u/Green-Somewhere-1107

Once upon a time in a world far faraway, there rose above an endless sea of forest trees the most incredible kingdom the world of man had ever seen. Separate from the foliage below, this titan of man’s exuberance clawed at the sky with temples and turrets crafted from the most indomitable of stone.

Clad in a myriad of gold amidst its highest peak was a large man which many would herald as king. With dapper features and a mane of stubborn coal, he ruled his expansive kingdom much like a child would tend to his toys. There was never any danger, so long as the gates remained locked. The people were well fed and truly cared for, so long as they never looked outside.

For many years, the kingdom thrived overtop a canopy of thick entwined branches. There were fears of what lived within the forest’s depths, rumors spread of dark voices and bright eyes. Yet the boundary between man and nature was never crossed, and so the people grew content and comfortably complacent.

That is, until a young woman came stepping out from the bramble.

She was a wanderer of sorts. Endowed with the bright passions allotted through skillful song and delirious dance. Despite the cautious eyes of those who watched her, she would begin performing the kind of show which inspired greater joy within every witness throughout the stoic kingdom. Soon men, women, and children from all over came to spectate the performances brought to life by someone who hailed from the furthest reaches of the forest.

But then came the king from off his high golden throne. The whispers were rampant and had caught along the curve of his listening ear, and before long, he was determined to bear witness to the miracles performed by this young and mysterious woman.

She’d dance and she’d sing. Casting color from each toe and fingertip. The king, for all his immaturity, would fall immediately in love.

He’d three children already, all daughters born from different wives. But of this strange and eager artist, he made the choice for her in bearing him a fourth.

But the young woman did not love the king back. Her heart was already taken by the tall green forest that nurtured and freed her. She was a princess both precious and pure. A righteous innocence compressed into the fetching image of fortune, flesh, and bone.

But this did not stop the king, so reckless was he when it came to the things that he wanted. That despite the woman’s cries, he had her locked away within a gilded cage inside his cold stone castle. There she was forced to perform for him each day alone, and through the king’s own hubris, she eventually carried his fourth child completely to term.

She bore the king’s son along a white linen sheet, dyed gold from the heat of a roaring fireplace. He’d welcome his heir until laying sight upon the thing’s twisted form. It was howling a rapturous cry, desperate for the teat of his mother.

The fourth born child was born with crow’s feet, a cat’s eyes, a fox’s jaw. Each repulsive piece glistened new to the light in a way that championed the young woman’s joy.

“That’s my child!” She would say, gaunt and pale faced from exertion.

“It’s a monster!” The king would decry before feeding the infant into a flame.

There the beast would burn. While the king, in his anger, slew the love of his life. He spurned the forest which spawned her. So much so that he made it his purpose to tear it all down.

Once the fire had died, the ashes were shoveled and carried away. They were used to line the boundaries between both his world and hers. An offering almost, to help feed the forest. No one noticed the tiny child as it crawled into the trees.

From that day on, the gorgeous skies were turned to stone. The scent of a blistering flame became permanent. The vibrant forest fell away from the iron maw of an uprising kingdom and the scarred earth seemed to helplessly glisten with the tears of its children.

The child, on rickety legs, wandered the dark for many nights. He didn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. The agony of his burns kept him from ever finding peace.

Eventually, the boy’s persistence would give out, and he sought to rot away along the root and fallen leaves. He’d cling to this decision for many more days until the scent of smoke nearly choked him.

“The forest is dying.” Said a large black wolf.

“So am I.” Replied the child.

A wet muzzle would prod at the back of his head.

“You reek of him.”

Feline eyes sought to restrain worse tears.

“I am not his son.”

Many days would pass while the black wolf stood in vigil, watching as the child awaited the end of his life.

“The king will never love you. Not like I do.”

The forest grew silent as the boy counted the stars within the wolf’s dark eyes.

“But I can give you what you want. His heart, for yours.”

A touch of affection, the boy bathed his scarred hand in a sea of pitch-black fur.

“Promise?”

The wolf ate his heart then disappeared.

Beneath a gorgeous canopy of leaves, the boy would wait. For seven years he sought to prove patient. Then the day came when the wolf would return.

He brought with him a pair of legs. So long and pale and slender. They belonged to a dancer, the most graceful in all the kingdom.

The wolf would give the boy these legs.

“You have to eat the old ones.”

The boy would do as he was told. There fragile bones would catch in his throat.

The wolf would leave again, but now the boy could walk. For seven more years he danced throughout the forest, a graceful spirit hidden amongst the briar root and bramble.

One day, the wolf returned. He brought with him a mouth. With lips so luscious and a tongue that never tied. It belonged to a singer, the most captivating in all the kingdom.

The wolf would give the boy this mouth.

He needn’t repeat a command.

The boy would commit the same act as before. A mess of fur would catch in his throat.

The wolf would leave again, but now the boy could speak. For seven more years he danced throughout the forest, a haunting melody would follow his every pirouette.

One final day, the wolf returned. He brought with him this time a face. With delicate skin and a host of varied expressions. It belonged to an actress, the fairest in all the kingdom.

The wolf would give the boy this face.

But as the boy consumed the old one, the beast didn’t disappear.

“You must leave the forest.”

Fear gripped the boy as he swallowed.

“But go where?”

“Back to the kingdom.”

The iron maw had reached them.

Flames scorched the stone slab skies, leaving an amber glow to light the ruined forest land below. There were so very few trees left to match the field of death. It was dire, the state of things.

The wolf led the boy, now a young woman, to the boundaries between stone and green.

“Use the gifts that I gave you and meet with the king. Only then will my promise to you be achieved.”

With that, the wolf disappeared. And the young woman reentered the kingdom. No longer a thing of nature and ash, but a proud figure of talent and toil.

The kingdom had spread out over the earth. They buried its clear wounds under stone. The people were much less hospitable to her warmth, as though the king’s own madness had starved them of granting anyone but him affection.

Yet without hesitation, the young woman would start to sing. Then she moved along to a rhythm they’d soon come to covet. Soon rumors spread again of another performer. The king atop his stone pillar, seethed.

“Bring her to me.” The man would decree. And as the young woman made her way across the stone sea, there came hands that sought more than to laud her.

She was brought before the king’s golden seat. He was old now but still much a monster.

“Go on.” The king leered yet the young woman showed no signs of reluctance. She plucked out the memory of her mother then put on her greatest performance.

The king felt shame in the way she looked at him. Guilt from the words that the young woman uttered. There was fear in his eyes as he watched her bare legs. He was sobbing by the time she concluded her act.

“Tell me of your children.” The young woman said.

The king was a blubbering mess.

“Dead. The whole lot of them. I’ve failed them each as a father.”

His throne was less precious now than gold.

“My firstborn, sickness took her. She couldn’t walk near the end of her days.”

“And the second, a victim of awful seizures. She chewed her tongue off and choked on the swelling.”

“And the last, the poor thing, she got caught in a fire and burned aflame. By the time its light died out I couldn’t recognize her, let alone even look at her face.”

The young woman had shortened the distance between them. She held herself close once she uttered.

“But what, my liege, became of the fourth?”

The king would merely shudder.

