Chapter Twelve
The task I’ve been putting off, of course, is planning Dawn’s funeral. Burying someone makes it so final. Like a nightmare you never get to wake up from.
When Jackie offered to take over, I wanted so desperately to let her.
But I couldn’t. I owed Dawn this much. By the time I had everything ready, I wanted to crawl into the back of the closet, pull a blanket over my head, and disappear from the world for a while.
Who would have thought that my life would be so much easier in prison?
I turn from staring out the window of my workshop when Shepard walks in.
He pauses near the door, his eyes taking in the shelves loaded with bottles and jars.
He rarely comes in here, not because he’s not welcome or because it freaks him out, but because he knows it’s the one place I go to be alone.
For him to be here now tells me it’s not just so he can check up on me. “What is it?”
“We’ve just been granted permission to exhume your father’s grave. I’ll be overseeing it myself.
“When?”
“This evening. I want it done before the funeral tomorrow.”
“Alright. Can I come?”
He nods, moving closer to me. “If that’s what you need, then yes. But I can do it without you.”
“No, I’ll go. I know he’s not dead, but I still feel like I need to be there. Vindication, maybe.”
“You earned the right to feel that way, baby. You’ll get no judgment from me.”
I move into his embrace and lean on him for support.
He doesn’t hesitate to put his arms around me and hold on tight.
He doesn’t offer me any more words of comfort.
At this point, there is nothing anyone can say to fix things.
What happened, happened. There is no changing it now.
Besides, if things hadn’t played out this way, there’d be no Hannah, and not even Dawn herself would have changed things if it meant that.
I tip my head back and look up at him. “Thanks for coming to tell me.”
“Anytime, Poppy.” He kisses my lips lightly.
I take a step back and offer him a small smile. “I’ll get Riggs to stay with Hannah.”
“What about Austin?” He grimaces at his name, so I’m surprised he mentioned him at all.
“I don’t need everyone there. As long as I have you, I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll always have me, Poppy.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
It’s anticlimactic in the end, watching the casket get lifted out and placed on the soil that’s damp from the rain that’s been falling for the last two hours.
“What the hell is going on with this weather?” one of the deputies asks.
I don’t reply, and neither does Shepard.
Yet, with how often he looks down at me, I’m starting to think he’s figuring out I might be the reason for the weather fluctuations lately.
It’s hard to keep a grip on it when my emotions have been all over the place.
Shepard nods at the man standing beside the grave, documenting everything, then walks over and takes the crowbar his deputy offers him.
Though the casket is in pretty good condition considering, it doesn’t take much for him to pry it open.
He takes a step back to let me see. I frown, expecting it to be empty, but it looks like there are burlap sacks inside filled with god only knows what.
I look at Shepard, confused. “Drugs?”
Shepard shakes his head and uses a knife to slice open the top of one of the bags. Grain spills out. “Just regular sacks of grain.”
“I don’t understand.”
He gets to his feet from where he was crouched and walks over to me. “At a guess, there is as much weight in grain there as what Martin weighed around the time of his death.”
I’m stumped for a moment before I slap my forehead. Of course. A light casket would have people asking questions.
“Right now I have a warrant to serve at the medical examiner’s office as well as at the clinic and my team are crawling through every file Sheriff Anders ever wrote. It won’t change what happened, but maybe having some answers to all those questions in your head might help.”
I nod. Perhaps he’s right. My guess though is he simply paid off the coroner, like he did the sherif.
He had one man to say Martin Hard had been shot and killed when he’d never actually died and the other pointed all the evidence my way.
And who the fuck would argue with the coroner and the sheriff?
I feel sparks dance over my hands as my anger gets the best of me for a moment, thinking about the sixteen year old me who never stood a fucking chance.
“Poppy?” Shephard eyes my hands before moving closer. “Let’s get you out of here while my guys process the scene.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna call Austin to pick me up.”
His jaw clenches, but he nods.
“He was the only one out of the three of you who was around back then. I’d like to know what happened in the aftermath. I never thought about the funeral or who paid for it, let alone who arranged it. Perhaps that person knows more.”
“I’d imagine he left instructions with Dale. Guess I might have to talk to Austin myself. See if he can shine some light on shit.” He sounds like he’d rather pull out his own teeth.
