Chapter 15 I Remember Everything
A few days later I stood in my bedroom late at night and rolled my neck slowly, working out the tension that had been sitting there since morning.
I crossed to the full-length mirror and ran through striking combinations, checking form and posture until each movement felt automatic.
By the time I finished, a thin sweat covered my skin and my mind had settled into the clean focus I needed.
I topped up the small bleach bottle from the one under the sink. The simplest way to destroy DNA. Then I sat on the floor, emptied my mini medical kit, and ran through the checklist methodically: tourniquet, occlusive dressing, superglue, hemostatic gauze. I hoped I wouldn’t need any of it.
My fingers brushed the corner of my mouth as I walked back to the mirror. The scars were faint now, softened by years of careful treatment, but I still saw the girl who couldn’t stop what happened to her. A permanent reminder of what started all of this.
Keeping my eyes on my reflection, I braided my hair tightly against my head before pulling on a beanie and changing into fresh black leggings and a fitted long-sleeve shirt.
Black hid blood well. My boots and gloves were already stashed in the woods. I laced up spare black sneakers for the walk, gathered the bleach and medical kit, and slipped out of the house.
The forest swallowed me the moment I crossed the treeline.
My shifter eyes adjusted, turning darkness into clear shades of gray.
The hollow tree was easy to find. I had been back more than once in the last few weeks, checking the gear, replacing what needed replacing, making sure everything still worked the way I needed it to.
I added the bleach and medical kit, then checked the rest of the contents by feel in the dark.
Everything was still in place, including the one item I had prepared specifically for Richard.
I changed into my boots, tucked the sneakers away, adjusted the pack on my shoulders, and set out for a measured jog. No reason to arrive winded.
An hour later I crouched in the shadow of a retaining wall near Richard’s house. Weeks of watching had shown he lived alone. Some nights the house stayed dark and quiet. Others were loud enough that the neighbors never bothered looking outside anymore.
I drew a slow breath, held it, released it. My heart hammered, but my thoughts stayed clear. Only an idiot wouldn't be afraid walking into something like this.
Richard had a keyless lock, a gift. I had placed a pinhole camera weeks earlier to capture his code. Four digits, punched in the same order every time, because people were creatures of habit even when they should know better.
5-6-8-9. The lock beeped softly. I pushed the door open slowly, testing for resistance and listening for any movement inside. Nothing.
I stepped inside and closed it behind me.
The entry hall was dim, lit only by the glow from the narrow pane of glass beside the front door and a warm strip of light under the kitchen door at the far end. I had been inside once before, mapping the layout and placing the cameras while he was at work.
The creaking floorboards, the staircase to the right, his bedroom at the top. All of it was committed to memory.
Today's feed had shown him on the couch at nine with a beer. He'd been in bed for twenty minutes by the time I stepped inside.
I moved silently toward the stairs, passing the alcove beneath them, when he came out of nowhere. One moment I was moving, the next I was slammed against the wall, a massive body pinning me. His hands locked around my throat and squeezed.
His face hovered inches from mine, whiskey breath hot and sour.
“Who the fuck do you think you are,” he growled, “coming into my house?”
The pressure on my carotids was already cutting off blood flow to my brain.
I cupped my hands and slammed them into his ears as hard as I could.
Both eardrums gave beneath the blow. He roared, raw and animal.
His grip loosened for the briefest instant, and I drove my elbow up into his jaw.
He staggered back a step as I stumbled away, coughing hard and fighting for air.
He recovered faster than I did. I brought my arms up for his next swing, but I was too slow.
His fist caught the side of my head. The world lurched and I crashed hip-first into a side table and tumbled onto the sofa.
He was on me before I could get up.
I grabbed a heavy glass ashtray and hurled it at his face.
He blocked it with his forearm, giving me just enough time to roll off the sofa and scramble to my feet, but he was already on me.
His boot crashed into my ribs. Pain exploded through my side and drove the air from my lungs, but I forced myself to keep moving.