“That was no child, but a beast the forest brewed.”

No sooner that he said this, the realization came from a closer inspection of absconded features.

“You.” The king withered, while the young woman stepped back. She threw off her garb and revealed the cruel revelation beneath. Perfect features, undone by a gnarled, scarred chest. A gaping hole where her heart once stood.

“I’ve come to reclaim what you never sought to offer.”

With a reaching hand, the young woman slipped it inside the king’s chest. She felt the muscle beat, its strong binds straining against her purposeful grip.

Then the final artery tore, and she was left holding her father’s heart for his crumbling kingdom to see. The king would watch as she placed the precious thing inside an open wound. The hole would quiet shut, then the fourth born would recede.

The kingdom fell that very same night. Crushed beneath its own weight of ancient stone. The people would recede from its husk while the trees returned to claim what had been unjustly taken.

Over time, the castle became a buried mountain. The king’s corpse, draped still in fool’s gold, the only evidence that life had once thrived there.

Yet the whispers still traveled of a young woman and her black wolf. Of the rare performances that would take place throughout the forest only once every seven years.

Men often spoke of her undying beauty. While the women would claim to have sometimes seen a cat or a fox or an owl. Nevertheless, those in attendance would always walk away in tears. Truly moved by the experience.

Moreover, there soon came the talk of small children. Adorned with both animal features and hides. Some were singers, some dancers, some writers, all dreamers. They spoke of their mother with pride.

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[CW: >!Child, Sexual, and Physical Abuse!<]

A simple cone of wintry sunlight caught itself along the hanging particles as they rested amid the still air. Greyson rested his spine along the concrete of his confined cell. He still possessed the newborn scars from excess bullet holes. However, the stitching had long since been pulled away.

He walked with a limp now, and his shoulder was quick to argue against the mandate of colder weather. But he was alive. Disgraced and draped in orange-colored coveralls. But still alive, nonetheless.

Greyson’s fall had occurred far quicker than he would have liked, though he understood that the worse details of his crimes were inevitable to uncover. And while Elias McDrummond was pronounced dead at the scene, his brother proved to be far luckier in terms of evading a similar fate.

He wasn’t spared a lifetime sentence, however, given the two had retained possession of their every victim’s uterus in glass jars down in the basement. Alice hadn’t been the first. Briar wasn’t intended to be the last. Greyson shivered just as soon as he recalled the young girl’s name.

Briar wasn’t spared a permanent cost for her injuries either. But so too had she managed to survive. Greyson hasn’t seen her since that morning. In some way, he’s happy that she doesn’t come around. The look on her face the last time he saw her… Greyson knew she had uncovered the full truth for herself.

She was eighteen now. Her birthday happened about two months back. And she was a mother now too. Greyson was served the papers for child support the week after his son was born. Briar had named the kid Allen. And Greyson was confident that he would never get to see him. Not while he was in here, nor when he got out.

The disgraced sheriff knew that was for the best. The child shouldn’t have to know how he was conceived. Greyson would have been a terrible father anyway. His track record for caring about those he loved was murky at best. He was all but ready to let Briar die just to keep himself from being revealed as a monster.

Seven years. As well as a lifetime worth of shame. Greyson was applicable for an early release should he showcase good behavior. He probably won’t push for it. Despite the terrible glares he elicits from other inmates, he felt safer inside than out there.

Though stripped of his title, Greyson still had a history of being important. And while his own colleagues have all but abandoned him, the potential for retribution keeps him quite safe. For now, the lie would have to be enough.

With a grunt, Greyson lifts himself off the floor and back to both feet. He got the news this morning. Briar sold the house and had since left the state. This was the final nail in the coffin, and he’ll be the first to admit, he cried. There would be nothing waiting for him out there. At times, he wished that there could be.

But the only thing he had now was a pious strength. He wanted to be better, and despite the sins that drove him here, he’d still chosen to do the right thing back when it mattered most. He bit the bullet and accepted what all would happen next.

He’d never escape the confirmation of being a pedophile. That was his comeuppance. And though it frightened him to no end, he accepted that. He was monster, but for all that it’s worth, he didn’t want to remain one forever.

Somewhere, a beat-up old jeep Cherokee traveled in a straight line down the highway. It wasn’t a smooth drive. Briar’s hands were still shaky. But she kept the sobriety chip she’d earned at eight months taped atop the dusty dashboard in front of her.

A baby slept in the car seat behind her. She’d persistently look at his reflection in the rearview mirror. He looked just like him. Briar would always cry at night because of that. But she didn’t blame the child. She gave up all her bad habits in order to take care of him. She wanted nothing more than to give him the life she threw away.

That meant letting Greyson go. That meant admitting the man was a monster. He’d beaten and raped his own wife, her sister. He forced himself upon her as a way to indulge his own urges. Briar had to admit that the hardest part about going to therapy was accepting she had been groomed. It hadn’t felt like it. In fact, Briar thought she had power. But at the age of fifteen, that simply meant nothing in hindsight.

She remembered how the two of them had been pulled apart after the authorities reached them on that bloodstained doorstep. Briar had promised Greyson that she would still be there. She insisted that she wouldn’t leave him. Briar had finally admitted to the pregnancy then. It was the lynchpin that put him in prison.

She tried visiting him a few times there at the beginning. But he refused to even see her. She had betrayed him. Worse than Gareth’s testimony. Worse than the evidence extrapolated from their phones and office cameras. To this day, she still thinks that he hates her. She fears the idea of her son ever meeting his father.

But that was what laid the foundations for her to finally stop drinking herself to death and get help. During the months that followed, she learned to see things clearly and understand that what was happening had never been alright. She was still at fault for a lot of things. Quite possibly too many. But when it came to her relationship with Greyson, she had been a victim.

Briar still wanted to apologize to Alice. She wanted to apologize to their parents. Perhaps, had Briar been honest with her sister about what happened from the start, she would still be here. Briar held onto a lot of regret in that regard.

Allen shifted in his sleep, and this was enough to bring Briar back to the present. She didn’t know where she was headed, but Briar knew that it was going to be alright. There was nothing but bright blue skies ahead, not a single cloud was in sight.

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[CW: >!Child, Sexual, and Physical Abuse!<]

Shards of broken glass crackled against the slow shifting shape of a dying man. Greyson felt the pain before even counting the number of holes several bullets had made in his corpse. There were three in his shattered shoulder, a fourth above the kneecap of his right leg. The fifth had missed completely, burying itself into the side of his next-door neighbor’s house.

The rain had ceased upon a breathless pause. An early morning fog having rolled in like a thick winter blanket. It was still dark, though uniform streetlamps ignited the haze a bloodstained amber. Greyson would open his eyes and notice Briar’s absence.

It was an immediate thing. He jerked himself upright, wincing once his wounded body begged for him to stop. He already knew who the culprits were behind this attack. They had spent the better part of an hour taunting him back at the precinct.

Yet somehow, they possessed the audacity to follow him home. Was the reason because he had made them feel threatened? Or were they simply tying up loose ends? As if through instinct, Greyson reached for his radio. But halfway through the effort, stopped.

