Chapter 77
Brooke
It’s been two weeks.
Two weeks of hell dressed up as silence. Two weeks since we ended Grant, since the ground swallowed him whole, and the world kept moving. It doesn’t bring back the people he took from us. It didn’t undo the damage. It left a space where rage used to sit, and that space hurts worse.
The air smells like flowers and damp earth.
Everyone here is dressed for mourning, but not the way I’m used to. No black. Seth and I are both in white. It feels wrong and right at the same time. As if saying this isn’t about darkness today, even if darkness brought us here.
My eyes burn. I stopped trying to wipe the tears away ten minutes ago.
They just keep coming, sliding down my face without permission.
I lean into Seth’s side, pressing my shoulder against his arm, grounding myself in the familiar weight of him.
His hand tightens around mine. I feel it before I see it, the slight hitch in his breath, the warmth of a tear landing on my knuckle.
The service blurs. Words float past me, kind ones, hollow ones, sentences about loss and love and remembrance. I hear them, but they don’t stick. All I can think about is how unfair it is that grief keeps finding new ways to hurt. How even when you think you’ve bled out enough, there’s always more.
Seth’s thumb rubs slow circles against my palm. He’s here and I’m here. That feels like the only solid truth left.
People cry quietly. Some bow their heads. Some stare straight ahead like they’re afraid that if they look down, they’ll fall apart completely. I recognize that feeling. I live in it.
The tears finally slow, not because I feel better, but because my body has nothing left to give. My chest aches with every breath. I swallow hard and lift my gaze to the name etched into the stone near the casket.
Samantha Roberts.
This isn’t a funeral for the life we lost on the run. This isn’t for the chaos or the blood or the war we’ve been fighting.
This is for her.
For the woman who loved Seth even when she thought she’d lost him forever. For the mother who carried guilt for years and still chose love. For the voice on the screen that told him the truth too late. For the baby in the pumpkin hat who never stopped being hers.
We’re watching the funeral from the car, parked far enough away that no one notices us.
Seth sits beside me in silence, jaw clenched, eyes locked on the crowd.
Elise is in the backseat next to Ryan, both of them quiet, both of them staring out the window like they don’t know how to be here either.
Krueger’s head is in Ryan’s lap. Luna’s curled against Elise’s arm.
It’s Samantha’s friends and coworkers who organized the service. Her old nursing colleagues, a neighbor, the friend who briefly took in the kids when the cops showed up. They’re the ones who gave her this moment. A proper goodbye.
The drive back to the house feels off. Seth keeps his eyes on the road. One hand on the wheel, the other resting against his thigh, knuckles pale from how tight he’s holding himself together. His silence says more than anything he could say out loud.
I glance back.
Elise leans her forehead against the window, face turned away, her jaw clenched like she’s trying not to cry again. Ryan sits next to her, staring at nothing. It looks like no one’s blinked in twenty minutes.
I lean back against the seat and let the road pass.
My mind drifts to Travis. He’s finally stable. He woke up two days ago, still in pain, still hooked up to enough machines to terrify me, but he’s alive.
He’s not out of the woods. His body’s healing, but his soul’s been through the wringer with the rest of us. He can talk and sit up for short stretches. He cracked a joke yesterday about how he’s two and 0 for stabbings. I told him it wasn’t funny. He said it kind of was.
Travis isn’t just my friend. He’s my brother in every way that matters.
The only family I had when I had nothing.
The one person who never gave up on me, even when I didn’t know who I was anymore.
Even when I didn’t want to be found. He’s the one person who made me believe there are still good people in this fucked up world.
And I’m not ready to lose him. Not now, not ever.
When we pull into the driveway, the kids are quiet. No one moves until Seth kills the engine.
Elise gets out first. Her cheeks are still streaked with dried tears, but she doesn’t wipe them away. Ryan follows, slower. He didn’t speak, didn’t look up. They pass us without saying a word.
Then Elise stops and turns.
Her mouth opens like she wants to say something, but no words come out. Instead, she walks straight up to Seth, and then throws her arms around him.
Sobs break loose like they’ve been waiting in her throat for hours. She buries her face in his chest and cries like it’s the only thing left she knows how to do.
Seth freezes. His eyes flick to me like he’s asking for instructions. I’m sure he’s never had to deal with a grieving teenage girl. I understood her pain more than she knows.
I nod.
He wraps his arms around her, slow and careful. He holds his little sister like she might shatter if he squeezes too tight.
