Prologue
Damascus, Utah
Days Before
Somewhere Dark…
Oh, there was nothing he liked more than enjoying the job that he’d set out to do, and this was just that. It was born in fire years before and festering like a wound that wouldn’t heal. Only, now, it was in the process of being fixed.
FINALLY.
Because like his therapist had told him years ago, things took time to forgive.
Some took YEARS.
Eventually though, that hole would heal, and good things would come from it.
Well, that was a crock of shit. Nothing good came from this, and nothing good ever would.
Yes, Forgiveness was important, and what was more important for him was being able to look at oneself in the mirror and not hate what you saw looking back.
That he even had that was a miracle of miracles, to be honest.
For the longest time, he hated what he saw staring back at him.
That reflection…
It was ugly.
It was hideous.
It was broken.
It was all he ever remembered.
Every day was a battle for him to stay in control, but now, as he’d grown up, and he’d gotten the help that he so desperately deserved, he’d learned a few things about life—his in particular.
Forgiveness mattered.
Sin was always going to be there.
And if you needed justice, you had to find it yourself.
The first two were the most difficult to accept, especially when you lived the life he’d lived.
It wasn’t easy to overcome shame, or to look past that reflection of sin, and see the good that had yet to come. It wasn’t easy to stay in control and not listen to the voices in your head.
Thus, the therapist.
Now, with finding your own justice…
Well, his therapist wouldn’t be happy about that—not at all. In fact, he’d shit his pristinely ironed pants if he only knew what his sessions had led to.
Because they led to this.
In fact, they didn’t heal that hole, but instead, they made him a monster.
This revenge-fueled beast who had no choice but to find justice himself since the world had done him dirty.
That had become the one and only mission in his miserable life.
But it didn’t start that way.
No.
Not even close.
What it started with was a scared boy who was thrusted into the spotlight when that particular day happened.
It then spiraled into a nightmare where he couldn’t turn around without being reminded of who he was.
What he was.
For he was trapped in that cycle of sin and destined to never escape it.
It had been horrible, and he never wanted to go back to that place again. Yet, here he was, returning to the scene of the crime and getting the revenge that he so desperately craved.
And deserved.
Innocence died that day, and what came from it fractured him into pieces.
The cameras.
The media.
The onslaught.
It had been the perfect storm, and he was what was created in it. Instead of a bastion of calm, it created a tsunami of rage.
Rage he couldn’t contain.
And that brought him to the here and now.
When he heard them screaming, begging for their lives, it healed a little bit of him that was still wounded.
Watching them succumb to the pain in the worst possible way helped heal a part of him that haunted his head as he got the news of that terrible death.
Seeing them finally get what they had coming to them healed a part of him that saw his mother weep tears of blood on her knees when she’d been told the horrible truth.
Yeah, it was healing that hole in him.
And it made him stronger.
Meaner.
Angrier.
Where therapy didn’t work, except to split his soul into pieces, this certainly was making him feel a whole hell of a lot better.
Finally, he was finding himself again, and that was how he was going to survive.
When the five of them were dead, he could silence that particular demon.
Once.
And.
For.
All.
The first two…they’d been messy, and by this third woman, he’d perfected it. One wouldn’t think it would be easy to peel the flesh from a body, but that was anything but the truth.
Still, during the process, he adapted because he was smart, capable, and angry.
Once he learned the process, he’d been cool, calm, and collected.
These acts of revenge had set a piece of him free, and he couldn’t wait to finish it all.
Imagine finally being free from the burden of their lies. Imagine being free to not have that hang over him like a storm cloud.
That had to be an amazing feeling.
As for them…
There were five in total who had to pay for what they’d done to him and his mother. Five who would end up in this same position before he could call it a day.
It hadn’t been easy to find them, but he had, and not only that, but he’d watched them, learned about them, and followed them around to make sure he knew their processes.
And he did.
Oh, did he ever!
Once he’d found them, integrated into their daily habits, he was able to get a plan in order.
And he did.
Oh, he made sure to plan this all out to perfection, so nothing failed on his end. That couldn’t happen because he had to make this right.
So, he was careful.
That was the bottom line for him. He needed to ensure that nothing failed because this was the ONLY chance he’d have to find peace.
While they went on with their lives, he didn’t.
Not.
Even.
Close.
Instead, he had been frozen on that horrible timeline, forced to relive the pain every day as they went on to grow up and be the people fate had wanted them to be.
Heroes.
They were supposed heroes for coming forward, and he was the spawn of the Devil himself just because he’d been born.
That wasn’t fair.
His life had been ruined, spectacularly.
Well, now, he was living up to that name, and he would make sure they paid for everything that they brought onto him and his mother.
One could have turned away, and said nothing, but instead, this festered and created an even bigger monster.
Back then, they had wanted it.
Oh, and they were getting it.
Tenfold.
For now, he was enacting what time and anger had created in that vacuum of pain.
HATE.
Oh, to say that he hated each and every single one of them would be an understatement.
Hate wasn’t strong enough.
Not.
Even.
Close.
Instead, he would say that he loathed them.