There were several reasons why he moved away from calling for help. Greyson had never been a good man. He was only good at hiding away the worst of his sins. Now, as if through divine retribution, his crimes were poised upon the precipice of coming to light. Their exposure would ruin him. It would tarnish his legacy.

Even injured, he was still driven by a selfish want to keep the truth hidden. He had to be the one who brought his wife’s killers to justice. If not to solidify himself as her savior, then to keep the loose lips of those involved from ever revealing the terrible things he had done.

That meant fumbling with the keys as he questioned the need to hurry. It was vile, what he thought. But perhaps there was merit in granting the bastards an opportunity to commit the same atrocities upon Briar that they inflicted upon his late wife.

Greyson knew he couldn’t kill her himself. He loved that stupid girl too much to ever consider it. But to claim her loss as the unavoidable consequence of two spurned lovers… Alice had already proven herself disloyal, how hard could it be to levy that very same logic against a delinquent alcoholic?

The devil would hitch himself back against his seat, noting the significant loss of blood as something which could prove fatal. Whether he chose to let Briar die or not, both McDrummond brothers couldn’t survive otherwise risk letting things devolve into his word versus theirs. Should that happen, and more eyes start to pick apart the details, it wouldn’t matter what Greyson said. His crimes would loudly speak for him.

The end of the road was coming up on Greyson. The noose was chafing his neck, and he knew it was unavoidable. Perhaps, more so, this was fate. He knew the weight he put upon dark thoughts proved that his character was a poison. But Briar wasn’t like him. She was broken, sure. But she deserved a second chance.

Somewhere, a pair of dull eyes fluttered open. The pain Briar felt along the side of her face was immeasurable. She tongued a shattered tooth, its blunt nerve endings sending a violent static coursing down the back of her neck all while the biting cold of a concrete floor made it terribly apparent that she was naked.

She could smell her own blood, even taste it as copper phlegm clotted along the back of her throat. A short attempt taken to try and sit up was met with the realization that her hands and feet were bound. That was all though, Briar was able to eventually grit her teeth through the pain and prop herself up on both knees.

Then she heard the intake of someone else’s breathing. A sentry shuddered in the dark. “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." A flash of fire welcomed a persistent flame, illuminating the too-small space as it was pressed against a candle’s virgin wick.

Briar watched as the warm heat drew more alight, a second ignition repeating the process with an almost ritualistic hand. It didn’t take long to pick out the silhouette in the dark. “What sin is there for those amongst his kin who take up the gavel left cold from immobile hands?” Elias spoke less above a whisper, his dark eyes boring into the young woman’s own.

“God himself gave you his greatest miracle, to bring life into this world, yet you pervert this gift by using it to cast others into sin. Do you not abhor what you are doing? Does the guilt not grip your heart in a vice?” Gareth stood motionless in the corner, hatred pouring from his eyes. They were both still dressed in their wet clothes from earlier, Briar stared at the badge glinting against the cruel candlelight.

“I asked you a question.” Elias growled, but Briar replied with one of her own. “Why did you lie to me?” The context behind their last interaction still stung at the young woman’s cheeks. “I didn’t.” Elias insisted, lighting the final of five candles and leaving them settled at intervals along the concrete floor. He was sitting cross legged in front of her, his gun kept clacking against the stone.

“You told me that you didn’t kill my sister.” Briar fumed, but the officer still denied this. “And I spoke the truth. What happened to Alice was an unfortunate accident. I’ll admit that while I was sympathetic towards her plight, my brother simply wasn’t as willing to show her the same mercy.”

The dim light flickered from a faraway draft. This alluded to there having been an immediate exit inside this basement. Briar flicked her eyes about the place, notating the presence of plastic along the floor behind Elias. There were strange knives settled along its surface. Gareth was standing in front of the stairs.

“What did you do.” This wasn’t a question. Briar was buying for time. She didn’t know what was about to happen, but the end result that was her sister claimed that come whatever may, Briar was not supposed to survive it.

Elias chewed his tongue for a moment, staring at the bound Briar, then down at her chest. He’d lick his lips before speaking. “I was on patrol Tuesday night when a call came in asking if I’d investigate what sounded like a domestic disturbance. What prompted me to accept was the address. It belonged to Sheriff Walker.”

Dark eyes stole a vile look as the words tumbled nonchalantly from out his mouth. This turned Briar’s stomach. “I’d arrive about fifteen minutes later and Greyson was nowhere to be found. What I did find, however, was his wife. She had been unconscious. Asphyxiated, I presumed. And having clearly been sexually assaulted.”

He noticed the look of shock spill across Briar’s freckled features. “He didn’t tell you about that, did he?” She refused to give him an answer. Elias didn’t need one. “I initially followed procedure. I helped her cover up, took down her side of the events, and was even about to drive her over to the hospital. That was until she confessed to one specific detail.”

Leaning in closer to Briar, she could smell his sour breath. “I’m sure you know what that was. Considering you are fucking her husband.” He enjoyed the young woman’s look of utter shame. “She knew, Briar. It was why she tried looking elsewhere. Alice knew you took Greyson and felt helpless to stop it.”

Briar could barely breathe. She had wanted so badly for the opposite to be true. But why did Briar think it was better to hide what she was doing when she could have declined Greyson’s touch from the start? Was the alcohol really to blame? Or was it short and simply her fault for wanting to drag others into a self-destructive spiral?

“But why did you kill her?” Briar pled for this tragedy to make sense. Elias ceased in his subtlety so to indulge in a wild resentment. “Because her reasoning doesn’t exonerate your sister from what she has done! Greyson was a bastard, yes. And he got what was coming to him. But she chose to perpetuate sin rather than practice a steadfast grace!”

Elias stood up and started to pace. “Alice poisoned her garden! She was no woman! She was a whore!” Glaring at Briar, the man bored holes along the front of her belly. “And whores don’t deserve the miracles God gave them.”

Gareth bristled from his position beside the stairs. He had begun unbuttoning his shirt. “So I brought that wretched whore home and gave her to my brother. Much like I’m about to do with you. And when he’s thoroughly finished, I’ll carve out the miracle you fucking stole before beating the seventh commandment into your sinful skull.”

Elias receded from Briar, patting Gareth heavily upon the shoulder. “She’s all yours.” The hate slickening his tongue was white hot. His brother was grinning while he finished removing his clothes. Briar watched that pale, gangly form approach her with a purposeful stride. He’d fetch at a handful of messy blonde hair and drag her violently onto the plastic.

“I was gentle with Alice, but you…” Briar would land upon her side with a shout, a mess of metal met with a pair of captured hands. Gareth would drop to his knees and pick up another awful display of handspun horror. “I’m going to cut out all the snakes inside of you. I’ll ensure your garden is clean.”

Panic stiffened Briar’s posture, and she started kicking while a blade cut at braided fibers as well as her hands. Gareth would wrap a long arm around her legs and carve a jagged line into her thigh. Briar would immediately let out a scream.

Red slickened the plastic tarp while a tangled bind gave way. A writhing resistance knocked over a candle. Spilled wax caused Gareth to growl as his knee slipped into its heat. A second cut dragged itself up along the back of Briar’s calf. Tears hitched upon a secondary wail, her constricted throat making the sound all too strained.

