The words hit like static, like someone speaking a foreign language but insisting I should understand. A funeral? What does that have to do with anything?
I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”
“You never had a funeral,” he repeats, softer this time. “No one buried you. No one mourned you. No one gave you a proper send-off. You were never truly put to rest.”
“There are many people who die without—”
“Not like this, they don't,” he interrupts me, dead serious. “We've looked into you, you know? No family except your husband. Living in your grandmother's house who died ten years before you did. No aunts, cousins, no parents looking for closure. Just one man—your husband. And he never mourned you, Skye. He didn’t even try.”
My throat feels tight, even though I don’t need to breathe. A horrible, creeping sensation washes over me, cold and relentless, wrapping around my limbs like a vice.
“He reported you missing,” Talon continues. “But that's all he did. No search. No tearful statements to the press. No dramatic breakdown at your presumed gravesite. He just... waited. And when time passed, when the world moved on? It moved on without you. Not a single candle was lit in your honor. And that? That tethered you here.”
I look down at my hands and realize they’re shaking.
This is ridiculous. This is stupid. I know what happened to me. I know how I died. I know whokilledme. What does it matter if no one buried me? If no one held a funeral?
But it does matter.
Because Talon’s right.
I was erased. Completely. No body, no grave, no closure. Just a name that faded from the world like I had never existed. No wonder I’m stuck. No wonder I’ve been clinging to a life that’s already gone.
I was never allowed to die properly.
“The man we killed today?” Talon asks. “He had a family. Two daughters. And sure, he’s gonna be nothing but ash and bad memories by the time we’re done here, but someone will remember him. His daughters, his victims’ families, the people who will follow his case once it comes to light. His name will live on in horror. He will not disappear completely.”
Talon leans forward, elbows resting on his knees.
“But you? You were already gone before you died, weren’t you?”
It lands like a punch to the gut.
And suddenly, the pity in his voice is the most unbearable thing I’ve heard in the last five years.
It's also what gives birth to a horrible, horrible thought in my head.
One that I shouldn’t have.
One that is entirely too sweet.
One I want him and the others to help me with.
The rain hasn’t let up all night. It drums against the roof, slides down the window panes, soaks into the earth until the whole yard smells of damp rot. The rocking chair creaks beneath me, the only sound in the house besides the rain.
Then comes the thud of boots on the porch.
I know that sound. Duvall.
He never wipes his feet. Never shakes off the rain. He just barges in, dragging the storm in with him, filling the house with damp and smoke and trouble. The door slams behind him, rattling the glass even upstairs.
I don't want to go down to meet him. I don’t want to see what kind of mess he’s going to bring this time. Because whatever Duvall dirties or breaks, I’ll have to clean it up afterward.
My knees still ache from cleaning the carpets from last week. I’ve got bruises all over my elbows from scrubbing out the boot prints he left behind—prints that never fully come out no matter how hard I try.
And I always try. If I don't, Mark gets even more unpleasant than usual.
I clutch the armrests of Gran’s rocking chair, willing myself to stay still. Maybe if I’m quiet enough, still enough, he won’t come looking for me. Maybe he’ll head straight for the kitchen, drink whatever’s left in the liquor cabinet, talk things over with Mark, and leave.
