Chapter 23: Gwen - Hunter or Hunted

The funeral home had divided the viewing room in half. Delilah lay in her casket on one side, leaving a few yards of space for everyone to say their final goodbyes. All the friends and family I’d wanted to prod with questions sat in chairs or stood around on the other side, speaking quietly, consoling one another.

Those questions seemed pointless now. They’d tell me what I already knew. Evan was a piece of shit who’d already won over the people with any power.

He’d be gone soon.

I didn’t need to argue over their opinions of him.

I just needed to see her one last time.

“Can I have a minute with her?” I asked Sebastian, peering into the empty room. “Would you mind waiting here?”

“Of course, baby.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll be right outside.”

I gave his hand a squeeze in thanks, and I walked to her. My steps were lighter than they’d been yesterday. It wasn’t so hard to face her, knowing I’d brought her a small piece of justice.

At the casket, I took her hand. So cold, so waxy beneath my touch. It wasn’t her anymore, and I knew that, but maybe she was here. Maybe she could hear me.

“I’m not gonna call you Delilah anymore,” I whispered. “I’ll try to call you Allie, because you didn’t need to punish yourself like that. I get why you did. It’d kill me to leave Honey, but I know you had to. Just like you had to say your piece. You had to hit him where it hurt. And I’m so sorry for the price you paid for that.”

She didn’t stir. No magical, ghostly voice whispered in my ear. But I kept going.

“You’re Allie to me now.” I squeezed her hand. “Because I got him, Allie. Samson’s with me. He won’t die in that house. You didn’t kill him.”

Warring with the lump in my throat, a shaking breath trembled from my lips. I raised her hand to my lips. A soft squeeze, and a gentle kiss.

“But I’ll kill Evan.” So low no one else would hear, I said, “It won’t bring you back. But it’ll keep Ava safe.”

“...just telling her goodbye before we head out,” Sebastian’s voice carried from the entrance.

Carefully resting Allie’s hand back on her chest, I looked over my shoulder.

Ava brushed past Sebastian, pushing up her glasses behind her teary eyes. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I just—We didn’t get to talk much yesterday, and I have so many questions, Zoey.”

More than I had time for. More than I could explain, I was sure. But I would try.

I wiped the salty water beneath my eyes with both pointer fingers. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to run out yesterday. I just—Well, everyone here knew her better than I did. I wanted to give you guys some space.”

“That’s okay.” She wiped at some tears of her own, forcing a smile. “I guess I just don’t unders—What happened? How did she get to this point?”

The truth could incriminate what I would soon do. But everyone else manipulated this girl with half-truths and lies. I wouldn’t be one of them.

“She and I had dinner together the night before, and she was fine.” I swallowed hard. “She was happy. She had just started college, and she was looking forward to the future, and I—I don’t believe what they’re saying, Ava.”

Face scrunching up with confusion, she shook her head. “But the cops said⁠—”

“I know.” Clearing my throat, I lifted my shoulders. “That’s the world we live in. The cops don’t care because somewhere between a quarter to half of them are just as violent as the situations me and Allie ran from.”

With brows so deep in her eyes I could barely make out their color, she blinked rapidly. “What’re you talking about?”

“Why do you think she ran in the middle of the night without even a suitcase?” I asked. “Who do you think gave her that black eye?”

She just kept giving me that look. Perplexed, maybe angry.

When she stayed quiet, I shook my head. “Look, I’m just a stranger. You don’t know me, so you don’t trust me. But I knew your sister, and I think she’d want for you what she didn’t get for herself.” I wiped some snot from my nose with the back of my hand. “She got out of this town for a reason. She stopped talking to your parents for the same one. Not because they’re evil, but because they thought the best thing she could be was Evan’s wife someday.

“Living with the pain of that wasn’t easy. But she did, because she knew there was more to life than this town and these people. She wanted a career. She wanted something of her own before she shared it with someone else.” I gently squeezed her shoulder. “And I think she’d want the same for her baby sister.”

Her lip trembled, and her eyes flooded.

“Does that sound like Allie?” I asked. “Is that something she would’ve told you?”

Ava’s shoulders quaked on a sob. She nodded, and I did too. I tucked my arms around her, and I squeezed, and she squeezed back, and for a moment, I was sure she would walk the path that’d burned before her sister could walk it.

But I would scorch the trail she was walking whether she liked it or not. Just as Allie would’ve wanted.

* * *

The service was as beautiful as it could’ve been. They reopened the room, and the preacher spoke about life and death and eternity behind pearly gates. Family dabbed at the corners of their eyes, and friends breathed slowly through O-shaped lips, eyes narrowed at the man who sat beside Allie’s little sister. He didn’t toss an arm around her shoulders, but his thigh stayed wedged against hers the whole ceremony. Even when she angled herself closer to Charlotte on her other side.

I noted it, but all that rage, the mountain of disgust that’d compounded in my gut, vanished.

