Page 34 of Resurrect Me

“Yeah, don’t talk to him anymore, Tacy. You and I both know he’s fucking crooked. The Org is in his back pocket, and he’ll do whatever they tell him to. And now he has real pull, being the governor and all. That prick was always jealous of me. He always wanted everything I had. Including you. And if he can’t have you, I don’t know what he’ll do. In fact, it might’ve been him who put that skinhead Starkey up to the job.”

I glance at the clock. Eight-twenty-two. The kids usually sleep until nine, so we have a little time.

“Likely,” I agree. “There’s…something I need to tell you. I think the cops might try to pin Starkey’s death on me.”

“There’s no way that’ll ever work,” he says. “You were kidnapped. There will evidence on the cameras, as well as evidence in the house.”

“Yeah…but the problem is, I sort of…knew Starkey.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “You knew him? From where?”

“Back in Washington. From high school,” I gaze out the window. How do I get out of this one? Should I just tell him? My pulse quickens.

“Was he in…the coven with you?”

I swallow and feel the tears well up. Damn it. I’m tired of crying.

“Was he…theguy? The guy who….?” He asks and smooths the hair back from my face. Even though I want to lie and make this all go away, I know Aris won’t judge me.Can’tjudge me.

“Yes,” I say. “Which means they have motive. And if they dig deeper, they might even discover things about me that could put me in jail.”

“I’ll turn myself in before that happens. And anyway, whatever you did, Tacy, you were a child still. They can’t convict you of that crime now. It’s been over fifteen years,” he says. “I doubt it was that bad. Was it, Sweetheart?”

I gaze into his eyes. I can see his love for me. Feel it in the air all around me. In his touch. He looks at me and sees a good human being. A nurse. A loving mother. A dedicated wife. No, I can’t tell him. It would destroy his image of me forever.

It’s not like I was born a killer. There weren’t any signs. My parents didn’t have to take me to a shrink because I was threatening other kids or harming animals for fun. I was a normal child and a normal teenager. But, when my dad left, never to speak to me again…something inside of me broke. I searched for something to fill the void. Because when a parent leaves you behind it doesn’t just break your heart, tears your soul asunder. It leaves an opening for things to climb in. Dark things.

Chapter 20

Tacy

Senior Year, 2003

“Shove him! There is no other way, Tacy,” Orion roars from somewhere behind me. “He’s going to fucking kill you! Do it now!”

I’m standing at the edge of the forest, my back pressed against the trunk of an evergreen. It’s dark. Probably midnight. A few yards ahead of me, there is a steep precipice. The ocean waves pound against the jagged rocks hundreds of feet below. Someone, of whom I assume is a man, is standing ten feet away from me. He’s wearing all black and has the head of a goat. Or maybe he’s wearing the head of a goat. Panic grips my insides. I have to attack now. This is the only way. This monstrous man chased us through the forest, now he’s cut us off at the pass. It’s me or him.

I lunge forward, and with all my might, I shove the man sending him stumbling backwards. There is a muffled cry in the goat’s throat as he tumbles to his death. My breath catches as I hear a sickening thump somewhere below.

My heart seizes. My lungs pulsate. What the fuck did I just do? Did I just kill a man?

Orion sidles up beside me, panting. I can smell pine and sweat all over him. “He was going to kill you, Tacy. Kill us. It was the only way. You did it for us. For the coven.”

I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. I’m a murderer. The dark closes in around me, and my insides twist. I vomit all over the ground. Heaving and sputtering, I can’t stop puking.

Orion rubs my back and says, “his sacrifice was necessary. Belenus will bless you for this, Tacy.”

My eyes fly open. It’s the middle of the night, and I’ve soaked my sheets in a cold sweat. I’m having a recurrent nightmare. One that sadly isn’t fiction, but a replay of events from my dark past. That cabin in Washington, deep in the woods. What should be a serene place to revisit in one’s mind is the exact opposite. It’s flashes of goats braying as they fall from great heights. Circles of doped up teenagers chanting something Gregorian yet guttural in an old, dead language. Orion standing over me, grunting and demanding things of me. Ungodly things.

I wipe the sweat from my brow. Then I sit up and take a deep breath, check my surroundings and reassure myself that I’m far from that abandoned house in the forest. I’m on the other side of the country, in my own home, safe and sound. And Orion Starkey is dead. But that lingering fear of him returning and ruining everything for me still wriggles and writhes inside of me. But I escaped him…escaped my past before, and I’ll do it again.

Aris

“What do you mean, the guns were fucking gone?!”

“Exactly that, Aris,” Thor replies. “The harbor master docked the boat. We boarded, and the hull was fucking empty. Nothing but boxes of produce. Oranges and shit. Guns were nowhere to be found.”

“How the fuck did this happen?” My face feels like a furnace. My fists are aching to punch something. Instead of slamming theminto the concrete block wall or one of my friends’ heads, I glue them to my sides. “Did they forget to send them?”

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