Two more candles tipped over, and Elias started to realize that their placement might have been ill assigned. There were more shadows than light. The man would turn his back right as Briar took her chance to lash out. The wild blade stuttered along the noticeable ribs of Gareth’s chest. The serrated edge yanked and tore at uneven edges.

The monster would roar and kick himself back away from Briar. He’d upset what remained of a dancing light and the basement grew dark while Elias shouted out in anger. “What the hell happened!” Briar held her breath as she quickly started cutting at the rope binding together both ankles. Her bloodied hands would miss twice, and the blade would nick at her feet. She’d nearly bite off her tongue so as to not express a single sound.

Heavy boots began to bound up the stairs. Gareth was sobbing in the dark. Briar had only just managed to free herself when suddenly the basement lit up with a bright fluorescence. It temporarily blinded the girl, who had only just started to try and stand. The rage ringing out along her ruined leg insisted upon impaired tendons.

Elias had made it to the top of the stairs before flipping the switch. His uninjured hand was holding a firearm as he started back down. Briar had less than a moment to scan the empty basement before limping towards the large furnace settled along the far wall. “The fuck did you do!” Elias bellowed once he saw the state of his sibling.

A shot rang out right as Briar put the furnace between them, bits of concrete pelting her face as the bullet collided with stone. Elias had already crossed the room. Briar couldn’t help but let out a panicked shout once she felt him start grabbing at her.

The furnace was placed too close to the wall. It was a tight fit, but Briar forced her way through. She felt the rough concrete cut at her back while the active furnace blistered her stomach. She was only transitioning from one side to the other. Elias still stood between her and the stairs.

But he was angry. Ripping at her hair while she slipped through a space he was too large to navigate. Of course, the man would realize what all he had to do. Briar heard him recede so to cut her off on the other side. She was hoping for this. She still clutched a knife.

Elias made the mistake of holding his gun out in front of him. Briar immediately struck at his hand the moment she spotted it. The gun barked and she felt the expunged bullet pass through her shoulder. She dropped the knife, though it clattered to the floor alongside three severed fingers and a firearm.

Then came the roar, Elias staggering back as the agony took a momentary precedence. Briar took the chance to take flight towards the stairs. Dragging her compromised leg behind her as she fought to make it out of the basement.

She didn’t have long before these monsters would chase after her. In a panic, she hoped that there would be safety if she could just make it outside. “You whore!” Elias screamed out from below. She heard the clatter as he retrieved his gun from the floor. He was coming.

The basement had let out into the kitchen. It was pristine, albeit besides the wet pile of her clothes that sat a mess inside the sink. The closest exit led into the hallway. Briar would nearly slip as her blood slickened the red cedar floorboards.

But she saw the front door just ahead. The dim blue light of an early morning seeped in through the open blinds of a living room window. Briar heard Elias make it to the kitchen. He knew exactly where she was going. The walls shook against his thundering weight. Briar had pulled aside the active deadbolt before dragging open the door.

It would crash against the wall right as Briar came face to face with Greyson. She barely felt the bullet pass through her side. The Sheriff unloaded both barrels of his shotgun down the hallway. Briar fell into Greyson. He caught her, before collapsing a mess inside the doorway.

He’d hold her while she stared. Wide-eyed. Oddly unafraid. The two clung to one another until they inevitably heard the sirens. The rising sun had begun coaxing away the early fog while a cascade of red and purple billowed below the fading presence of nighttime stars. The weather today called for clear open skies, zero chance of rain.

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[CW: >!Child, Sexual, and Physical Abuse!<]

“Please state your name for the record.” Thomas spoke clearly, gesturing towards the microphone. “Gareth Lee McDrummond” Came the response. The two were seated inside a small white spackled room. A tin table having punctuated the meager space while two chairs granted the guise of comfort.

Greyson was standing stock still within the corresponding room. A thick window settled in front of him. One-sided glass. He wasn’t being clever. Briar sat in the corner, hiding her face beneath a mess of tangled hair while another officer as well as Elias McDrummond stood to either side of the sheriff.

“Now we have reason to suspect you attempted to interact with Alice Walker three days before her murder.” The harsh fluorescence clung to a combed backed head of greasy hair. Thomas attempted to hide the developing bald spot despite possessing a wealth of well-trimmed facial hair.

Gareth kept his green-eyed attention on the interrogating officer. Thin limbs folded with a casual grace. “I did in fact message her, sir. Though I had no idea she was killed. My condolences to her husband.” Greyson tightened his fists until the knuckles popped.

“Were you close with the victim?” This was a guided question. Gareth shook his head full of long blonde locks. “Not at all. We met a few times in passing. Acquaintances of acquaintances. I believe she was a teller at the bank across the street where I work.”

Thomas leaned towards the microphone. “Could you state your occupation?” Gareth complied, revealing a lean posture adorned with muscle that peeked beyond the confines of a loose shirt. “I’m a sales rep in telemarketing. Basically, I’m the guy you usually hang up on after I mention why I’m calling.” A short measure of laughter ensued. Thomas nodded then gestured for the man to continue.

“Like I said, I’ve only met Alice a handful of times. We never exchanged anything besides simple pleasantries. I got her number from the dating app we were both using.” Greyson shut his eyes for a moment and tried to breathe. He didn’t notice Elias watching him. But so too was Briar staring at McDrummond.

“The contents of your message appear confusing.” Thomas replied. “It reads, and I quote, ‘are you proud?’. Could you explain what you meant by this?” Gareth glanced at the window then nodded. “I’ll admit, it does sound like an accusation. But what I meant was for her to reply with something with a bit more substance than ‘who are you’.” Again, more laughter.

“I thought if she responded with something resembling ‘how so?’, I would have then made mention of how attractive I thought she was. We were both using the same dating app, so I assumed she was available. Or at least in an open relationship.”

Thomas nodded. “So for the record, your message wasn’t malicious or meant as a threat?” Gareth just kept laughing. “Of course not! It was simply my fumble at being flirtatious. Seriously, you act as though her husband wasn’t aware of what she was doing!” Greyson took a step back. Elias prodded him. “Are you alright, sir?”

This was too much. Greyson felt helpless. “I just need some air.” He’d mention before stepping outside. Briar poised herself along the edge of her seat, prepared to pay more attention to the interview occurring beyond the thin glass.

Greyson punched the wall opposite just as soon as the door closed behind him. This caught the attention of several individuals further down the hall. “Correct me if I’m wrong.” Gareth grinned. “But was Sheriff Walker unaware of his wife’s infidelity?”

Thomas maintained a stoic stare. “I’m not at liberty to discuss that, Mr. McDrummond.” This was all the proof Gareth needed. He’d lean forward in his seat, pointing a more serious stare at the officer. “You know marriage is a particularly holy affair, Officer Gentry? It’s a sin to make such vows when there’s no weight behind their value.”

A subtle irritation trailed across the table. “I’ve been married thirty-eight years, son. Trust me when I say that I’m in it for the long haul.” Gareth nodded comfortably at him. “The world needs more good people like you, Officer Gentry. There are far too many who think quite differently and present the gift God gave them like an open market for fools to sully.”

