Page 32 of Violent Little Thing

She may not have been driving the car that had hit them, but she sure as hell had been the reason they’d been drinking in the first place.

They’d come from the damn country club where she got served endless drinks.

She’d gotten pulled over halfway home and the cop hadn’t arrested her like they should have. Instead, the cop had suggested that the male companion with her drive.

He had, and had hit Koen on his way to go see Shaw.

Koen had died on impact, the force of the eighteen-wheeler hitting his truck killing him before he could feel any pain.

Ida Bell, however, was barely making it.

She was here, and she should definitely still be in the hospital.

I peeled my eyes away from Sonja’s grave and back to the grave in front of me.

Koen hadn’t been old enough to share with the club what he wanted to happen to his body after death, so they’d used the one and only cemetery in town and buried him in the area where all the Dixie Wardens who passed got buried.

“…devoted uncle. Man, I loved watching him make my babies laugh.” Koen’s brother-in-law wiped away his tears. “I was in Iraq, and he would send me these videos of the kids. They’d be full of laughter. The kids loved him so much.”

I looked down at my hands and tried to tune out the sadness.

There was a lot of it going around today.

I hated funerals.

Every single one I attended reminded me of Sonja’s.

I’d cried non-stop for days when I found out that I would be missing it.

I’d been too messed up to go, though.

But Seraphina hadn’t been.

She’d attended that funeral, I’d heard, and hadn’t shed a single tear.

I wanted to end her.

I wanted to erase her from the planet.

And as I sat there, listening to Koen’s brother-in-law talk about how a great uncle would be missed, I made myself a promise.

Seraphina was going to pay.

I would take everything that she loved in life, one by one. Then, when she was at her lowest, I’d take her stupid, idiotic life.

She would not live to see the end of the year.

Not if I had any say in it.

Nine

If anyone needs me, don’t.

—Charleigh to Court

Charleigh

Two months later