Epilogue Travis
Epilogue
Travis
One Year Later
Martin Elliott III has just checked into his hotel room and is currently preparing for a meeting. I watch him from the driver’s seat of my car and study his every move. He was on Sage’s list.
After she came back to Lake Lure with me, I got her a desktop computer and fully set it up so all her searches would be secure.
If she was going to be involved in my process, I had to make sure we were doing everything the right way.
I taught her how I operate, from the first step all the way to disposing of the body.
This is the first kill I’m letting Sage take the lead on.
Over the past year we’ve targeted and killed five predators together.
Martin is one that Sage wanted to do the heavy lifting on.
She even did a practice run in the mirror, rehearsing her fake twelve-year-old voice so much that I caught her singing “Let It Go” like a Disney Channel dropout.
When I walked in on her mid-performance, she shrieked, nearly threw her phone at me, and yelled “Privacy, dammit!” in a voice that sounded more middle-aged smoker than child star.
The burner phone we’re using to contact Martin chimes in Sage’s hand beside me. “He said he’ll be ready in about an hour.”
“Let’s get everything nice and set up for him, then.” I put the car in drive and head back to the cabin.
Sage and I make quick work of gathering everything we need while we’re there.
A little too quick, because at one point she trips over the duct tape roll and almost face-plants into the tackle box.
She pops up like a deranged meerkat, waves a knife, and says, “This is part of the plan.” I don’t ask which plan—ours or a Looney Tunes one.
After that little incident, we head toward the lake. That’s where we told Martin to meet us.
It’s late enough that the lake is completely empty. Nobody else is hanging around swimming for the day. Besides, it’s a Tuesday night and people have to work in the morning. Well, not everyone. Martin clearly has time to kill.
“Are you nervous?” I ask Sage before I prepare to leave her.
She shakes her head and takes a deep breath. “Let’s kill this fucker,” she says with ire in her voice.
After we found Martin in a nearby county, we set up a trap for him.
He’s a sick fuck who likes young girls. So Sage has been impersonating one.
She made a fake Instagram account that she’s been posting on semi-regularly using AI images as bait for these creeps.
Her online persona is a twelve-year-old named Mary with strict parents who homeschool her, so she doesn’t have many friends.
Martin thinks her parents are out of town for a work conference and they’re letting her stay by herself for the first time, hoping that she can prove to them she’s responsible. Of course Martin had to jump at the opportunity to offer her some company.
Now they’re meeting at the lake for the first time. Martin’s going to teach her how to swim.
I hide in the tree line and wait, keeping my eyes glued to Sage the entire time. She sits on a picnic table and makes herself look small and frail. She’s wearing baggy clothes and a breast binder, so it’s less obvious that she’s older than she says.
In the distance, I see the silhouette of a man, and I know instantly it’s Martin. He waves and calls out for Mary, and Sage stands up to wait for him. He’s carrying some food and drinks with him as if it’s some kind of friendly, disarming gesture.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you!” Sage says in a light, cheery voice. Seeing how she can completely pretend to be a different person is almost bone-chilling. But this is for the greater good.
Martin takes a seat with his back to me, which I’m very thankful for. It makes my job a lot easier if he doesn’t fight. He and Sage start making small talk while I sneak out of the tree line and creep my way over to him, syringe in hand.
Before he realizes what’s happening, the needle is in his neck and I’m pushing the drugs into his veins. His eyes go wide before they close entirely.
“What—where am I?” Martin asks in a terrified voice when his eyes open in the crematorium basement. Sage and I both look at him with smiles on our faces.
“So you have a thing for little girls, huh?” she asks in a dark voice. She grabs a knife from the table and slams it down beside him. His entire body shakes against the metal table, and she laughs.
“Please! I can pay you—name your price, just let me go!” Martin begs.
“Oh, we have no use for your money,” I say, tracing my knife up and down his arm. It knicks him, and he gasps from the surprise. I can’t help but laugh. “There’s much more where that came from.”
“How many children have you done this to?” Sage asks him. “We already know about one because she sent you to jail. But how many came before her? How many have you hurt since you were let out on good behavior?”
“I—I don’t know what you’re—”
Sage slams her hands down on the metal table and stops him from lying. “Did you learn nothing while you were in jail?” Her eyes are like furious beads glaring down at him.
When she first suggested this idea to me, I thought it would be silly. Vigilantes are something for comic books. But I see it now. I see the fury in her veins, and I feel it too. This is what I was meant to do.
Martin refuses to talk, no matter how much she tries to get a confession out of him. So we skip to the next part of our plan.
