33. Kennedy
Kennedy
The forest was so dark it felt like it was swallowing me whole.
Branches clawed at my jacket as Malachi and I left the hiking trail and pushed deeper into the trees, the faint glow of his flashlight bobbing ahead of us like a lone star in an endless black sky.
He’d barely said a word since we left the car, his expression indecipherable, his focus razor-sharp. In fact, he’d barely said a word to me in two days.
The beam of his flashlight skimmed over slick moss and the tangle of roots at our feet. My pulse was in my throat as I followed it. Every sound in the forest—the snap of a twig, the rustle of leaves—made me jump.
Malachi slowed his pace for a few seconds, his palm briefly brushing over my back. “It’s okay,” he muttered. “You don’t need to be scared. I won’t let him hurt you.”
I made a faint, noncommittal sound in my throat and kept walking. I didn’t tell him what I was really afraid of, which was what would happen if my father didn’t show up tonight, and also what would happen if he did.
For the most part, I’d accepted that he was one of the Carver Five.
That the blood on his hands was real, and that he deserved whatever Malachi had in store for him.
But at the same time, there was still a tiny, stubborn ember of hope glowing somewhere deep inside me.
Hope that it was all a huge mistake. That he’d been framed by the other four.
That maybe he’d actually been dead all along.
If he showed up tonight… then that last fragile scrap of hope would be gone, snuffed out in an instant. And in its place would be the ugly truth: that my father was exactly what Malachi said he was. A cold-blooded killer.
We finally broke through the last wall of trees, and the thick forest opened into a large clearing. Moonlight spilled over the brook in the center, turning the rippling water into liquid light.
“Here we are,” Malachi said quietly, scanning the area with the slow, methodical precision of a predator.
I hugged my arms around myself as I watched him do one more pass before he killed the flashlight. I could see every contour of his face, and I knew he could see me just as clearly. There was nowhere to hide in this moonlight.
“He’s not here,” I murmured. “So maybe the others lied to you. Maybe—”
A sharp crackling sound cut through my words, like dry branches snapping under heavy boots.
My head whipped toward the noise, and Malachi went still beside me. The sound came again, closer this time, followed by the faint swish of fabric against undergrowth.
A figure finally emerged from the shadows on the far side of the brook.
The moonlight caught him in fragments at first; the edge of a shoulder, the slope of a head, the faint glint of something metallic in a hand before it disappeared. Slowly, he stepped into the open, the water rushing between us.
“Dad,” I whispered, even though he couldn’t possibly hear me.
As he stepped closer, I took in the changes one by one.
His hair, once dark brown, was now entirely gray.
A full beard covered most of the sharp angles of his face, and he’d put on weight, softening the thin frame I remembered from my childhood.
His clothes were plain and forgettable. To anyone passing him on the street, he’d be practically invisible.
Just another middle-aged man, indistinguishable from a hundred others in a crowd.
But I knew him instantly. And seeing him here, in the flesh, stripped the last of that stubborn fragment of hope right out of me.
The world suddenly felt like it was tilting on its axis, and my chest started aching like mad, as if my ribs couldn’t contain the surge of grief and fury fighting for space inside me.
Malachi’s arm came up in a smooth, practiced motion, the matte-black outline of his gun sharp against the pale moonlight. “Put your hands up, Mark,” he said, lethal calm coiled inside every syllable. “Slowly.”
My father’s gaze flicked to the gun before sliding over to my face. Without a word, he raised his hands, palms open to the moonlight.
“Good,” Malachi said. “Now step forward and cross the water. There’s a narrow spot right in front of you.”
My father did as he was told, keeping his hands raised as he took a long step over the narrowest part of the stream. As he did so, Malachi started walking again, closing the distance between the two of them.
I trailed after him. My body was running on muscle memory, but my mind was utter chaos. I could hardly breathe. Hardly think. Everything around me had faded under the crushing reality that my father was really here.
Not a ghost. Not a memory.
Alive. Flesh and blood. Just five yards away.
Malachi finally stopped. “Kennedy, if you want a minute to talk to him, you can have it,” he said, voice softer but still edged with steel. “I know what a shock this must be for you, seeing him like this after so long. So there must be a few things you want to say.”