“You could talk to Jackie. She was with the old sheriff then. She split from him because of his handling of my case, which means she might know stuff others don’t. She sure as heck wouldn’t share it with me, not if she thought it would upset me.”
He sighs. “Alright, but if you want me to pick you up from Austin’s, just call me. We won’t be here long. An hour, or two tops, but I don’t care if I’m working or not. You say the word, and I’ll come get you.”
I lift onto tiptoes and kiss him. “My hero.”
Later, after Austin collects me from the cemetery and takes me to the place he’s holding Porter, I have a moment of clarity.
This is it. Tonight is the night I’ll kill my father.
“You’re quiet.”
“Just thinking how strange things turn out.”
He chuckles, the sound a little strained. “Strange is one word for it.”
“I’m in the car, heading to an unknown location with a man who—” I stop and swallow, looking out the side window into the ever-darkening sky.
“Raped you. You can say it. Nothing I say or do can change that.”
“That’s the thing, though, Austin. Using the word rape doesn’t feel quite right, either. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I was sixteen.”
He flinches, but I reach over and pat his arm. “Not the point I’m making. I was young, naive, and lonely as fuck. I thought you were some god-like creature. Older, sure, but powerful, protective. I think that’s why I liked being around you. You made me feel safe.”
“Until I didn’t.” He squeezes the steering wheel hard enough to make his knuckles bleed white.
“Either Andy is guilty, or you are.”
“Both can be true at the same time, Cece.”
“Look, what I’m saying is, if you’d tried to seduce me, even just using one percent of that charm of yours, I’d have given myself to you on a silver platter. No drugging would have been needed. I never felt that way before.”
“Before witches come into power, they…I’m actually not sure how to describe it. I guess you could say they don’t feel things the way most teenagers do. Their powers being suppressed kind of holds their pheromones and hormones in check, too.”
“Huh. I did have questions about how that worked. You said witches came into their power at eighteen in most cases. I did wonder if there were a bunch of teenagers out there that had no idea they’d suddenly bonded to a witch because he’d fucked one in the back of his dad’s truck before she grew into her power and realized what it meant. ”
He laughs and shakes his head. “The things that go through your mind…but yes, it’s true. There is little to no interest on the witch’s part in the opposite sex, or any sex for that matter. Not until the powers surge.”
I fiddle with the hem of my dress. “And yet I know I’m not the only one.”
“What do you mean?”
“It hasn’t crossed your mind what a fucked-up loophole that is? There is no way I’m the only witch coming into power who had her virginity stolen from her.”
He’s quiet, but I can see my words hit him hard. “Jesus. How though? I’d have heard something about it happening before, surely.”
“Witchcraft aside, do you have any idea how many times rape is actually reported? I know if I hadn’t had matters taken out of my hands, I’d have kept quiet.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew nobody would believe me. Or worse, if they did, they wouldn’t care.
I know Dawn felt the same way. Now add in being raped because you’re a witch and your attacker wanted some kind of spooky protection against you.
Can you imagine a girl saying any of that to a cop?
What if, like you, the perpetrators are hunters?
You think they won’t have plans in place just in case? ”
He takes a few deep breaths. “I feel sick.”
“Me too, but it will be different for Hannah. I’ll make sure of it.”
His head whips around. “Hannah?”
“If our suspicions are true, and she has some witch in her bloodline, then she’ll be a target too, especially if anyone else figures it out.
The thing is, Austin, I won’t ever let it get so far as she said he said.
I’ll murder every man in this town to keep her safe, and I’ll smile while I fucking do it. ”
He leans over and snags my hand. I let him, not seeing the need to pull away.
Besides, holding on to him makes me feel like I’ve taken a deep, steadying breath.
And yeah, that’s probably the bond, but I’m trying to remind myself that not all of its bad.
Some of the benefits outweigh the issues by a lot.
Like the day Dawn was shot, and my powers went out of control.
I would have hurt so many people if it weren’t for Austin.
It’s impossible to stay angry at the man who literally acts like a shield between me and everyone else, knowing I couldn’t live with the torment of hurting the people I care about.
“We’re here.”
I glance up, realizing I’d been in a daze, playing with the hem of my dress. I gaze around at the property and find, well, nothing. “Austin?”
“Patience, Calliope.”