He came again. I slipped the first punch but the second clipped my jaw, stars bursting behind my eyes.
Still, I drove a fist into his nose, felt the cartilage give, then followed with a kick to his gut that folded him slightly.
I backed up, trying to create space and catch what little breath I could.
He straightened, blood already running from his nose. He touched it, saw the red on his fingers, and laughed, low and ugly.
“Lucky shots,” he said. “Won’t happen again.”
His eyes flashed gold.
I smiled. “I can see your wolf. He wants to take over. You’re just too fucking slow.”
Richard had always been slow to shift. He knew the half-shift would get him killed.
He roared and charged. I tried to circle, but the rage made him faster than I expected. We traded blows. I landed a solid cross to his body and he answered with a heavy hook that caught my shoulder and spun me. Another punch grazed my temple.
I was hurting now. Breathing hard. But so was he.
I waited for the next swing, stepped inside it, and hit him in sequence: cross to the body, hook to the temple, elbow to the jaw.
His head snapped back. I planted my boot in his chest and drove him flat onto his back, then was on him before he could recover, driving another punch with the titanium gloves into his already ruined nose.
“You fucking whore,” he spat, blood bubbling on his lips. “I’m gonna break your fucking back.”
He tried to push up. I drove my fist into his kidney and he dropped back with a grunt.
“No. You’re not.” I looked down at him. “But I appreciate the confidence.”
He snarled, his wolf trying to surface again. I shut it down with two hard shots to the temple. He went slack, eyes unfocused, body heavy—exactly where I needed him.
I got up, grabbed my pack, and pulled out the one thing I’d brought for him: a compact cordless nail gun I’d tested in the woods for this exact night.
He was still disoriented when I crouched back beside him.
I grabbed his left hand, slammed it hard against the floor, and fired twice.
The sharp thunk-thunk of nails driving into hardwood cut through his scream.
His right hand swung wildly. I leaned back and cracked him across the face with the gun, then pinned that hand down too.
Six more nails, fast and methodical, spreading across both palms until he was locked to the floor.
He twisted violently onto his side, pinned in place, screaming.
I sat back on my heels and studied him.
“You remember me yet?” I asked.
“Who the fuck are you?” he gasped, tears and snot cutting through the blood on his face. “I don’t know you. I swear to God I don’t—”
I pulled the hunting knife from my bag and turned it slowly in the low light.
“You know,” I said. “The mind is a cruel thing. It keeps the wrong memories sharp. What you did to me. What you did to my sister. Every word. Every sound. I still carry it all perfectly.”
I let the silence stretch.
“But my mother’s laugh… my sister’s smile. Those are fading. The good things blur. The worst stay sharp forever.”
I met his eyes. “I thought you should know what you took from me.”
He stared at me, caught between pain and confusion. I watched him struggle with the math, a man attempting to match a face to a memory he had never bothered to keep, because why would he? I had been nobody to him. Just a girl on the floor.
"Who are you," he said again, quieter this time. Not the demand of before. Something closer to dread.
“Don’t worry, Richard.” I said his name the way he once said mine, with that same casual ownership. “I want you to enjoy this. It’ll feel good.” His own words, given back to him.
I drove the knife into his thigh, hilt deep.
The scream that followed stretched long. He finally understood this would not end quickly.
When he found breath again he really looked at me. The color drained from his face.
"No. It can't be. You're dead. You're supposed to be dead."
"You're not the first to say that," I said. "You won't be the last."
His eyes widened. "Colton. Jesus. It was you. You killed Colton."
"I did."
“Help!” he screamed, voice cracking. “Somebody help me!”
“Go ahead,” I said calmly. “Scream. Your neighbors are used to it. They’ve heard enough over the years not to get involved.”
“You’re going to kill me too,” he rasped.
“That’s the idea.”
He tried one last time. "I can make it right. Money. I'll leave. You'll never see me again—"
"There's nothing you can make right."