Was it the closure Rhiannon had talked about?

Or was it knowing that he couldn’t do much more damage?

Regardless, grief returned as the pallbearers gripped the bars of her casket. It vibrated in the center of my chest, condensed in the back of my throat, and escaped through glistening trails of salty water. They carried her body through the funeral home, out the front doors, down the short stone staircase that led to the hearse.

Sebastian and I stayed at the back of the crowd. Blinking at the tears, I pressed my lips together to retain my composure.

As a man opened the rear door to the hearse, a set of silent fluttering wings rode the gentle breeze. Brown inside, framed by black with blue dots, with the outermost edge trimmed in pale yellow. The colors popped against the pink casket when it landed there.

A butterfly landed on her casket in the coldest month of the year.

That fire in my eyes returned. My chest collapsed inward, desperate to expel a shriek of some emotion I didn’t have words for.

I didn’t believe in ghosts, or angels, or life after death. I didn’t not believe in them either. I just didn’t know for sure what came next, and I couldn’t stretch my mind far enough to believe that life continued after our hearts stopped beating.

But she had worn a butterfly bracelet the day she died. It had confirmed, at least for me, that she had not caused her own death.

Maybe she had heard me in there. Maybe that butterfly was the new form she’d taken. Maybe this was her way of thanking me.

Or maybe it meant something else to Allie, an old story she’d never gotten around to telling me.

Charlotte, only a few strides behind the casket, heaved in a gasp. She pressed a hand over her mouth to subdue the sob, but it still slithered out. She shoved past her husband to the casket. The butterfly stayed on top, wings coasting slowly up and down.

“My baby,” Charlotte said. That’s what it sounded like from the distance, at least. It was hard to tell through the sobs. She pressed both hands to the casket, the strong posture she’d maintained the last two days shattering. Her shoulders caved with each weep. Knees wobbling, she dropped her head to the shiny pink lid. “My baby.”

A shaking breath parted my lips.

Sebastian’s hand tightened around mine. The most consolation he could give in a moment like this.

Charlotte’s husband, Allie’s father, pressed a hand to her shoulder. He whispered something.

She swatted him away, sobs still quaking her entire body. Mascara ran down her cheeks. Those filled lips trembled so rapidly, it wouldn’t have shocked me if they burst. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

All the while, the butterfly faced her, its wings flapping slowly up and down, up and down.

The crowd looked back and forth between Charlotte and each other. Unsure what to say, unsure what to do.

When it went on too long, long enough that the pallbearers’ arms began to quiver, Ava stepped forward. She laid a hand on her mother’s back. Rather than whisper in her ear as her father had, she lowered her head to the casket lid. Cheek pressed against it, she coasted that hand up and down her mother’s back, up and down, parroting the rhythm of the butterfly’s wings.

Opening her pinched eyes, Charlotte’s found Ava’s. Charlotte kept sobbing, and Ava let her tears fall. Her free hand slid toward her mother’s. She wrapped it around tightly. Just as Charlotte’s sobs ceased at her daughter’s touch, the butterfly fluttered vertical.

Only for a second.

It landed on Ava’s knuckles.

Charlotte’s sobs returned. Her wobbling knees gave way. They slammed the concrete with a thump.

Ava went down with her.

The butterfly resumed flight.

Henry rushed behind the girls.

But they only held each other. Skirts in disarray, makeup staining their cheeks, the mother and daughter coiled around one another in crumpled balls on the ground.

“Let’s go,” I whispered to Sebastian, surveying the shoulder-to-shoulder throng gathered on the stairs. “There’s a door in the back.”

* * *

We stopped at a convenience store when we left. Sebastian picked out some cat food, I grabbed a box and litter, and we mutually picked out a cozy kitty bed. I started to pay with my card. Sebastian inserted some cash into the self-checkout machine before I could, giving me a look as he did. A reminder that we wanted to leave as little trace here as possible.

After folding down one of the rear seats, we set it all up for Samson in the hatch. The moment we made it available, he used the litter box. He chowed into the can of wet food a heartbeat later. When he finished, he cozied into the bed behind the driver’s seat.

We returned to the hotel, gathered our things, changed into comfortable clothes, and checked out. Before Allie was even in the ground, we were on the road.

Just after we turned onto the highway, Sebastian said, “I didn’t expect that. Charlotte and the casket, I mean.”

Neither had I.

“I’m glad it happened though.” I stroked the purring kitty in my lap, watching the trees on the side of the highway race by. “Gave me a better lens to view her through.”

“Yeah?” He spared me a glance before returning to the road. “How so?”

“It seemed like she cared more for Evan’s reputation than her daughter’s life at first. That’s how I interpreted it anyway. But I think that was just the knee-jerk reaction.”

“Still not sure if I’d argue the former,” he muttered. “But what’re you thinking now?”