Briar shifted in her seat. Something about what he said had managed to affect her. Gareth would then wipe his face clear of any serious intonations and lean back in his seat. “I guess it appears I dodged a bullet!” Thomas held his tongue. Elias did not. “Could you check on Greyson, Jim? I know he’s investigating his wife’s murder. I wouldn’t want him to miss anymore of this interview than he has to.”

The officer beside him nodded, then exited the room. This left only Briar and Elias. “Again, my condolences to Sheriff Walker. I can only imagine the hell he must being through right now.” Gareth didn’t lose his smile, Briar made note of that.

“My brother is right, you know.” Elias whispers, turning his attention to the small girl in the room. His face was plain, but the calm behind his eyes was horrifying. “People claim to want and abide by the rules, except when it applies to them. You know this all too well, don’t you.”

Briar stared at the man. “You killed my sister.” The accusation made Elias laugh, he sounded so much like his brother. “That’s quite the high crime. But I didn’t kill her.” The man took a closer step towards the door. “Perhaps you should be asking the man you’re fucking what else he got up to the night his wife died.”

With that, he exited the room. Leaving Briar all alone to witness the final comments made beyond a thin glass wall. “For the record, where were you Tuesday night?” Briar was pinned against the backseat of a truck, biting her wrist as Greyson thrust himself aggressively inside her. “I was at home asleep. I had work first thing in the morning.”

“Is there anyone that can confirm your whereabouts?” Greyson and her had been arguing about something. Briar couldn’t remember the specifics. She was drunk and besides, they were always fighting. But that night in particular, Greyson seemed even more incensed.

“My brother, Elias. He got off work late but stayed up most of the night watching tv. I was passed out in the armchair next to him. We both left for work at the same time.” Briar hadn’t been home the night before. She was busy chain smoking while riding out a manic episode in her car. She paused just long enough to have sex with Greyson, then spent the rest of an early morning drinking and driving until Officer McDrummond pulled her over.

She had wanted to tell Greyson that her period was late, and what that could entail, but fear had gotten the best of her. It was why she thought drowning her stupidity in liquor was a good idea. Perhaps she wasn’t pregnant. Maybe the alcohol would make sure of that.

“I think that’s all we wanted to ask you. Thanks for taking the time to come out and talk with us, Mr. McDrummond. We’ll reach out if we have any other questions.” Gareth would stand up from his seat and shake the officer’s hand. “Glad to be of help, hopefully this tragedy can see sufficient justice.”

Thomas held the door open for the man, and the two would exit the scene. Briar sat silent for a longer moment before slowly getting up from her own seat. Her trust in Greyson was shaken. But maybe there was a considerable worth found in occasionally taking off her rose-tinted glasses.

She’d step outside and find Greyson pushing at Elias. “I don’t give a shit what you say, I want to interrogate Gareth myself!” He was making a scene. A crowd was forming at the opposite end of the hall. However, once his dark eyes landed upon Briar, he stopped yelling.

Briar didn’t wait for him. Instead, she took off down the hallway before pushing past the spectating officers. She needed air. She needed time to think. Her sister was dead, and she was scared that Greyson may have had more to do with it than he let on.

The storm still hadn’t settled, but Briar refused to remain inside the station. She stopped along the sidewalk, desperate for a smoke, a drink, anything to numb her head to the chaos that swirled inside it. But she couldn’t escape. Greyson pushed his way beyond a set of double doors. He was calling out her name.

“Briar!” The quivering girl didn’t turn around. She felt him approach, however. His towering form dwarfing her own. “Rose, what’s wrong.” This was enough to coerce tears. “Why did you come looking for me?” The question caught Greyson off guard. “Because you looked upset.” Briar finally turned around, casting him a wet glare.

“No, I mean the night Alice died! Why did you have to come find me?” Greyson didn’t know how else to respond. “I don’t know.” He was lying. Briar could tell. “Because I needed you.” His admission did more than make Briar’s heart soar, but she swallowed those wings back down. “Why?”

Greyson started looking side to side. “We can’t talk like this out here…” He started, but Briar violently pushed him. “Why!” Greyson understood that there was no stopping this, so he grabbed at her wrist then dragged her into the alley alongside the station.

She’d follow, but just barely. Greyson had only managed to cart her a few feet outside the easy observation of any eavesdroppers when she chose to dig in her heels. “I demand an answer, Greyson!” Despite shouting, the storm overhead took precedence.

Greyson presented her with a defeated look. He had kept the night in question buried just as deep as the death of his son. He had been determined to keep it that way. “Dammit, Rose! You want to know why? Because Alice told me that she wanted a divorce, alright? She finally decided that she was sick of my bullshit and wanted to fucking leave.”

Briar paused, taken aback. “She asked for a divorce?” Greyson grimaced at the repetition. “That night, she confronted me when I came home. She didn’t say anything about you and I, but she told me that it was obvious I didn’t love her anymore. We fought and I left. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went to find you.”

Pain pierced the place Greyson assumed his heart languished. “Like an idiot, I took it out on you. And we both know what that led to. When I went back home, she was gone. I assumed she didn’t want to be in the same house as me anymore. Then when you didn’t come back either, I decided fuck all and went to bed until it was time for work.”

Briar was becoming inconsolable. She wanted to believe him. But did that mean Officer McDrummond lied? Why? What actually happened to Alice? “Did you hurt my sister?” Greyson reeled back in response. “What, you think I killed her?” This wasn’t what Briar was asking. “Did you hurt her?” Briar’s insistence made Greyson crumble.

“I was angry.” That was all he would give. Greyson knew the consequences should he admit to having been the one to assault his own wife. “But I didn’t fucking kill her.” This was true. He only had to convince Briar of that.

The falling rain soaked them both. Yet it failed to wash away the many sins they accrued both together and apart. “You promise?” All at once, Greyson became incredibly aware of just how young the small, slender thing in front of him was. He shifted his diaphragm, making sure he wouldn’t stutter. “I promise.”

They held each other’s gaze for several long moments, before Briar finally let out a heavy breath and leaned into his chest. She was exhausted. So too was Greyson. He wasn’t sure if sleep could ever be awarded to sinners such as them, but it was worth an honest try.

There was little more he could do right now anyway. Not without driving himself into the ground at least. “Come on.” He’d gently try and usher Briar. She’d acquiesce, but not without first kissing him. They’d pull each other close then hold on for dear life. Neither one of them noticed the pair of eyes staring at them.

Briar would be the one to conclude an offered intimacy by claiming that she was cold. Greyson would nod and the two would then move to get back into his truck. Again, the drive was chaperoned by silence, but the tension had become a distant thing.

It was a temporary peace. And it heralded a return to sin should the two be left to share a bed alone. They left behind a great deal of chaos. Looming questions having finally burnt the wick of Greyson’s authority quite thin. Perhaps that meant tonight stood as the eye amidst a storm. Perhaps a steep exhaustion romanticized the idea of a proper rest.

The radio would crackle as the truck pulled up into an empty driveway. The house was empty. There was no Alice there to greet them. Briar noticed it first. Whereas Greyson blinked a few more times, hoping that the scene would change.

