I say, blunt. “I do not hurt my friends.”
Garron nods and folds the paper flat. “We understand. You gave us another name, and we’ll hold up our end.”
I drain the last of my coffee and drop the mug in the sink. Corwin snatches up the map again, muttering about routes. Garron double-checks his papers, Evander brushes crumbs off the table, quiet as always, but his eyes flick to me when he thinks I won’t notice.
“Alright,” Garron says, folding the paper. “Time to move.”
Outside, the air feels damp. Gravel crunches under our feet as we cross to the car. Garron takes the wheel without asking. I slide into the backseat between Evander and Corwin, his elbow draped over the seat like he owns everything.
Garron steers, and the little town slides by like a photograph I don’t want to remember.
We park at the little park about half a mile from the house.
Garron kills the engine, and Corwin hands us each a pair of binoculars.
I hold them to my eyes, adjusting them until the porch light and the truck in the drive come into view.
I lean forward, stomach knotting tighter with every second.
We’ve been watching the house for fifteen minutes when an older man in a windbreaker slows on the walking path, eyeing the binoculars.
“What are you up to?” he asks, but his voice is suspicious.
Corwin freezes, but I don’t miss a beat. I tilt my chin, like I’ve done this a thousand times. “Birdwatching.”
“You lot are birdwatching?” He raises a caterpillar-shaped brow.
“Yeah. There’s a red-winged blackbird,” I point off toward the brush. Then, without hesitation, I add, “Conk-la-reeee.”
The man blinks, like he’s not sure whether to be impressed or weirded out.
“Don’t hear many of those this time of year,” he mutters.
I smile. “You just have to know where to look.”
Satisfied, he keeps walking, and the three of us stay silent until his footsteps fade. Corwin lowers the binoculars, huffing under his breath.
“Conk-la-reeee?”
I smirk. “Worked, didn’t it?”
“How the fuck do you know about a red-winged…what was it?” Evander’s forehead scrunches.
“We did a bird unit last year in the spring. Just remembered a few things.”
“Weird,” Corwin mutters.
“Saved your ass,” I snap at him.
He ignores me, focusing back in the direction of the house, and I put the binoculars back to my eyes, doing the same.
The porch light is still on even in the daytime. A truck sits crooked in the drive. The place looks a little smaller than I remember. My belly drops to my asshole. I almost want to tell them to drive away.
Corwin breaks the silence first. “I had a red, shiny dirt bike once. I thought I’d stolen freedom itself when I lifted it from the neighbor’s yard.
” He chuckles low, shaking his head. “Dad made me march it right back, apologize, and even had me polish the damn thing like I was the neighbor’s servant. ”
“You deserved it,” Garron says without looking up from the wheel.
Corwin shrugs. “Still worth it for the ride I got before he caught me.”
Garron finally turns, resting his arm over the seat. “You remember the day Uncle Joe taught me to take apart that old engine? I spread every piece across the garage floor. Thought I’d broken it for good.”
I know what this is.
They’re filling the silence with stories so I don’t sink into the wrong memories. So I don’t think about the porch light across the street or the way my father’s voice used to crack like a whip through the walls. They don’t want my head running backward to all the dark shit that happened there.
“You almost did,” Corwin mutters.
“But I put it back together,” Garron continues, like he’s ignoring the jab. “It started. First try. Dad clapped me on the back so hard I nearly ate the wrench.”
A smile tugs at my mouth before I can stop it. They sound… normal.
Evander’s voice slips into the quiet, soft enough it almost blends with the night outside. “Mom hums whenever she boils water. Always the same song. Doesn't matter if it was for tea or pasta. That tune means something good is coming.”
Corwin snorts. “Yeah, and you still hum it when you’re nervous.”
“I don’t,” Evander says, though his mouth curves.
“You do,” Garron and Corwin answer together, like twins, even though there are three of them.
The sound rattles in my chest, something I don’t expect. I grew up in kitchens that stank of rot and sermons. These men talk about bikes and engines and songs like they belonged to something safe. Homes that smelled like dinner. Hands that taught them how to fix, not just how to strike.
“How did you end up stabby psychos then?” I ask. “Sounds like you had normal, fun, loving parents.”
Corwin shrugs like it is no revelation at all. “Not sure. Maybe we were made wrong. We had normal childhoods. We did not start out this way. We killed the man who beat our sister, and it fit like a key. We kept using the key.”
I swallow. “Oh.”
Garron’s voice is even. “We do not kill just to kill. There is meaning.”
I ask the thing I have been stuffing down for a while. “What about Jay?”
Corwin doesn’t blink. “He was going to touch you.” The sentence lands so flat it is almost a fact. “We couldn’t allow that.”
I feel a cold guilt twist in my gut, but I push it down like always. Jay is dead, and I still don’t know how to process that without feeling awful or like crying.
“I still don’t fully understand what’s so special about me,” I breathe. It feels like I’ve asked myself and them this same thing a thousand times.
Corwin makes a sound like a half growl. “We see you. We saw you then, and we see you now. You do not bend. You are bold, kind, and powerful. We crushed on you when we were kids. You weren’t interested then and now we know and understand why.”
Heat pools in my belly.
“How did you know where I would be for that first shoot?” I ask, because I need all the pieces of our story, and it’s keeping my mind off of where I’m at.
“You posted it,” Evander says. “On socials. A picture of you checking out a new film spot, geotagged. You think you’re careful. You’re not. We saw you and waited. You went into the trees, and Jay followed. Only you came out.”
It should be simple. It makes sense. I should feel grateful and safe. Guilt claws at me because my friend is dead and these are the men who did it, and I have folded up the truth like a secret and put it in my pocket.
“Look,” Garron hisses, and his voice pulls me back to the mission.
Michael and Debra come out onto the porch. Michael first, the way men who think themselves powerful move. Debra behind him like a shadow. Her head bowed. They get into the old truck, and never once does her head lift.
I try to imagine living like that, hands folded, knees bent, mouth small. I couldn’t. The idea of servitude knots my stomach. The thought of walking in that routine day after day is more of an ache than I want to admit.
“You don’t have to be like them,” Evander says softly next to me. “We don’t ask you to bend. We want you to rule with us, not bow to us.”
There is a softness in his voice that makes something in my chest unclench. These boys are violent by trade, but they keep moments like that like a secret.
Garron starts the car, and we fall into a shadowed line behind Michael and Debra. The drive takes us to the place that always made my stomach turn and the hair on my arms stand on end. The church sits white and clean as a lie. The parking lot has a few trucks and a mom wrangling kids.
We park a few buildings away. I can feel my whole body tense. “I cannot go in there,” I whisper.
Corwin volunteers. “I will.”
“No,” I hiss, the word small and fierce. “You will kill someone.”
“That’s the point,” he says.
“Not like this,” Evander says. “I do not want senseless noise. I want a reckoning.”
Garron opens his door. “I’ll go,” he says. He stands and walks toward the church.
I let my hands fall into my lap. The car is quiet. Corwin mutters about false prophets as he slides behind the driver’s wheel. Evander watches the doors like they mesmerize him.
When Garron disappears through the church door, I realize the whole world has narrowed down to what we’ll do from here. I do not know if my heart will forgive me for what we plan to do.