“That her head’s as messed up as any of ours.” Samson looked up at me, and I took both his little cheeks in my hands. “It’s taken a year to reach the point I’m at now. Where I can rationally dissect all the things my ex did. All the things my mom’s exes did to her. We put up with the shit for so long, we became immune to what it all meant. And we loved the bastards. We saw our failures—all the times we screamed, or threw something, or fought back—as our fault as much as theirs. In my mind, I was just as bad as him. Until I saw what he did to Honey, anyway. That’s when it clicked for me.”

“Hm,” Sebastian said.

I arched a brow at him. “‘Hm?’”

Expelling a breathy laugh, he raised a shoulder. “I’m just not sure I know what you mean.”

It wasn’t an easy thing to put into words. “You said something about my mom yesterday. About what she thought of my ex.”

“Right.”

“And I never gave it much thought,” I said. “Her role in how I wound up with him. But I see the pattern now. Not just that we both wound up in abusive relationships, but the normalization of it. My mom wasn’t a bad person, but she loved bad people. That’s why she loved my ex. She tried so hard to see the good in the worst, and that sounds admirable. It would’ve been, I guess, if she was a social worker helping reform troubled young men or something. But she got that part twisted. She thought that love and kindness was all it took to save people.”

“She wound up enabling the behavior instead of addressing and correcting it.” He held the wheel with one hand and propped his elbow on the center console. “Charlotte did the same thing with Evan.”

“And her husband,” I agreed, trailing a hand over the mats on Samson’s head. “Charlotte’s mother probably did the same with her husband, and her mother before her. It was never that she cared more for Evan than Allie. She just thinks that if she’s good enough to these shitty people, they’ll be good too. They’ll do better. That’s why she didn’t mind Evan approaching Ava. Not because she wants Ava to feel the pain Allie did, but because she thinks he’ll be better now. He loved Allie, and he lost her, and he’ll do better with Ava, because that pain of losing her is proof of his failing. He won’t want to feel that again.”

“She doesn’t understand that it’s a fundamental difference in character,” Sebastian said. “That Evan can’t treat Ava better, or anyone else, because he sees nothing wrong with what he did to Delilah.”

“Because she still sees the best in the worst,” I agreed. “Yeah. And if my mom were alive, she probably would’ve done the same thing. Consoled him when I left, I mean. She saw the same goodness that I did, regardless of what was an act. Honey was the catalyst for me. If not for that, I’d probably still be there. I could’ve been Charlotte or Ava, because the chaos of abuse was just as normal to me as it is to them. Plus, admitting Evan was as bad as he is would mean admitting he fooled her too. She’s got too much pride for that. So I guess I just...I don’t know. I see it now. It’s not that she didn’t love her daughter. She just loves everyone and everything more than she should. Unconditionally.” Frowning, I shook my head. “Real love, mutual love, needs conditions.”

“That’s a good way of putting it,” he said. “I agree. Unconditional love is for your kids and your pets.” He stroked a hand down Samson’s back.

I laughed, and he smiled. As it teetered off, I cleared my throat. “About Evan. What I’m gonna do. If that’s a condition for you⁠—”

“It’s not.” His voice stayed soft. Calm and controlled. “If I still didn’t want to do it, I’d tell you so. But I agree. It’s the only way to keep it from happening again.”

“Yeah, but if you have conditions⁠—”

“Oh, I do,” he said. “I need to think on it first. Let everything settle in. Make a solid plan. But there will be conditions. Who we do it to, why, how. But you’re not forcing me into something I’m against. You just nudged me toward the reality I’ve spent a long time ignoring.”

Who we do it to.

Did that suggest he was open to doing it again? Not only to Evan, but the other Evans of the world?

It sounded like it, and that realization warmed my chest. As bizarre as that may have seemed. The strangeness of it wasn’t lost on me.

Maybe it was just nice to know my morality wasn’t as twisted as it may have appeared.

“Anyway,” he said. “You’re calling her Allie now?”

“Given the circumstance.” I lifted Samson toward him and waved a paw. Sebastian chuckled, and so did I. “It’s not fair anyway. We shouldn’t have to change our entire identities to get away.”

Another, “Hm.”

“‘Hm?’” I repeated, giving a half smile.

He ran a hand down his jaw, lifting a shoulder. “Would you rather I call you something else? Like, your old name or something?”

I snorted. “No. I love Gwen.”

“So do I.” He smirked. I laughed. “I am kinda curious now though.”

“About my old name?”

He shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to though.”

I knew I didn’t have to, but maybe I wanted to. “Lacey.”

His brows furrowed. “Lacey. Really?”

“Really really,” I said. “Why’d you make that face?”

“I dunno.” He gave me a once-over before looking back to the road. “I just can’t see you as a Lacey. Lacey is so dainty. Soft. Gwen’s strong. Beautiful and powerful.” He nodded. “Good choice.”

That warmth in my chest burned brighter, spreading all the way to my lips, lifting the edges of them high into my cheeks. “I think so too.”