10. Hunter

TEN

HUNTER

I t's funny how his home looks like many others I've seen. It's cookie-cutter, suburban—the house's layout is one of three boring, safe design options.

I run my hand across his gleaming oak desk and my leather gloves whisper across the surface. He's neat, I'll give him that. A yellow legal pad sits on the desk at a perfect right angle to his keyboard and a cup of pens.

His leather chair is cheap, though.

I've been hunting him for the last two weeks. He's so easy to spot it's almost comical. He does the same things, goes to the same places, over and over. No one would have known that anything had changed. But then he went off to buy his newest Porsche in cash.

Paid for it with money coated in Winter's blood.

Max, our resident tech expert, found him in under thirty minutes and gave me all the information on his habits. I didn't know Mr.Michael Uvalde before he participated in harming Winter, but I know him intimately now.

I move through his house, stopping in his bedroom. This is where it will happen. In the corner, I sit. I don't turn on the lights. I want to absorb the silent darkness until it's time .

It's an hour before the low hum of the expensive engine echoes outside his bedroom window. The next sound is the mechanical whirring of his garage door opening and closing. It's loud in the empty house.

He stumbles in, drunk. This will make it easier.

I don't want easier. I want painful.

He's in the room, stripping off his clothes as he walks through. The pressure of his piss stream hitting the porcelain toilet bowl makes me smile. Maybe I'll cut that off too.

Don't be so dramatic.

He climbs into bed, flat on his back. One minute. Two minutes. Ten. He's asleep.

I move out of the shadows.

He opens his mouth to scream when I settle fully on top of him, his arms and legs pinned beneath my weight. He stops when my blade touches the tender flesh of his throat.

"You can scream if you want, but no one is coming, Commissioner Uvalde." My smile feels a little deranged.

Have I finally snapped? If so, I'm ready to fucking revel in it.

His glassy eyes struggle to focus.

"Who the fuck are you?" he spits out.

It's so curious what his body is doing. There's a sickly pallor his skin takes on, like three-day-old milk. He sweats, his breaths shallow and rapid.

His body knows he's going to die. His brain probably thinks he can still get out of this.

I breathe in. His terror smells ripe.

"Adam Collins," I say.

He pales even more. "Y-You're not him," he stutters.

I shake my head slowly. "No, I'm not, commissioner." I press the blade into his throat, and I feel comfort as the flesh begins to give away under the knife.

"I didn't do anything!" He tries to press his body further into the mattress, moving away from my blade. He can't move his arms or legs, even though he tries.

I'm glad he's trying.

"That's one way to put it, right? You should have never taken that bribe, Michael."

"He made me do it! He said if I didn't—what does it matter!"

I slap him across the face. It's a move so disrespectful that I almost laugh as I see tears spring to his eyes and hear the resulting howl rip from his throat.

"You've hurt a lot of people, Michael. And actions have consequences."

He cries now. "Please! Please, I'll give the money back. I'll give you double?—"

"You think I want money?"

"If not money, then what do you want ?"

I lean closer to him, putting my left hand on his forehead.

"Michael," I say, grasping his hair so hard I feel a few strands rip out. "I want revenge."

With a sharp jerk, I tip his head back and cleanly slice through the muscles, ligaments, and vessels of his throat.

He chokes as his brain tries to reconcile that his death is imminent. With wide eyes, his mouth opens and closes as his brain begs for air. He continues his desperate movements, slowing until he stills. As his life force leaves his body, I feel mine returning.

Control. I am in control of everything—even life itself.

Now I've taken Michael Uvalde's.

Fifteen minutes later, once Michael Uvalde's blood has slowed its trek out of his body, I call Leo to come with the cleanup crew. The call lasts ten seconds at most, and when I hang up, I take pictures of the corpse.

It's not a trophy. It's insurance. I step closer to his body, ensuring I capture his wide-eyed stare—his mouth open in an endless scream .

It was too quick.

I should have toyed with him more. Drawn out his torture. The only reason I ended him here was because I didn't want Winter to somehow learn of it.

She doesn't need to be touched by any of this any more than she has.

I turn the commissioner's head away, examining my handiwork, when I notice a black blob on his neck, behind his right ear.

I don't turn on the side lamp. Instead, I take out my penlight and shine it on his face.

I stare closer at the tattoo, trying to make sense of the markings.

It's blurry, like the ink is old and perhaps done with crude tools. But the longer I stare at it, it takes shape.

An eye.

A buzzing takes up under my skin, a blend of the drop in adrenaline and unanswered questions.

"H." I hear Leo's voice call out from the front of the house. In the weeks following Winter's return to Amelia Manor, he's been even more severe, keeping his thoughts to himself more than usual.

He rarely leaves the estate these days.

Leo walks into the bedroom with three of our men and one of Misha's.

He sighs. "Did you have to stick him like a pig? You couldn't have just taken him to the crypts and done this clean?" The other men move around the room, analyzing the setup.

"It had to be here." My plan to kill Parole Commissioner Michael Uvalde for his role in freeing Adam Collins came to me quickly. As I held Winter's trembling body in my arms, I knew the only remedy to the impotence I felt at not being able to protect her or save her was to kill.

First Michael Uvalde. Then Benjamin Brigham, Morris Winthrope, and whoever else participated in harming Winter. They will all die by my hand.

Leo gives me a stern look. A concerned look. "We'll clean this up, H."

And then, I leave.

Amelia Manor is quiet, just like the commissioner's house. Except here, I feel the life between the walls. I feel Winter's presence, even though she rarely shows herself to me these days.