Then he turned off the truck. Thick raindrops pelted against the hood, a persistent rhythm. Perhaps they’ll see the sun tomorrow. It was summer still, though the rain hadn’t stopped since Alice had died. Greyson would open his door first. Briar followed his lead but overheard the footsteps.

“Wait.” Greyson would turn towards her quizzical face just in time to see a pair of hands reach in and abruptly grab her. Glass spit against the side of his head as several shots rang out and pelted his shoulder. The successive series of impacts were accentuated by the rough collision of a heavy boot against the door.

It collided with Greyson’s skull and he effectively stopped moving. Slumping over the steering wheel as blood quickly soaked through his button shirt as well as poured from the deep cut above his ear. Briar tried screaming but a firm hand landed over her mouth. She was kicking as her ass landed hard upon the concrete outside the vehicle.

She put up a good fight, just like her sister, until she made the mistake of biting the hand muffling her cries. It heralded the hiss of a large man, then came the one two punch as he beat her upside the head. Briar would drop like a stone, unconscious as a blurry vision faded in and out. Her glasses were made askew. The right lens adopted a spiderweb.

It didn’t take long for an accomplice to hurry over. “The sheriff dead?” One voice would ask. The second man turned on his heel and fired two more times into the cabin. “He better be.” The storm howled against the gunshots echo. Briar was then picked up by the two of them. To her dismay, it was an easy feat. She tried counting each breath in an attempt to keep from passing out, but eventually, the darkness took her.

1 2 3 4

[CW: >!Child, Sexual, and Physical Abuse!<]

Once more, the rain conceded to a softer refrain. The wiper blades were hesitant in screeching across the windshield, despite having accumulated enough moisture to warrant their use. Greyson was quiet again, keeping his dark eyes upon the road as Briar sat uncomfortably in the passenger seat.

The better weight of their shared sin was still inside her, she’d never thought to purge. It made for messier bottoms as the bumps and divots provided by unkempt roads brought the two of them towards the east and lesser side of their ineffectual city.

“It’ll take time before a name is connected to that other number.” Greyson explained. Briar knew that it was far simpler than that. But the bastard wanted to face the man who had long stolen her sister’s heart. Greyson was wounded, obviously. Briar was starting to notice how much more erratic he was acting.

He wanted to prove something, whatever for. This wasn’t about bringing Alice’s murderer to justice anymore. Perhaps that should’ve meant Briar had assumed the responsibility of telling Greyson to stop, to let go. She knew that he wasn’t searching for answers, but rather the type of closure which would make his reprehensible actions all the more palatable to the public.

Briar knew that she was underage. She’d heard it pointed out many times whenever it came to condemning her self-reliance on drinking. But that was the long and short of it, eh? She wasn’t eighteen. Without Alice there to present a preferable pantomime, Greyson was at risk of being seen as a predator. Briar didn’t challenge this, though she knew it wouldn’t blow over. Greyson was in a notable office. He was also thirty-three.

He’d already stumbled past one hurdle, given the quiet discourse regarding the age gap between him and Alice after they both got married. But what kind of defense could he offer now, when they both have been intimate since Briar was fifteen?

There was, of course, a problem there. Which was something that Briar couldn’t look past no matter how hard she fought to ignore it. She knew it could mean the end of his career, maybe even a prison sentence. But what if she was okay with that? What if beyond the punishment, the two of them could still be together?

She wouldn’t fail in giving him a son. Perhaps that would make her sufficient? Briar would glance over at the man sat in the driver’s seat, silently begging him to touch her. But Greyson wouldn’t shift, he was far too focused to ascertain anything beyond following the path set before him. He was going to get answers, even if the man he was looking to find had nothing to do with what happened to Alice.

He’d already begun to notice the whispers forming along the lips of his colleagues, callous quips as to why he carried around the dead weight of a drunkard sibling. What time he had left to defend his station was notably waning, if it hadn’t gone up in flames entirely.

“Travis Garrison.” The name stung at the back of his throat like a swallowed thorn. “What did Alice mention about him?” Briar would watch him for a moment before shrugging a pair of slender, freckled shoulders. “Besides him just being a good friend? Not much. I never met him, personally. What, you want me to say that my sister thought he had a really big dick?”

Greyson was about to rip the steering wheel from off the console. “I just want you to tell me if maybe at some point, Alice had mentioned he was acting strange.” His words were increasingly volatile, though his chiseled face was set in stone. Was Briar prodding at him again? Did she find his own worth less than satisfactory?

“Am I…” The pointed mention came off as begrudgingly crude, so Greyson stopped. Briar noticed. “I like it.” This wasn’t reassuring, though he didn’t know what else to expect. Again, Briar noted the silence. “Do you want me to gush over it, or?” Greyson bit his tongue then responded. “I’d rather we drop the subject.”

Once more, the tension rose as several street signs passed. “I personally think that it’s really big.” Briar persisted but the bastard doth protested. “I said drop it!” A second left made for a less lively streetside, albeit the rain kept pouring down. It wasn’t until the two arrived at a specific residence that Briar sought to further twist a gutting knife.

“You’re the only one I’ve had, okay? Can you stop acting like a child?” Greyson slammed his side of the truck shut and took towards approaching a villain’s front door. Briar had to rush in order to keep from being left behind.

They’d both eventually arrive along the merciful perch in front of a clawed screen door. The owner must have owned several cats. Greyson knocked three times then pressed the doorbell. Briar poked her head back out beneath the partition and held her tongue out to catch the flood.

After what had to have felt like eternity, the front door clicked then dragged itself open. “What’s up?” Said the man in loose pajama bottoms, his hair a long length and torso built from ages of struggle. Greyson tried not to stare too long at his crotch, a struggling strain along his own mast accompanying the emphatic bore belonging to his wife’s lover.

“Travis Garrison?” Again, the name derided shrapnel along a heady esophagus. The man would slightly nod, unable to take his gaze away from the shivering Briar. “You look-” His question came unprovoked, but it admonished Greyson from what he did next.

A storm door was drawn wide open, and the sheriff then propelled a strong fist into the nape of another’s neck. Travis would lower his posture in response, reeling backwards while Briar claimed a sure shock. “The hell?” Her disparagement didn’t stick. Greyson shoved the man backwards while taking the first step inside of his home. A pair of orange cats took this as their chance to bolt.

Travis touched down along his ass while Greyson loomed far, far above him. “You know of an Alice Walker?” This mention brought a wide stare to envelop a stubbled face. “She was my wife!” Greyson planted another blow along a left eye, curling the other man backwards until his head spit red along the coat closet behind him.

“Greyson!” Briar cried, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him back. “What the fuck are you doing?” A baby cried from further inside. Greyson stopped just as soon as he heard it. “I just wanted to talk.” He growled, unaware that what he just did would surely come crawling back for recompense. “This bastard was fucking Alice!”

Briar understood, but she didn’t let go of his hand. “And you’re the fucking sheriff!” This was true, though Greyson didn’t want to admit it at the time. Soon a second person emerged from further down the hallway. A meager thing, she clenched a newborn child to her breast while working her way over to Travis.