Sage cuts into his flesh and watches as his blood pools around the knife. Martin screams at the top of his lungs, and I don’t do anything to silence him. I know that Sage wants to hear him scream. She wants to hear him beg and plead for his pathetic life.
I work on the other arm, letting the blood slowly drain from him as his breath turns ragged.
“Martin, something tells me you do a lot of thinking with your dick,” she says as she stands at hip level. She grabs him by the balls and squeezes, making him squeal more than he has before. “Let’s put an end to that.”
Even I wince as she cuts his dick off. Don’t get me wrong, Martin deserves all this and more for what he’s done. It’s just a little hard to watch.
The pain makes him pass out, and when it’s no longer fun to torture him, Sage plunges the knife into his chest. Before we started doing this together, I was opposed to the idea of letting her help.
I thought that I needed to be the one to kill.
But getting to watch Sage do it is just as intoxicating as doing it myself.
“How do you feel?” I ask as we turn on the oven. This is the first person she’s actually killed by her own hand.
“Powerful. Like I’m in control of something for the first time in my life,” she says, almost looking like she’s in shock herself.
We wait for the oven to heat up before putting Martin’s body inside. I clean off the table, wiping up his blood and sanitizing it. Sage watches the fire for a few minutes, then walks over to me and pulls my face close to hers for a kiss.
She’s hungry, like my kiss is water in a desert, and my mind is immediately pulled from cleaning. I lift her up and set her down on the table.
“Fuck me,” she whispers in my ear. I kiss her neck, nibbling on the flesh delicately as I fumble with the button on her jeans. She lifts her hips so I can slide them off and toss them to the ground.
I massage her through her panties before ripping them off and unbuttoning my pants. My cock is already hard, and Sage wraps her hands around it to feel for herself. She smiles and kisses me, teasing me more.
I pull away and lower my mouth to her pussy, immediately finding her clit with my tongue. Sage leans back with her eyes closed as she raises her hips ever so slightly.
“You feel so fucking good,” Sage moans as I slide a finger inside her.
“And you taste delicious,” I reply before burying my face in her pussy.
With every moment that passes, my cock throbs more and more. My hands climb up her shirt and fiddle with her nipples while she holds them against her. Just when she’s on the verge of coming, I pull my mouth away from her and plunge my cock inside.
Sage jolts upright and moans uncontrollably as I sink my entire shaft inside her. I start off slow, savoring the feeling of her around my cock, but I get more frenzied as I move. I quicken my pace, and eventually the metal table is moving an inch every time I thrust into her.
“You’re so fucking naughty,” I whisper in her ear as I feel her pussy clenching tighter around me.
How did I get so lucky? Most women would run for the hills if they even suspected a man could be dangerous. But Sage stuck around—even when I didn’t want her to. Now I’m here with the love of my life, both of us high off a kill and screwing each other’s brains out.
Her legs wrap around me to draw me in more with each movement, and I do my best to fuck her exactly how she wants. I can feel just how turned on she is with every thrust, and it only makes my desire for her grow.
“Oh my god, Travis!” Sage cries out as her body spasms and shakes on the table. I can’t take it any longer, and I completely lose control, filling her with every drop of my cum.
When both of us are finished and catching our breath, I stare at her and can’t help but think about how lucky I am to have her.
The two of us meeting by happenstance. Sure, Ryan might have orchestrated some of it to get revenge on me.
But Sage knocking on my door instead of his was fate intervening.
She and I were supposed to find each other.
I know now that Sage is my soulmate. Not only that, but I believe the two of us were meant to be partners in crime, literally. Looking back at my life, I can’t even comprehend how I managed to get through everything without her. I know now I want her by my side for as long as I’m breathing.
“Marry me,” I say, leaning down and giving her a kiss on the lips. She backs up and looks at me with a wrinkle in her eyebrows.
She sits up straight and tries to decipher whether or not this is a genuine request. “You’re proposing? You don’t even have a ring.”
“I was going to improvise,” I say, digging around in my pocket and pulling out a spare zip tie. “It’s adjustable and, technically, a circle.”
She rolls her eyes. “Romantic. Next you’ll tell me we can use duct tape for wedding bands.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I quip. “We’ve got a whole drawer labeled ‘Rituals and Repairs.’” That makes her snort. “Plus, it’s not like anything else about us is conventional.” I laugh and raise my eyebrows at her. “Sage, will you marry me?”
She smiles and nods, pulling me close for a passionate kiss. “Yes, of course!”
I wrap my arms tight around her, my future wife. I might not have expected her to come waltzing into my life, but I’m incredibly glad that she did.