From where I stand, I see it shift in him. His face tightens, his jaw locking as he looks down at her, and then the control cracks just enough. Tears slide down his face. He doesn’t wipe them away.
He just holds her tighter.
Ryan steps closer and wraps his arms around both of them. His head drops against Seth’s side. He doesn’t say anything, but I see the tears.
Three of them, tangled in a grief they didn’t choose, mourning the same woman from different lifetimes.
They didn’t grow up together, but they have each other now. None of them say it out loud. But they all lost their mother. They all gained a sibling. Maybe something like peace is possible.
Inside the house, Beau’s waiting with a laptop and a half-finished beer.
He looks up. “We need to talk.”
Seth and I drop onto the couch, the weight of the last few weeks hanging off our shoulders like soaked clothes.
“It’s never gonna be safe for you two unless we fake your deaths,” Beau says. “Right now, the government presumes you’re both dead. That’s good. Let’s make it official.”
Seth doesn’t speak. He just nods once.
“I got people,” Beau continues. “Family ties. They’ve got access to morgues. All we need are bodies close enough to pass for you, add some DNA, burn it in a car or a house. Fire’s the most efficient way to erase identity.”
Seth nods slowly. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
“But first,” I say. “I need to see Mary.”
Seth looks up, tense. “You think she knows where John is?”
“I don’t know. But if she does… I need to end this. I need to end him.”
Seth nods once. “I’ll gas up the car.”
We leave the kids and the pets with Beau, and make the trip to Fresno. It takes most of the day. When we reach the house, I know something’s wrong before we even stop the car.
The mailbox is overflowing. The grass is overgrown. Flies buzz against the inside of the windows like something’s rotting. Seth sees it too. I can feel it in the way his body tenses beside me. He gets out first and walks up to the front door and I follow.
The smell hits before we’re even inside. I pull my jacket up over my nose and mouth, breathing through the fabric, but it doesn’t help much.
Seth kicks the door open.
And there she is.
Aunt Mary, decomposing on the living room floor. Skin bloated and blackened, maggots burrowing into her neck. I can’t tell what the cause of death was. Pills? A razor? Her face is too far gone to read.
I step forward.
Seth grabs my wrist. “You don’t need to see that.”
“I do.”
He lets me go.
She’s my last blood relative. My mother’s sister. The only person who knew what really happened to me as a child and did nothing.
Part of me wants to believe she deserved it. That this was karma. That she died regretting everything. But another part of me wonders if she was just weak. Another woman eaten alive by men like John, Richard and Grant.
I turn away. My eyes burn from more than just the smell.
There’s a sheet of paper next to her body. Curled and stained at the edges. I crouch and pick it up carefully.
It’s a letter addressed to me, in Mary’s handwriting.
I read it silently.
Brooke,
I was supposed to protect you.
You were the only blood I had left, and I let The Collective get you. Just like I let them get my sister.
I told myself I saved you. I thought I did. But I didn’t.
I know they’re going to hurt you. And if you do come out of this alive, your rage will kill me. And I deserve it.
So I’ll do what I was supposed to do. Even if I burn in hell for eternity.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t strong enough to save you.
– Mary
I stare at it, not sure how I feel. It was a combination of sadness, guilt, fury and pity. She was the last biological relative I had. Now there’s only me.
Then the house phone rings. I walk over and answer it with a shaky hand.
“Hello?”
“I knew you’d come.”
My mouth goes dry. “You can see me?”
“Always.”
“Did you kill Mary?”
“Does it matter?” John says softly. “She died the moment she realized she failed you.”
My grip tightens on the receiver.
“I think I loved your aunt,” he adds. “She lasted longer than any other woman I’ve been with.”
Something in my chest twists.
“You sick son of a bitch,” I snap. “I’m going to find you. I don’t know where you are yet, but I will. And when I do, I’ll kill you.”
A quiet, amused chuckle slips from him.
“Stay sharp. It’s the only way you’ll survive.” He pauses. “Goodbye Brooke.”
My chest tightens.
The line goes quiet.
Seth walks over and takes the phone from my hand. “You okay?”
“Yeah, let's go.”
We didn't stay long after that. There’s nothing left here. Seth burned the letter after I read it twice, the words still fresh in my head as the paper curled in on itself and turned to ash. We scrub the place of fingerprints. Mary’s body gets reported anonymously.
By the time we’re on the road again, the sun’s setting behind us.
This isn’t closure. This isn’t peace.
It’s a pause.