Ms. Peabody keeps talking, but I don’t hear her.
It’s all white noise as I turn back to the house I’ve lived in for ten years, the only thing close to a home I’ve ever had, and watch the fucker burn.
I watch this part of my life burn to the ground, my river rock gripped tightly in my hand, and right then and there I make myself a promise.
I will get out of Rolling Meadows, I will make something of myself, and I will find my own family, even if it takes me years.
I will find my forever, and when I do, I will not be walking away from it the way my mother walked away from me.
CHAPTERONE
SAM
Fifteen years ago.
Death is a funny thing.
The finality of it, the way the heart just stops beating, how the lungs quit taking in air. The brain that was programmed to make those things happen just automatically shuts down and ceases to function.
Sure, not everything stops right away.
The body might still twitch, eyes might still blink, a mouth might still open and close on its own, but eventually everything stops completely, and anything else that happens after the fact is purely the body’s way of expelling the last little bits of life from its host.
But the last few minutes leading up to imminent death, the seconds before the very definitive end, are always a crapshoot.
It could be an untimely end; a shock to everyone around them. An aneurysm or a heart attack, a freak accident or even suicide, something completely unexpected that blindsides friends and loved ones.
Or there could be a sickness; an illness that slowly robs someone of health and life, destroying them from the inside out until they succumb to the disease altogether.
Death can be premeditated. Plotted and planned, a mortal playing God as they take a life by force. No matter the reason behind it, there is a sinister element to murder because somewhere in the back of the killer’s mind, they’ve made peace with the outcome. They made the choice, accepted what it means, how it will change them, and they do what they intended to do anyway.
A piece of your soul is blackened with each death you bear witness to—each death you may be responsible for—and the more unusual or evil the circumstances, the bigger that piece can be.
And eventually, you start to wonder if there are any clean pieces of your soul left at all.
“Coroner’s on his way,” Jackal grunts as he leans against the side of the garage next to me. “Maybe twenty minutes out.”
I nod as I take out my smokes, stick one between my teeth and offer the pack to my friend. “Cops?”
“Just Withers.”
Good.
Captain Withers is on our payroll, and if he was called in, he’ll make sure the coroner that comes out is as well. Probably Johansson or Berk.
I watch as Jackal lights his cigarette and inhales the non-filter deeply while closing his eyes.
He’s nervous.
Rightfully so, but aside from a little anxiety—which most likely stems more from the outcome of all this shit instead of what led us here—he seems tired and fucking relieved.
“Gunner and Tank inside still?”
He nods. “Cleaning up.”
“Spider helping?”
“Tank sent him out back with Marbles and Cy.”
