Chapter 25. #2
“I figured… you’d want to bury her, out of all of them.”
Aster’s soft reply makes my visions real.
It drowns the little hope I had. It chokes me with a sadness so intense, it becomes instantly hard to breathe.
But the moment the tarp is removed, all that’s left is rage. I’m almost vibrating with it.
They took Evie’s eyes.
They took everything from inside her. Her heart. Her kidneys.
Her womb.
Her pretty nails, painted blue and green on alternate fingers, were ripped away and are instead caked with dried blood.
They branded the inside of her thighs with letters.
‘Used cunt.’ ‘Whore.’ ‘Cumsleeve.’
That was never done on any of the other victims, and it makes me sick to my stomach.
They thought they’d bested us. So they took their arrogance out on Evelyn—they upped their brutality while drunk on their victory.
Reuben steps between us—a valiant attempt to shield me from the cruelty—but it’s already seared onto the backs of my eyelids. I’m still as I hear the echo of Evelyn’s screams in my ears.
As I re-live the nightmare.
‘Shoot me!’
‘Christian shoot me!’
I should have.
If I hadn’t hesitated, a bullet to the head would have saved her from this.
But it would have doomed everyone else.
Turns out, some of what Xavier said was reason.
If I’d killed Evie and Philip, the darkness on this island would have continued. Year after year. Without anyone knowing.
But abandoning Evie… I can’t bring myself to believe that was the right choice.
I step out from behind Reuben’s back to caress Evelyn’s cheek with my knuckles. Forcing myself not to look away from her ruined skin and damaged corpse. Etching it into my mind so I never forget.
Feel free to curse me, from wherever you are. Curse my entire existence, for stepping into a life where I don’t belong, and saving you that day only to lead you to a crueller death.
“Take me to the Harvester.” Xavier’s eyes never once leave Aster’s face. I’m not even sure he bothered to look at Evelyn and the urge to grab him by the hair and rip off his eyelids to stare at the consequences of his actions, makes me gnash my teeth together.
Reuben’s grip tightens around my wrist, grounding me again, unnoticeably, and I have to force myself to calm down.
That evening, on an island I vow never to step foot on again, I watch the cottage and the warehouses burn to the ground, along with Evie’s body.
I watch victims who’ve been lost for weeks reunite with their families as the Taiga family handles everything, quietly.
The necklace I’d bought Evelyn for Christmas is missing, but the anklet I purchased for her during my recovery, remains tightly fisted in my hands as we say goodbye…
As I watch the fire eat her skin and bones away.
Later that night, when all is said and done…
When we’ve disappeared into locked bedrooms, with unspoken words still between us…
The Don decides to purge the Lesters.
But by then, I’d already slipped away into the night.
The Harvester—Philip Warren—is promised to Xavier.
His head, his life, his existence.
But the Lesters… The Taigas can try to get to them first.
But all they will find are the corpses I’ve deigned to leave behind.
It is the last thing I can do for the girl with golden skin and pretty brown eyes—
Whose berries will never again be found outside my door.
And it is the last thing I will do for me.
Not Christian Adler.
The Lesters are already peeling out of their luxuriously long driveway by the time I arrive at their estate at the edge of the city in the dark of the night.
Aster’s team will be too late to catch them.
Did it make them feel powerful?
Did they get off on the thrill of it? At evading detection for years?
Whatever the case, there’s no other option for them now, but to escape.
But no matter where they wander, their shadow will be mine… and their reckoning is inevitable.
I follow them silently, as birds do, with the cold night wind biting into my feathers. Out of the city, along the highway, and onto a small compound with an airstrip—seven jeeps in an inflexible line pulling to the side of a private airport.
How clever.
The Lester family gets out of the vehicle in the centre of the line and they are immediately flooded by their men on the left and right, some holding luggage, others holding guns and scanning the surroundings for threats.
But I don’t think they’re prepared for what I am.
Their leader—their Don, I’m presuming—is a big man with strands of grey mixed into his short, black hair, wearing a grey suit, now rumpled from haste. He has two sons, both about Reuben’s age and build, and one daughter donned in chic furs.
Savanna Lester. The firstborn daughter, and acting Head of the family.
There you are.
I land amongst the trees on the edge of the property, barely touching the ground before shifting again—
This time into a large black bear.
