Page 63 of Unholy Bonds

It wasn’t criminal to record true crime podcasts.

“Oh, and The Crosses We Bear. Yes.”

The Crosses We Bear was my second story, my second kill. It was about a man who used the girls under his care for his sick games.

I was fifteen, in an orphanage, away from the remains of my shattered life. I was happier than I had ever been and then I was forced to realize that happiness was but an illusion.

I had friends. Girls I played with, girls I loved. Women who took care of me. I saw my mother’s smile in their kind, benevolent eyes.

The Convent for Sunflower Children. It was a beautiful place until he walked in. Robert Miller.

“Are you alright, Doctor West? You look pale.” Detective Rosario’s concerned tone interrupted my thoughts which were in a turbulent tailspin.

“Sorry. The news you just shared…” I faltered. “I just can’t…”

“I get it. I had the same reaction when I got the call,” Detective Rosario said, his eyes filled with kindness. “The world has gone raving mad.”

“I have seen so much in my work here that it shouldn’t faze me anymore, but it still does.”

“That’s what makes us different from them,” the detective said.

Little did he know, I was one of them. I was them, and they were me.

“You’re right,” I lied without blinking as the detective stood up from the chair and stretched.

“I’m going to meet with Doctor Kavya Metha.”

“For the second autopsy for Victor?”

Metha would not find anything I didn’t want her to find in Victor’s remains.

The detective grunted and stalked away, leaving me alone with my thoughts of Robert Miller and The Strangler.

Robert Miller laughed with us, he played with us, but behind his eyes… I saw it. He had my father’s eyes—wicked eyes.

One night, a few months after his arrival, when Tany came out of his room, eyes wide with fear, body shaking with revulsion, I knew the truth of what I had seen the moment our eyes locked—the animal within him.

Tany suddenly looked so much older, so broken. She was wincing with every step she took. I instantly knew what he had done.

She made me promise not to tell anyone, scared that he’d hurt me if I did. She had protected me, and in turn, I protected an animal instead of her.

She needed me to be brave then, but I was a coward. I kept her secrets, and I carried the shame of my cowardice buried within my anger and helplessness.

Tany, cheerful, vivacious Tany, was never the same again, and one night, she jumped from the top of the building, leaving the pain behind.

As I watched her bleeding body, my eyes streaming with tears, the shackles I had kept around my demons came undone. They broke free, screaming for blood and vengeance.

No matter how loud I screamed, it didn’t soften the blow of losing her. Two days. I waited for two days to catch him alone. Anger burned inside me like wildfire.

That night, when I saw him in the orphanage’s chapel, I knew what to do. He was praying.

Praying?

Men like him stained the floor they walked on. Their prayers would hurt God’s soul.

Anger washed over me as I plunged the knife into his spine. He stumbled up and grabbed me by my hair, but I was quicker. The next stab found his heart. Blood splattered across my white pajamas printed with little sunflowers.

I stood over him and smiled in satisfaction as he helplessly tried to stand back up. Pressing my shoes into his wound, I continued to watch as he struggled to find a way to stay alive.

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