We've been home for two weeks, and Winter and I have fallen into a simple yet distant existence. She stays in the room down the hall from mine—it's just as big and faces the rose garden. When I brought the doctor in to insert the tracker, she barely flinched.

Every morning, I accompany our housekeeper to deliver her breakfast. She has proven she won't interact with anyone else otherwise. I make sure to open the curtains. The next morning, the curtains are always closed.

Leo had the forethought to make sure someone covered my car with plastic, and I strip naked after I pull the vehicle into the garage.

Rio will handle burning all the evidence. I use the back staircase to reach my room, heading for the shower.

I resist groaning as Uvalde's blood races down the drain, filling me with renewed satisfaction.

I am in control.

Hanging my head in the shower spray, I close my eyes against the onslaught of memories. Not the memory of the recent past—of killing Uvalde. My memories transport me back to all those years following behind my father.

My brain takes me back to Isla Cara. I was ten .

They writhe on every surface of the ballroom. Combined, there are at least a hundred naked bodies swirling together. They look like snakes as they move on the floor. Across the balcony where I stand overlooking the scene, a bright red light flashes in a steady rhythm. Blinking, pulsing.

Flash.

Father takes my shoulder and leads me to the place he never allows me to see. He's proud of me now because I did what he wanted and didn't cry.

Flash.

Father dials in the combination for the metal door, and when we enter, he flings his hands wide, spinning slowly to show the enormity of his treasures—diamonds, rubies, gold bars, art canvases, cash.

Flash.

"This will all be yours, son. It is your birthright."

I'm in awe.

I touch the gold coins—their weight heavier than I'd imagined in my palm. I lean forward to draw the scent of the pyramid of dollars into my nose. The stacks are taller than I am.

Flash.

A VCR/DVD combo sits on a wooden crate. It doesn't look like it belongs there. A videotape sticks out of the device, with smeared handwriting on the white label. I start to pull it out of the TV. Father stops me.

Flash.

"What is it?" I ask him.

He puts his hand on my shoulder again. "It's what keeps us in power."

Flash. Flash. Flash.

As the shower rains over me, I ground my body into the feeling of the slick tile beneath my palms and focus on the water running down my spine.

I am here. I am in control.

I revel in the fact that the commissioner is dead .

Commissioner Uvalde. Morris Winthrope. Benjamin Brigham.

I exit the shower and rummage around for a T-shirt and pants to use as pajamas. I'm used to sleeping naked. When Winter and I shared a bed, I usually wore only a pair of boxers for her benefit.

Now I cover up because if she needs me in the night, I don't want to add to her fears. That's also why I sleep with the door open…although sleep is rare these days.

When I leave my bedroom, I fight the urge to go to Winter. She'll come to me when she is ready. I need to give her space if we're ever going to come back together.

I continue to the kitchen but stop short when I see August there.

We haven't spoken to each other much. I get the sense that he's avoiding me, but I'm ashamed to say I haven't sought him out either.

It's not that I don't want to see him. It's just that I've been so caught up in my shit. I've been so caught up in my inability to keep Winter safe. Can I keep him safe, or will I cause him to be hurt too?

"August," I say. The sharp drop in adrenaline causes my voice to sound hoarse.

August doesn't say anything to me. He looks the other way before shuffling from side to side and going to the pantry.

I freeze. I should say something.

He rifles around the pantry for a few more seconds before moving to exit the kitchen with an unopened box of Cheese-Itz.

"How have you been, August?" I say to him before he can leave.

His tablet hangs from a woven strap across his chest.

He faces me, but he doesn't look at me. Not that I expect or require him to. Then he walks to the island to put the box down. He types on the tablet .

"I have been okay." He grabs the box of crackers again, hugging it to his chest. He sways from side to side, completely turned away from me.

"I'm sorry that I have been so absent," I say to his back. His shoulders rise, but he keeps rocking. Tap, tap, tap .

"I am used to it."

Ouch.

"I should have..." I trail off. I should have what? Stepped out of my anger and devastation to see him? Maybe. But I'm new to this and honestly don't know how to do that.

"No one has told me anything. They said you were in an accident. That could mean several things. What kind of accident? Where? When? Are you hurt?" His breathing gets faster and faster, and distressed sounds warble from his throat. I step up to the island to stand next to him. Close. This feels like the right move.

"Let me answer your questions. I was in a car accident a few weeks ago. The same day Winter went missing, actually."

He flinches and snaps his fingers in rapid succession.

"Leo was in the car. We got dinged up a bit, but we're both okay."

He makes a sound of distress, rubbing the side of his face and his eyes. He taps his cheek. "How can I get Winter better so she will be my friend again?"

I turn to him fully now and do something I haven't done before. I touch his shoulder. And he lets me.

"Winter is still your friend. She will always be your friend. She was—" I feel the pressure grow in my throat. "She was hurt pretty badly, and that will take time to heal. She's not talking to anyone right now. It's not just you. She loves you."

I keep my hand on his shoulder for several seconds, thinking of what to say, when he turns into me and hugs me.

And I hug him back, putting my cheek on top of his head. The truth settles in: He doesn't just need someone. He needs me . And I want to be there for him .

We hold on to each other for five full heartbeats before he releases me, grabbing the Cheese-Itz again and hugging it to his chest.

He turns to leave the kitchen, and I call out to him, "Want to make a pizza tomorrow for dinner?" He tilts his head in my direction, tapping his cheek with one finger in a slow cadence.

"I want to knead the dough. You did not do it right last time." And with that, he leaves the room.

And my chest hurts more than ever. I'm sure it's my heart.