My roar is staggering as I emerge from the trees along the edge of the airfield. It shatters the silence so suddenly that all of Lester’s men are frozen with shock.
I couldn’t be more than fifty-three yards away when they finally scatter like mice, with only a small group of six pulling the Lester family forward and towards the airstrip, barking orders frantically.
Their bullets can’t pierce my skin—I’ve reinforced it so much they bend on contact—they fall to the ground without leaving a wound. Without leaving a bruise.
I tear through them with claws and teeth. I rise onto my hind legs and delight in their fear, delight in their helplessness.
Their blood coats my fur; it’s metallic and disgusting on my tongue. When they give up and start to run, I don’t give them the chance, I shift again.
This time into a wolf as tall as a man, with black fur.
The form is lighter. Faster. It allows me to chase them. To grab them with my teeth and shake them until their skin tears apart. Until I've severed their limbs.
When I tire of it, I shift into a snake. I fall upon those who have formed clusters. I inject my venom into their neck, jumping from man to man. Wrapping my body around their throat and opening my mouth wide so they see their death clearly in my eyes.
The last monster is one I’m familiar with—a tall tiger with white and black fur.
I sink my fangs into the shoulder of one of Lester’s sons, whose scream is both ghastly and inelegant.
I rip his shoulder from his body, and when he falls, his sister screams.
There’s a glint off her chest under the lights of the plane.
A familiar trinket that makes me pause.
The last son rushes towards me—to do what, I’m not sure—but I can’t pull my gaze away from the familiar trinket around Savanna’s neck.
A necklace that doesn’t belong to her.
Her brother runs into my raised paw, and there’s a muffled scream as I drag my claws across his face.
When he falls, there are only the two of them left.
Two out of fifty men.
Lester shrugs his daughter behind him as he trembles, and I shift for the last time.
Not into Christian. But a smaller frame. A newer face.
One I’ve never seen or used before.
“Where did you get that necklace?” My voice is unfamiliar, but it is a voice I’ve contemplated often—a voice I’ve chosen after 1,435 days of thinking of one.
Savanna’s mouth opens and closes, shaking in fear behind her father, but no sounds come out.
Lester fires his gun, but it only deflects off a hardened body. His lips tighten into a thin line as he begs.
“Please.”
I would be impressed with the strength in his voice if I had the time.
“Not my daughter.”
“Where did you get the necklace?” I ignore him to ask her again and when I step forward, they both step back.
“I gave it to her,” Lester replies steadfastly, but the stutter of his heart gives him away.
“Lie.”
When I swipe my fingers across his neck, sharpened nails tear through his throat and coat my fingers. His blood gurgles across his collar as he falls to his knees, but the daughter doesn’t reach to help him. Her face is pale as she steps back again.
“It’s not yours,” I say evenly as I step across her father’s corpse.
“It—It was given to me—”
“Lie.”
One step forward.
One step back.
She stutters, “I—I thought it was pretty—”
“So you took what did not belong to you.”
With the plane’s wheels at her back she has nowhere left to retreat to.
And when I step into her space, I know the stench of the blood caking my skin makes her nauseous. I know she has wet herself because I can smell it leaking between her legs. Can hear it running between us as she trembles and turns her head away.
“Was the operation yours?”
“Please.”
I’m sure Evelyn said the same thing.
But I have no mercy to offer tonight.
“Was it yours?” I ask again. Slowly.
Her lips tremble.
“No.”
I lean in close to her ear.
“Lie.”
The rage inside me isn’t sated when I’ve gouged out her eyes.
It doesn’t recede when I’ve etched the words ‘whore’ and ‘slut’ into the skin of her thighs with sharpened nails—
Until I’ve exposed her insides to the air and removed them from her body.
Even when she draws her last breath and I’m left alone under the beginning of a rising sun.
It isn’t enough. Because it won’t bring Evelyn back.
I am tired when I destroy all the cameras in the space—all the ones high and low—every hum of a device I can hear across the strip.
I am tired when I shift back into a bird and make my way back to the estate, coated in the blood of the dead.
I am tired for days after that as I return to my life as Christian Adler.
And within a fortnight, I’ve had enough.
Within a fortnight, I’ve decided it’s time to put an end to what has become… a nonsensical charade.