In fact, he wanted them to die in such a way that they would be remembered forever.
To pay them back.
In the Bible, it says an eye for an eye, and he was a firm believer in that. He would give them back exactly what had happened thanks to their actions.
They.
Were.
Whores.
Worse, they were martyrs, as he called them.
Oh, and he let them have that one single title until he stripped it from them like their skin.
Let it carry them into the afterlife if that’s what they craved so damn much. They could wear that badge of honor in Hell for what they did.
They ruined him.
Now, he did nothing less than return the favor by ruining them.
Beautifully.
Spectacularly.
Deservingly.
Never let it be said that he wasn’t working on a masterpiece that would be on everyone’s lips.
It would be remembered forever.
Because he NEVER forgot.
Not.
One.
Day.
Focusing on his work, he made sure he took out the trash.
As she screamed, he heated the sharp knife, so it cut through her flesh like it would through butter.
Nice.
And.
Smooth.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, her whole being wracked with pain and the fear he’d instilled in her.
He’d sliced through her one ear, removing it, and the pain was like nothing she’d ever felt before.
He just laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed.
“Why shouldn’t I do it? Do you know how you ruined my life?” he asked. “Do you know how your actions caused so much pain to my mother and myself? Do you know how she died after all of this, broken and ashamed?”
No, she didn’t know.
Honestly, she was struggling to understand what this was all about. She’d been standing by the street waiting for her ride home, and then she woke up in a cage in some dark, musty place. This wasn’t a place she recognized, or him, for that matter.
She’d heard the screams of the other women who had been in the cages nearby when he took them into this space, and she’d tried to escape.
Now, she was trying to understand all of this.
“What did I do to you?”
He turned, keeping the blade in the fire so it reheated nicely.
“You don’t know who I am?” he asked. “Really? Did you give no thought to the mess you’d make when you did what you did to my family?”
All she was thinking about was fighting for her life.
Phylis just wanted to go home to her husband and be safe. She just wanted to escape this lunatic.
“No. What did I do? I think you have me mistaken for someone else. I don’t bother anyone. I go to work at the store, and I come home. I’ve never seen you or your family before!”
He smiled sickly.
Oh, she would know who he was.
When he said his name, that was all it took. When he stared into her eyes and saw the memories of what she’d done, the whore on the table knew.
It took her back.
The look in her eyes…
Oh, she knew exactly what she did, and she began piecing it together.
Memory.
By.
Memory.
The whole time she took that walk down memory lane, he simply stared at her.
That’s when she said the words, but they didn’t matter to him anymore. It was too little too late.
He was destroyed.
“I’m sorry.”
Yeah, that didn’t make him feel better in the least that she’d put the pieces together and realized who he was.
No.
In fact, it enraged him.
It enraged him so much that he screamed like a wounded animal. The sound reverberated around the makeshift torture chamber, making her cry in fear.
In that moment, she knew.
She.
Was.
Dead.
“You ruined everything!” he raged. “You ruined my whole life, and now, I’m going to ruin yours!”
As he dropped the knife, he moved around, pacing and racing around the room in anger.
He punched and kicked the walls, leaving holes in the dirty wallpaper that was peeling from them.
This had been his home once.
Now, it was his cage.
His prison.
“You destroyed me!” he wailed, grabbing the knife, and then her head by her hair. “Now, you will pay like the others paid for their sins!”
And with one smooth, now-practiced move, he lopped off her ear, and it fell to the floor at his feet.
The smell of burning flesh as the cauterization happened wafted up and assaulted his senses. As she screamed and screamed, no one hearing her, he found joy.
And in that moment, he found peace.
But she didn’t.
She continued screaming until he took that knife and drove it into her chest, piercing her heart. Like his heart had been decimated, hers now had been too.
And he did it again.
And again.
And again.
He kept stabbing her, out of control, and so filled with rage over her pathetic apology to him. How dare she give him ‘I’m sorry’ when she’d stolen EVERYTHING.
He wailed as he pierced her flesh, and when he was done, he stared down at her dead, destroyed body.
Oh, and she deserved it.
“Don’t you dare apologize for what you did, you filthy whore!” he stated. “You can never take back what happened, and how you’ve ruined my life!”
For him, that was the truth.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispered, over and over again. “We’ll be okay,” he added.
As he backed up, bumping into the wall, he fought to regain control.
It was getting harder and harder to pull that off. That rage had them by the balls.
It was then he slid to the floor and began sobbing.
Uncontrollably.
As he stared at his bloody hands, the tears flooded from him, dripping down his blood-splattered face. It made sick rivulets down his flesh.
In that moment, reality returned.
Clarity came back.
It was only always short-lived.
Unfortunately.
“What have I done?” he whispered, looking over at the dead woman on the table, and the two sitting against the wall, their bodies void of skin, and their remains watching him from that corner.
There was no answer.
Not at first.
But then, he heard the voice come back to watch over him, and it reassured him.
“You’ve done what you needed to do. Now, you finish what was started all of those years ago. Then, we can both have peace. We can both have silence.”
And he had no choice.
Because it had already begun.
Their lives were going to be over.