Chapter 5
FIVE
KAT
I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw up my guts right here in a bush. Which would be a monumentally stupid thing to do when you’re about to kill a man and would really rather avoid being thrown in prison.
My new mask is sticky against my face where my rapid breath coats the hard plastic in condensation.
It’s late evening, and Bill takes a walk through these woods every night, clearly having the confidence of a man who doesn’t believe there’s anyone to fear. Being a predator will fool you into such beliefs. False beliefs.
While Bill hurt Liam and Sam and others like him, he likely felt like a god. Bigger. Stronger. Unstoppable.
And he was. For so many years. With so many boys. But his luck was about to run out.
If he hurried the hell up.
‘God, my thighs are freezing,’ I whisper.
‘Not long now,’ Liam says.
‘You said that five minutes ago.’ Easing the strain in my calves, I adjust my position.
‘Patience is a virtue.’
‘Not one I possess.’ Liam puts his hand on my arm, his masked face turning toward me as he puts a finger over where his lips would be.
A light drizzle begins to fall, adding a soft din to the woods. I feel like a creature from Bambi, skulking around in the wet bushes as drops fall on my head.
None of them had big ass knives, though.
I do.
And they tremble in my fingers.
A woman passes, and the tension falls from my shoulders.
Liam looks at my shaky hands.
‘I can deal with him alone, baby.’
‘No, you bloody well can’t. You’re not leaving me in the bushes while you do the fun bit.’
‘It’s not going to be fun.’
‘You know what I mean. We’re both in this. So no one can get in between and pit us against each other.’ I fear that more than getting caught. The police worming their way into my ear to make Liam take the blame. Or more likely, my parents’ lawyers doing so with a heavy dose of greased palms.
‘No one’s ever going to come between us, Kat. Whether you kill with me or not.’
A twig snaps to our left, and I hold my breath. My stomach drops as I spot Bill through the leaves.
Bill’s in a waxed jacket and brown walking boots, his hands clasped behind his back. Rain drips from his tweed flat cap, darkening his coat.
He looks so… ordinary. Not that I expected him to have two heads and devil horns or anything, but he looks like a retired geography teacher. Safe. Kind.
Fuck.
They really do hide in sheep’s clothing. Walking among us. Knowing that under the pleasant outside hides a true monster. A man so morally bankrupt that he deserves to die. Far more painfully than we have time for today.
Liam stands first, tipping his masked face. ‘Evening, Bill.’
Bill’s face flashes with fear, but before he can react, Liam grabs him and drags him into the woods. We need to get him far enough from the path that people won’t see or hear anything amiss.
I grab the zip ties and follow them, watching Liam’s muscles cord through his top as he hauls Bill away. He’s cursing and thrashing, but he’s in his sixties, with a pot belly and not particularly fit. Not a match for Liam.
When we’re a good ways from the path, Liam slams Bill against a tree while I zip-tie his arms behind him, then his legs together.
We picked the tree earlier, not too thick but still sturdy enough to trap a man against it.
The tarp is beneath him and pinned halfway up the tree, ready to catch as much evidence as possible.
Bill notices the heavy plastic sheet, and that’s the moment panic truly starts to set in. This isn’t just a robbery. No, he knows it’s going to be his murder.
His eyes flare wide, and he tugs hard at the plastic ties that bind him.
‘Oh, Bill. You’re not going anywhere, darling,’ I say, standing next to Liam, looking down at our trussed pig.
‘Let me go!’ he demands, spittle flicking down over his chin.
‘This is your final stop,’ Liam says, crouching down as Bill flinches.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ Bill says.
Slowly peeling his mask off, Liam glares at Bill. ‘I know who I am. And I know who, and what, you are.’
There’s no recognition in Bill’s face. What’s one boy among many? Bill probably forgets all about them as soon as their voices break. Moving on to the next. And the next. And the next.
My knife digs into my palm as rage streaks through me. Hot flashes that have me seeing fucking red. ‘His name is Liam, and you’re one of the men who tried to ruin his life. When he was much younger, and much more vulnerable.’
Bill eyes Liam’s scarred face, but shakes his head. ‘I don’t remember you. We’ve never met.’
‘Funny that, because I know you have a birthmark on your chest shaped like a horseshoe.’