“What the hell are you doing?” Her words tore across Greyson’s face while blood poured down along another’s. “I’m sorry!” Claimed the downed man, his eye a bloodied mess. “She didn’t tell me that she was married!”

Chaos reigned while a partner grew silent. “What?” Briar persisted in pulling at Greyson’s wrist. “She kept telling me how she felt alone! I couldn’t help it!” The rain kept falling while Greyson stood there, unabsolved. “It was exciting, making her feel good. I know my girlfriend just had our daughter, but I was obsessed with how simple things were with Alice!”

Greyson stared down at the man, almost fetal in his defeat. He refused to say anything, almost as if to do so meant admitting that this coward had actually managed to woo the love of his life. Greyson would err upon Briar’s pull and take a step back. The man’s partner stood silent within the foyer.

“You told me that this would stop.” She relented. Greyson knew he had won but the cost had been the same. He closed the front door before stepping back towards the truck. Briar stopped him with an angered push. “What the hell are you doing?” It was enough to make Greyson think. Just what was he doing? Seeking vengeance? Distributing blame?

Travis had looked so much closer to Alice’s age. Exactly what was the point in expressing rage? Greyson had failed to keep her. This was his own damn fault. Yet why did he still think that it was possible to claim Briar? He touched her hand calmly. She grew increasingly subdued. “You don’t deserve me.” This was self-flagellation, it didn’t answer the question.

Several steps pointed the disillusioned man back towards the truck. Briar followed but kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t until they both fled from out the rain and an engine rolled over that Greyson chose to make a point. “I’m not like him.” He was playing for sympathy.

Briar didn’t think twice before reaching out to grasp at his shoulder. “You don’t need to be.” A lesson learned far too late, Greyson pulled her close and kissed her. She didn’t stop him, but Greyson noticed something wrong with her touch. She didn’t know any better. He was still taking advantage of this. Pulling back, he fought against the eager expression along her freckled face.

The radio crackled but didn’t come to life. Instead, his pocket shivered and he pulled the addled thing from out his pants pocket. There was a match. A particular name attached to the unknown number that had messaged his wife. A better autopsy report was also delivered to the messy contents of his office desk. Another reminder that he was running out of time.

Gareth McDrummond. Greyson didn’t inform the young woman sitting next to him as he put the truck into drive. He already knew what she would say, but he was sure the warning wouldn’t matter. A message played upon the front of his mind as a renewed path followed. He’d already tasted blood, now was the time to claim his pound of flesh.

Briar was still feeling sick while she watched Greyson pull away from the mess he’d just made, yet she didn’t think to say another word. The side of him she just saw, it frightened her. Just as well, it made her feel completely helpless while the blinded beast beat the front of another man’s face in.

Too small. Briar sunk her teeth into the very root of the issue while Greyson made for a forward path. She never should have told him the password to her sister’s phone. He deserved to be left in the dark if all he was going to do was hurt more and more people.

Yet who was she to argue? Whether Alice was aware of what her little sister was doing behind her back or not, Briar had chosen to hurt her in the worst way possible. Was it her fault that the pain couldn’t stop? Could it stop? Briar was beginning to suspect the man beside her was suffering from a restless cycle. One that would only keep spinning until he chose to eat the bullet.

“Where are we going now?” She’d ask, careful not to further goad the beast. Greyson took a series of deep breaths, then responded. “We’re going to apprehend a suspect.” Briar raised a brow. “You know who may have killed Alice?” The sheriff nodded, though this was more so to center himself. “Possibly.”

Again, the interaction stalled, and silence took precedence inside the warm cabin. “So, got a name?” She was insistent. Understandable given the circumstances. “Gareth McDrummond.” Greyson growled through grit teeth. Briar acted like she knew the man.

“Wait, the asshole who arrested me yesterday?” Close, but Greyson shook his head. “That was Elias. I’m talking about his brother.” This closed the conversation for a moment while Briar chewed her tongue. “I don’t think I know a Gareth.” Greyson nodded this time. “Neither did Alice.”

Another long drive, this time towards the other side of the city. Closer to the highway and Frank Harland’s farm. Greyson tightly gripped the steering wheel as harsh thoughts took to challenging his pride. Unlike Travis Garrison, the perpetrator behind his wife’s murder didn’t seek consent before violating her. Nor did he appear to have any shame in gutting her afterwards.

Pushing at the transmitter to his radio, Greyson called in to the station. “This is Sheriff Walker, can I get an update as to the background check on a Gareth McDrummond?” Static persisted for several seconds before a response came from the other line. “They’re still running his name through the database, sir. What Thomas sent you is all we’ve managed to gather so far.”

This was progress. “Affirmative. I’m about to see if he’s at home.” Again, static. Followed by a much more unsure answer. “Should you really be making that call, sir?” Greyson didn’t provide the operator with a response. He knew that what he was doing still shirked the responsibility he should have been portraying given his title and office.

Briar noticed his hesitation. “We shouldn’t be the ones doing this.” She knew as well as Greyson that tragedy often followed those who sought vigilante justice, but he wouldn’t be deterred. The sheriff felt that coarse texture rubbing against his neck. The noose was tightening. The pieces were falling far quicker into place than he could hurry.

Compromises, compromises. Perhaps by the end of this, Greyson could at least keep himself out of prison. He probably wouldn’t be able to retain his position. But at least he’d still be eligible to receive a pension. The rain had started to ebb as they reached the appropriate destination. He parked the truck outside of a one-story house. There were no cars in the driveway.

The windows were dark, but the porch light was on. It failed miserably to expel the steep grey of dour weather. “It doesn’t look like anyone is home.” Briar mused. She wasn’t comfortable with having Greyson lose his composure during another confrontation. He wasn’t certain he could restrain himself either.

“You stay here.” He demands. “Are you stupid?” That was painfully blunt. Briar didn’t trust him. He’d earned this. How long would it take for him to regain her confidence? They both left the vehicle along opposite sides. Greyson made sure he had his gun before moving towards the front door.

Would he use it? That would make things easier. If Gareth was really the culprit, there was a chance his taunting message meant that he knew about his relationship with Briar. If he tried to use that as leverage… Greyson turned the safety off.

This was a terrible mistake. Briar noticed. “What the hell, Grey? We don’t even know if this guy is guilty!” She’d stop halfway across the wild spread lawn, bristling. Greyson was starting to realize that bringing her along had been a terrible idea.

Despite the years of numbing her head with excess amounts of alcohol, she still had a conscience. Briar wasn’t intending to seek a spectator status while Greyson navigated a darker path. She had feelings for him. Violent feelings that hurt everyone around her, but feelings all the same.

Greyson was considering murder. Briar wanted a family. He was willing to achieve any length if it meant self-preservation. She wouldn’t let him throw everything away. Did she know that if Greyson found himself cornered, he wouldn’t think twice about cashing her in as collateral?

The sheriff reengaged the safety to his firearm. This wasn’t enough to make the girl stop shaking. This led Greyson to let out an audible sigh, before stepping up and wrapping both arms around Briar. He’d kiss her. Once, then twice. “I won’t let it go that far.”