"It was a long time ago," he started, then faltered. "I mean, I barely even remember—"
"Then let me help you." I crouched lower. "Her name was Harmony."
His mouth opened, then closed again without a sound.
"Say it."
A wet noise scraped out of his throat. Nothing else came.
"Say her name, Richard."
"Harmony." It was barely audible.
"Again."
"Harmony." Louder this time, cracked right down the middle.
"Good."
I let the name hang between us for a moment.
Then I drove the knife into his other thigh, and after that his shoulder, working slowly and methodically so he felt every second of it. I let the minutes stretch until the screaming thinned into broken sobs. Only then did I lean in close.
“Remember what you told me that night?” I murmured. “While you had me pinned down?”
His eyes widened. Whatever hope he'd been clinging to died.
I smiled. “Turns out you were right. Those tears won’t save you.”
The final cut across his throat was clean. Arterial spray hit bright in the dim light. I stepped back and watched until the light left his eyes.
I waited another minute, watching for any twitch, any final reflex. There was nothing.
"See you in hell," I muttered before turning away.
My ribs ached from where Richard had slammed me. My jaw throbbed. I catalogued the damage without sentiment. Nothing that would stop me.
Then I looked at the room.
"What a fucking mess," I sighed.
I worked methodically. Bleach first, across the body, the floor, and every surface I'd touched or bled on.
When the bottle ran low, I raided his cleaning cupboard and kept going.
The cameras came out next. Each one disappeared into a sealed bag at the bottom of my pack.
They'd be cleaned, fitted with new SIM cards, and used again.
When I was satisfied I shouldered my pack and took one last look.
Richard looked smaller in death, the way they all did.
In a day or two someone would find him. In a week the investigation would be grinding forward, another ugly murder in a town that didn’t see many.
Two throat cuts, three weeks apart, both Thomas Black’s men.
Sooner or later the pattern would click.
On my way out I stopped at the thermostat and cranked it all the way up. Heat would speed decomposition and blur anything I might have missed. Small details. They were what kept people free.
I pulled the door shut behind me and stepped into the night.
The forest swallowed me. I ran until the house was miles behind me, ribs protesting with every stride.
At the burn spot I stripped and pulled the battery from the nail gun.
I lit the clothes, added dry sticks, and dropped the tool into the fire with everything else.
The metal wouldn’t burn, but the heat would destroy prints and DNA.
I waited until the worst of the flames died down. Then I shifted. My cougar form hit the ground on silent paws. I dug a deep hole a few meters from the fire, pushed the still-hot, blackened nail gun into it, and covered it thoroughly with dirt and leaves.
I shifted back, breathing hard. The pack and boots went into the hollow tree.
I pulled out the sneakers I had left there earlier, put them on, and kept moving until I reached the small river.
I toed them off and stepped in. The cold hit like a wall, stealing my breath and locking every muscle.
I waded until the water reached my waist and began scrubbing.
Face first, careful around the cut on my nose and the swelling along my jaw. Then my neck. Then my hands, front and back, between every finger, under the nails. Blood was stubborn. I worked each surface twice, then a third time on my hands.
When I was clean, I climbed onto the bank, shivering as the cold air hit my wet skin.
I shifted, grabbed the sneakers in my mouth, and ran.
I didn't stop until the familiar scent of home reached me.
At the edge of my yard, I shifted back and slipped silently into the house.
The rooms were dark, my roommates already asleep.
A few minutes later I stood beneath a hot shower, letting the heat work through sore muscles and bruised ribs.
I stayed there until the water cooled and the knots in my shoulders finally loosened.
When I looked in the mirror afterward, the damage seemed worse than it had during the fight.
My lip was split. My jaw had already started to swell. Bruises darkened beneath my skin.
My shifter body would take care of most of it.
I'd heal. Richard wouldn't.
I turned off the light and crawled into bed.
Two down. Two remained.