Page 25 of The Madness Within

And they believed me.

She walked free. Clutching a rosary. Wearing white. Fucking white. Smiling at strangers. Volunteering at bake sales. Acting like she didn’t bathe in infant blood.

I watched.

For seven days.

Through windows. From rooftops. Shadow to shadow.

I memorized her routines, her heartbeat, the way she locked the front door twice out of habit but never thought to check the back.

When I finally entered her house, it didn’t feel like breaking in. It felt like coming home.

She died in the same tub she drowned her baby in.

I zip-tied her wrists behind her back. Duct-taped her mouth. Dragged her into that pristine bathroom, white marble, orchid soap, towels folded like hotel sins.

Her eyes found me in the mirror as I turned on the faucet. Ice water filled porcelain.

She thrashed.

I watched.

“You smiled at their deaths,” I whispered. “Each one. Tiny lungs, barely full of air. You suffocate them with your silence.”

She screamed behind the tape. I shoved her under.

One minute. Her legs kicked, flailing like a dying fish. Two minutes. Her skin turned red, then purple. Three. Her gaze snapped to mine, begging. Four. Her heartbeat slowed.

Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

Stillness.

Justice, measured by time. Just like her crimes.

I let her float. A bloated corpse in her sanctified tub.

But the story wasn’t finished.

I slipped a black obsidian scale from my pocket. Sharp. Gleaming. Eternal. I pressed it to her sternum. Let it rest like a seal.

The shadows curled around the walls, humming with satisfaction.

Another soul accounted for. Another verdict corrected.

They never suspected me. Why would they? I was her savior.

Until I became her sentence.

Later, I walked the rooftops like a priest over a graveyard, watching the city rot below me.

That’s when I spotted him.

Kreed.

Acquitted of all charges for murdering several men and women with knowledge about the Veil and opening the Gate.

He was the man I’d been hunting since he slipped through my fingers. Too slow. Too erratic.

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