I nodded mutely and stepped forward on shaky legs. My throat tightened until it hurt, and when I reached my father, the words scraped out, nothing more than a choked whisper. “It’s really you.”
A small smile curved up his lips. “Hello, darling. It’s so good to see you,” he said.
He paused, head slowly shaking like he still couldn’t quite believe I was standing in front of him.
“I already knew you’d grown up to be a beautiful woman, but seeing you right up close like this…
God, you’re breathtaking. I’m so proud of you. ”
I took half a step closer before my knees threatened to give out. “How could you, Dad?”
Something flickered in his expression, but it was gone almost as soon as it appeared.
“I tried to explain so many times,” he said, his voice rougher now. “I sent you messages. I wanted you to find me, darling. I wanted you to understand.”
“Understand what, exactly?” I asked, eyes narrowing. “That you killed people for sport and probably still do? That you let me think you were dead for years? And not just me. Mom and Tessa too.”
His mouth tightened, but his gaze never left mine. “I had to leave, darling. I couldn’t take it anymore. But leaving you behind… that was always my biggest regret,” he said. “I wanted to take you with me, but it just wasn’t possible. You know that.”
I noticed he hadn’t addressed what I’d said about him being a killer. It probably didn’t even matter to him; all those innocent lives he’d taken. In his view, they were mere playing pieces in a twisted game.
His gaze drifted upward, over my shoulder toward Malachi, then back to me. “What have you gotten yourself into here, darling?” he asked. “Do you know who that man is?”
“Yes. Do you ?” I asked.
“No. I know exactly what he’s been up to, though,” he replied. “I’ve been following it on that little podcast you and Freya started.”
“His name is Malachi Sieger. Originally Dougherty. Ring a bell?” I asked, brows rising.
“Dougherty? I don’t know any—” He stopped abruptly, forehead creasing. “Wait. Is he Elijah Dougherty’s son?”
“Nephew.”
“Ah. Well, I can see why he might hold some anger toward me,” he said, arching a sparse brow. “Enough to kidnap my daughter and use her as bait to get me here.”
“You never would’ve returned to Corwin Bay otherwise,” I murmured, shaking my head.
“Actually, I’ve come back to check on you a couple of times over the years,” he replied. “Disguised, of course, because I wasn’t sure how you’d react to seeing me, given your lack of response to my letters.”
The breath caught in my throat. “What are you talking about?”
He frowned, head tilting slightly. “The last time I returned… it must’ve been about four and a half years ago, when you were in your freshman year at CBU.
I followed you around for a few weeks, because I wanted to see you all grown up.
” He paused, eyes searching my face, like he expected me to be touched by what he was saying.
“I was so proud to see you like that. At college. Independent. So smart and beautiful.”
A cold weight settled in my gut as my mind reached backward, tripping over memories I’d buried deep.
Feeling eyes on me whenever I walked across campus. The creeping sense that I wasn’t alone even when I couldn’t see anyone else around. The paranoia that had finally driven me over the edge one day.
All along, I’d believed that paranoia and the subsequent nervous breakdown I suffered stemmed solely from me. That it was a twisted invention of my own mind, which was already fragile after years of grief and anxiety caused by the Carver’s crimes.
But it wasn’t in my head after all. I was really being stalked for all those weeks in my freshman year, by my own damn father. I’d sensed his sinister presence. Felt it in my bones. And that was what had caused the breakdown in the end.
“You…” My voice cracked. “That was really you?”
He nodded. “Like I said, I had to see you with my own eyes. I needed to know you were okay without me,” he said. He paused for a beat. “I never stopped loving you, Kennedy. Never stopped hoping you’d join me one day.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t reply. Just stayed silent and frozen, mind whirling.
My father had always been the problem. Always.
Every single thing I’d suffered over the last ten years could be traced back to him.
Every childhood panic attack, every sleepless night, every ache in my chest…
he was the root of it all. His disappearance and ‘death’ had left me broken for so long, and his secret return to watch over me in my freshman year had shattered whatever fragile healing I’d managed to scrape together, pushing me into a full-on breakdown that landed me in a mental health facility.
And all of that paled in comparison to the depraved horrors he’d inflicted upon countless others over the last decade as he roamed the country, abducting and killing. Causing unimaginable pain to innocent people just to satisfy his sick cravings.
My expression didn’t change. But in my mind, a decision had been made.