Page 96 of Freeing Souls

He groans and rolls onto his back, blinking up at me. “What are you doing up? What time is it?”

“It’s time to deal with Tammy, I don’t want to wait any longer.” I tell him.

He nods, and sits up, grabbing his phone from the nightstand to check the time. I grimace when I notice it’s still really early. When he notices my face, he rubs his hand up and down my arm, “It’s alright, baby girl. If you are ready, so are we.”

Grabbing his pillow he uses it to whack Ryker right in the face. “Get the fuck up.” Ryker shoots up in bed, a wild look in his eyes before they narrow on Cade.

Ignoring the incoming argument between these two, I walk around to the other side of the bed and sit down next to Grayson, who has started waking up from the noise.

“Morning, beautiful,” he rumbles while rubbing his eyes.

“It’s really early, but I want to finish Tammy. I’m tired of all of this,” I tell him as he sits up and wraps his arms around me.

“We can do that.”

After the guys get up and are ready to go, we head out towards the shed. Grayson laces our fingers together, and I smile at him. “Everything is ready, right?”

“Yes, baby girl,” Cade says behind me. “You are the one who made sure it was. Don’t overthink this. Just do what your heart wants.”

Right. My heart. I don't know how much I can trust my heart lately, but according to the girls when I talked to them a while ago, these three would do anything for me. As much as I want to be glad for that, I feel like it could be a bad thing after today.

What if they resent me?

Shaking the thoughts off, I unlock the shed, and we head inside. “Harley, you don’t want to bury me alive. Just shoot me. It’ll feel better–”

“Stop fucking talking!” Ryker shouts at her.

She pinches her lips together and ducks her head, a few tears falling..

I cough as I glance at the guys. “We should hurry up because holy fuck this smells even worse than it did yesterday.” I cover my nose with my hand.

“That’s pretty normal for leaving a body hanging in here for days, beautiful. But I agree. I think I might hurl,” Grayson adds, pinching his lips together.

The boys get Richard’s body down and move it out into the woods. After he is ready, we come back, and they unhook Tammy. She falls to the ground, her legs weak from disuse. Cade binds her hands behind her back before yanking her back up. “Walk.”

“It hurts,” she rasps, as her lips tremble.

“It’s about to hurt way worse. Fucking walk,” he growls, forcing her to move forward as we lead her out to the back of the property where Sugar gave us a spot to dig a hole and place a wooden box in the ground.

As soon as she spots the box and then sees her dead husband laying in it already, she tries to get away. “No, no, no, please, Harley! I’m sorry. I don’t deserve this! Please!”

I don’t respond to her as Cade and Ryker force her down into the box. “Please just shoot me. Don’t bury me alive.”

I step forward and glance down at her, Grayson a solid force at my back. “Oh, I thought I told you. I’m not burying you alive. I’m burning you alive.”

Reaching for a gas can, my hands violently shake as I try to take the cap off, so Grayson takes it from me and hands it off to the others before gripping my shoulders to look into my eyes. “I know this is terrifying. I know this will change things for you, but we have you. No matter how many times we need to say it. We have you. We aren’t going anywhere.”

I nod and take a breath, anchoring myself in his eyes until Ryker announces it’s time.

They poured gas on her before placing the lid on the box and then poured more gas all over the box. Cade lights a match and hands it to me. “Whenever you are ready.”

Taking a deep breath, I let it all go and toss the match into the hole. As the fire starts to bellow out of the hole, Tammy begs and pleads with us until her words slowly turn into screams. As the flames grow stronger and louder, her screams die out until all we can hear is the crackling of the fire.

Everything hits at once: the pain, the losses, the relief. Everything I have lost, the pieces of me Tammy and Richard took away I will never get back. The years stolen from me.

The relief she can never harm me again. She can never speak to me again.

I never have to deal with her again, but I can’t get back all that time she took away from me, all the pain she inflicted physically and mentally.

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