He turns a sickly sallow colour at Liam’s admission.
‘I used to look at it and wonder why it was so unlucky for me, when it’s supposed to be lucky that way up.’ Liam’s voice is thick, the pain of the past etching itself into his words.
‘It’s not me.’ Bill’s voice is thin, and he looks like he’s seen a ghost.
Liam pulls his knife out and slashes Bill’s chest, splitting his shirt. His squeal echoes around the woods, but there’s no blood. Instead, Liam unleashes a swath of Bill’s skin, where a dark brown horseshoe is visible.
‘I didn’t expect you to come back,’ Bill whispers.
Liam leans close, watching Bill sweat. ‘I doubt you gave me a second thought after you used me. Why would you? As a kid, I was utterly disposable. Not anymore.’
Squirming, Bill tries to free himself more desperately. But there’s no escape. ‘You can’t do this.’
‘How many times did they say that to you?’ I ask, my voice rising as I step to the right of Bill and press my knife to his throat. ‘Did you ever give any of them clemency?’
‘They liked it.’
My hand is shaking, the knife biting into his skin, small drops beading and flowing into the carved ivy details.
‘Do you remember Sam? And Pete? Both dead. Sam because what you did to him drove him to the edge, and Pete because he deserved to die. Just like you do.’ Liam’s voice is harsh. Strained. It hurts me to hear it. Makes me livid.
‘We’re going to kill every single one of you,’ I whisper into Bill’s ear as he starts to scream. Great, blood-curdling ones that thrill me and scare me in equal measure. His terror satisfies me greatly, but attracting attention isn’t what we need.
Applying pressure, I try to bring myself to slash through his skin and flesh.
It’s harder than I imagine. I can feel his pulse beating against my hand.
His life force thrumming desperately as he tries to hold on to life.
This is different from Sam and Liam’s dad.
They were deaths born in the moment, us or them.
We picked Bill. Hunted him. Tore him from his daily life.
Every rehearsed line I imagined saying has fled. My mask is hot and cloying, and I feel sick to the stomach. But I want Bill to die. I want them all to die.
Gripping the blade, I press harder, feeling skin split, but stopping when I hit a hardness I hadn’t expected.
‘I can’t…’ I whisper.
Liam smiles softly at me. ‘You’re doing great, babe, but you don’t have to do it alone. Let me help.’
Bill’s screams have softened to tortured sobs. Great, wracking ones that press against my blade, drops of blood cascading down onto my hands.
Liam’s hand covers mine, warm and steady where mine falters. The same hand that reassures me when I’m worried and brings me pleasure when I need it. The hand I want to hold forever. Covered in blood or otherwise.
It’s quicker than I imagined. A swift, hard swipe. A series of gurgles and a splash of scarlet. Some twitching.
Then… nothing.
Just the dripping of rain and the tweeting of birds.
And my pulse thumping like a honeymoon headboard. Or our headboard, to be fair.
Breathing hard, I step to Liam and thread my fingers through his, waiting for the horror to hit.
It doesn’t. Not how I expected it to.
I’m more sorry for the ruined Barbour jacket than the waste of space bleeding out beneath it. Such a waste.
Liam’s hand tightens on mine. ‘For Sam.’
‘For you,’ I say.
Pulling me to his chest, he kisses me deeply. His tongue washes away any regrets that might have formed, stoking me with heat and light.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
‘I feel a bit sick. Kind of relieved. You?’
‘More hollow than I thought I would.’ Liam traces a bloodied finger over my chin. ‘Like he wasn’t enough.’
‘We’ll get them all. One by one.’ He relaxes when I kiss him again, sliding my tongue against his.
When we eventually part, pink-cheeked and breathing hard, I’m smiling. ‘I guess we better get this mess cleaned up.’
My knife makes easy work of the zip ties, and Bill slumps forward onto the tarp with a wet thud.
‘I do feel a little lighter,’ Liam admits. ‘A little further from the boy they made me. They turned me into what I am. They reap what they sowed.’
‘Brought it upon themselves.’
We work together to wrap Bill up and use fifty billion baby wipes to clean ourselves and anything around us. Ever tried scrubbing bark with a baby wipe? Ridiculous. Snags every three seconds.
Now to get the fucker to the well without being spotted lugging a corpse through the woods.
Fun times.