“I… I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad so enraged before,” I mumble. The pit of anxiety in my stomach yawns, widening until it's all-consuming. “His eyes were black, and he looked…” My throat closes, remembering his face as if it were yesterday. It takes several attempts at swallowing to loosen it again.
“He looked so fucking evil. Inhuman. I-I’ve never seen anything like it before. Just… justpureevil.” My throat tightens, forcing me to pause and swallow a few times. “I went to run, but he screamed at me not to move. I just froze in terror, and I remember wanting to run so, so bad. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I didn’t want to be like her.” My voice cracks on the last word, and I struggle to swallow down a sob. I sniffle and quickly swipe at a few loose tears trailing down my cheeks with trembling fingers.
“He took off the protective mask and crouched in front of me, but all I could focus on was the smell of blood. It was so strong, I could taste it. He demanded to know why I broke his rules, and I told him about my night terror. So he took my hand and led me over to her body. I-I started crying and freaking out because the closer I got…” I trail off, forgoing the gruesome details of her mutilated body.
At six years old, my brain was incapable of computing exactly what I was looking at, just that it was the worst thing I could ever—would ever—see. I was in too much shock to do anything but stare and panic. My body wanted to vomit from the sight, but I couldn’t even manage that.
“He told me to look at the woman’s face and imagine it was my mom’s,” I say, sniffling again. “Then, he said if I told anyone what I saw, I’d be looking at Mom’s face next, and it’d be all my fault.” My voice cracks at the end again, so I quickly tuck my head away from him, squeezing my eyes shut. It takes several moments to swallow the rock back down my throat.
I sense Dread move, but I don’t look yet. My mind splits between the six-year-old version of me and the twenty-two-year-old. For several minutes, my brain can’t decipher which timeline I’m in. I can feel Dread pacing in front of me, yet that potent copper smell is coating the inside of my nose and mouth. I’m sitting on Dread’s bed, yet I still feel my dad’s rough, calloused palm squeezing mine.
Both versions of me inhale, panic strangling our lungs. When I open my eyes and turn back, it’s only Dread I see.
He’s turned away, both hands balled tightly into fists, his knuckles completely bleached of color, his skin mottled red and white. His chest pumps rapidly, and he seems to be glaring at the opposite wall.
“My mom terrified me,” I rasp. He probably doesn’t care about anything else I have to say, but the silence feels suffocating, and forwhatever reason, I feel the need to explain why I didn’t want to see my mom dead. “But I still loved her. It was just mostly at night, when I’d have those dreams, that I needed my dad, but in that moment, I was far more terrified of him than I ever was of her. He went from being my safety to being the monster hiding under my bed, and my mom was now someoneIneeded to protect.”
Again, he’s silent, and my anxiety heightens. That familiar hum returns, like hornets buzzing beneath my skin. I’m filled with a restless energy, with the overwhelming urge to just… run. But I don’t know if it’s the memories I want to run from, my guilt, or from Dread.
Maybe he’ll snap and kill me now. Maybe he’ll torture me first. The suspense is damn near sending me into cardiac arrest.
“He didn’t threaten to kill you?” he questions finally, turning his head just enough to give me his side profile. His voice is eerily quiet, his expression now smooth marble once more. “Why would he threaten your mom and not you? Especially if you were so scared of her.”
“He did,” I answer hoarsely. “But he said I’d have to watch him kill my mom first. Then, he told me not only did he know how to make sure the police found no evidence, he knew how to make someone disappear without a trace, make their death look like an accident.”
“I call you Angel because Mommy almost made you one, but this time, Daddy would have to be the one to do it. And there’d be no one left to save you.”
“Would it be scary, like last time?”
“It would be so much worse.”
“It didn’t really hurt before.”
“I would make it hurt, Angel.”
Dread’s hands flex, and he looks like he’s working himself up to ask the one question I’m scared of.
“Who was it?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper. He turns to me, agony written into his face, and it kills me because I know I’m going to make it worse.
“Georgia Farrell,” I answer quietly.
He stares as he processes that.
“The Locksmith’s third known victim,” he states robotically.
I nod, chewing on my lip while the gears in his head spin. Inevitably, I know he’ll reach the same conclusion that’s haunted me for sixteen years.
He steels his jaw again as realization dawns, and my heart sinks.
“Did youknow he kept murdering women?” he asks quietly, his tone grave.
My face twists as I drop my gaze, my shame embedded in the marrow of my bones.
“I… I don't know how to answer that,” I whisper. “At the time, I don't think I fully understood it. I knew it was wrong and scary. But there were moments where he'd tell my mom he was going to the shed, and he'd… he'd just give me this look like he was reminding me to keep quiet. And I… I think I knew what he was going to do. I just wasn't…” I shake my head, the words becoming harder to find. “I was terrified. That's what I knew.”
Dread steps forward, pulling my attention back up to him, fury melting the ice in his gaze.
“Did you see any of them? Like how you saw Georgia?”
