Page 18 of The Madness Within

Only me.

And I wasn’t done yet.

Before I left, I knelt in the ash. Pulled a single obsidian scale from my coat pocket, flawless, cold, and sharp as judgment. I placed it on the scorched remains.

My signature.

One black scale.

Left for the world like a whisper. A promise.

Justice had a name.

And it was mine.

I returned home to an empty mansion deep in the woods. I opened a locked cabinet. Inside were mementos, rings, teeth, stained scraps of silk, a child's locket.

Each one whispered.

Each onescreamed.

I poured myself a drink. Then I looked out, thanks to my impeccable vampire sight, I could see the city, watching, waiting… Until my phone buzzed with a new case.

A new client.

Averyguilty one.

Chapter Four

??Death's Favorite Girl

Ember

I’d always been good at two things… Surviving and sniffing out death.

The first was forced on me. The second? That came after.

I was ten when I watched my mother die.

He came in through the back door. Calm. Confident. Like he belonged. She screamed. I remembered that much.

The sound of her skull cracking against the marble counter still played in my head

when I brushed my teeth. The gruesome tearing of her flesh as she was ripped open.

I remembered the blood. It wassored. Too red. Like it was alive. He turned on me next. I ran. Fought. Bit down on his thumb until I tasted the salt of his sweat.

He slit my cheek open for that.

I still had the scar. Sometimes I traced it when I was thinking, like now.

They said there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him. That he vanished after he won his case. That “sometimes people fall through the cracks.”

No.

He knew how to disappear.

And now… so did I.

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