He was lying. Briar didn’t care. She kept glaring at him for a moment more, then returned an intimate gesture. “Good, because I won’t let you.” This was a promise. This was a problem. “Can I help you?” Officer Elias McDrummond spoke up from just within earshot. He was exiting his car. Greyson hadn’t even noticed him pull up into the driveway.

The two would quickly pry themselves away from one another. Briar was blushing deep. Greyson tried to take charge of the situation. “Elias! I didn’t see you at the station today!” He fumbled the recovery. “Because it’s my day off?” Officer McDrummond moved towards the backside of his vehicle and popped open the trunk.

“You have business with me?” He didn’t take his stare off of Briar. Greyson was kicking himself, he knew Elias had seen them. The noose proved taut enough to stifle his breathing. Rumors were sure to start spreading just as soon as Officer McDrummond returned to work.

“Actually, I was wondering if your brother was home?” He hadn’t knocked yet. But the dark house was proof enough that maybe no one else was home. Elias pulled a few bags of groceries out the back of his car. “Why?” He was defensive. But of course the man would be protective of his sibling.

Greyson didn’t try to drag things out any further. “I need to bring him in for questioning. We have his phone number, amongst others, that attempted communication with Alice days before her death.” Elias maintained a stoic face. “Was she getting around, sir?”

Briar didn’t hesitate to grab Greyson’s hand. Elias saw this. “Were you?” Greyson felt his mouth run dry despite the high humidity. He yanked his hand out of Briar’s grasp. “Is Gareth home or not?” Elias used his elbow to shut the trunk. “Most likely, but I’d rather someone other than you escort him to the precinct. Would it work if I brought him in myself?”

Greyson could’ve argued, but Elias was notorious for abiding by every rule and mandate. To deny him this would only cause further issues. Greyson didn’t believe the man would wait until he resumed work to start a fuss.

“Of course, but you’ve got an hour.” This was all he could demand. “It is of the utmost precedence that I ask him a few questions before the day is over.” Elias shook his head. “That’s a conflict of interest, Sheriff. I’ll bring Gareth in, but you are not going to be the one to interview him.”

Greyson’s hands were shaking. “Fine. Thomas will do so in my stead.” This was enough to satisfy the officer. “Alright, see you at the station.” Greyson watched as the man then traversed the short distance to his front door. He’d glance back at Briar before disappearing inside.

It was a long walk back to the truck. Briar remained quiet as Greyson sat motionless in the driver’s seat. “Fuck!” He bellowed, slamming both fists against the steering wheel. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Briar tried to touch him, but he flinched away, nearly striking her. “Don’t fucking touch me!” He’d snap, turning over the engine before peeling out into the slickened street.

1 2 3

[CW:>!Child, Sexual, and Physical Abuse!<]

‘The sins of a false father, a mother’s turncoat seed. A cost accrued from the Leyrwite, a price to err in greed.’ Greyson read these words again from his perch behind an old oak desk. He scanned the page over and over until Briar eventually stepped back into his office.

He’d glance up at her frail frame as she closed the door behind her. “Feeling better?” He’d ask, noting Briar having gotten sick shortly after witnessing her sister’s ransacked insides. She’d lick her lips and nod. “It was just… a lot.” Her voice was quiet. She was scared. Greyson was intrigued by this fact but chose to remain seated despite the implication.

Briar would find a place to sit along the worn leather couch opposite his desk. A mess of paper had been shoved aside so to make room for the white cardboard box Greyson had plucked out of the evidence closet. “What are you looking at?” She’d ask, and though Greyson really didn’t want to reveal this particular piece of information, he passed it along to her regardless.

“It was inside her mouth.” He’d explain, hoping to diminish the specifics. Briar took to reading the short rhyme a few times before bringing her eyes back to his. “Did Alice know about us?” Straight to the point, Greyson felt a sick pang in his stomach as she spoke. “If she didn’t, there’s a chance our culprit did.”

He didn’t sugarcoat his answer. Briar winced, lowering her gaze. “It should’ve been me.” Greyson growled at the mention. “No, it shouldn’t.” Briar immediately fought back. “Why? Alice was punished because I couldn’t stop myself from screwing around with her husband. In what way am I more worthy than she was to live?”

Greyson ground his teeth for a moment, reaching out and taking back the piece of paper. It was stiffer now that it had dried, almost refusing to want and be folded back up. “This also raises the question as to whether she was messing around too.” Briar frowned. “How do you know that?” He didn’t. But neither could Greyson bear to think that he was the only monster. “Why would somebody catch us being intimate, then decide to kill the victim?”

Briar looked sicker after hearing that. It was confirmation. Greyson was worried she wouldn’t ever let him touch her again. “So, you think she had to have been cheating?” Greyson didn’t admit that he was desperate to believe this.

“Did she ever say anything out of the ordinary? Perhaps something that made you feel like she could have known something?” Briar reeled back at his words. “If she did, do you seriously think that I would have kept fucking you?” Absolutely. But Greyson didn’t say this. Instead, he changed his tactics.

Shoveling about the evidence box, he eventually came across what he was looking for. He’d pull it out and Briar would eye the phone apprehensively. “I used to know her password, but things got complicated after… everything that happened.”

Placing the phone in front of Briar, Greyson persisted. “But as her sister, surely Alice didn’t think to keep everything a secret from you.” He was reaching, hoping that after an extended time having been barred from reading his late wife’s messages, Briar could grant him a renewed passion.

But the gaunt woman simply shook her head. “I never cared enough to ask. What Alice got up to was her own business. What are you implying?” Briar was smarter than Greyson gave her credit. He didn’t try to soften his words. “I’m just saying, she clearly wanted to hide something. Maybe…”

Briar grew furious. “You think I know if my sister was sleeping with anybody behind your back?” Greyson may have pushed his luck, but to him, it was worth applying pressure. “We’ve been intimate for, what, over two years? And yet you’ve never once showed any regret in fucking your sister’s husband?”

He went too far. Briar was holding back tears. “Maybe because I wanted you more than she did?” This sent a pain riding up along Greyson’s chest. Again, she was being vulnerable. And with that mere admission, he wanted nothing more than to pull Briar apart and have his way with her.

But this wasn’t foreplay. He was attempting to implicate his surrogate lover with what amounted to his own assumed hearsay. Greyson closed his mouth and retrieved the phone. Briar was still fighting against the urge to cry. What was he doing? Alice was dead. Did this really warrant due cause in assassinating her character?

He’d remove the phone from its plastic wrapping and touch at the screen. It came to life without much effort. There was still a decent charge left in the thing. “This isn’t your fault.” He quietly stated, though Briar was already impacted by what he inferred.

Greyson tried to guess at the password, but neither the day of their wedding nor his birth date applied. He was growing frustrated. “Have you tried his name?” Briar wasn’t trying to prod this time, though the accusation that Greyson wouldn’t have thought to use the expectant name of a stillborn child caught him off guard.

Timothy. A locked façade fell away to the cruel presence of a busy home screen. It still possessed the wallpaper of an initial ultrasound. Greyson set down the phone and took a breath. This was the most he had felt for Alice in a long time. Something about the way he had chosen to hide away from a shared trauma only causing his heart to race.

Alice refused to forget. Perhaps she wasn’t able. That day in the hospital hadn’t left the zeitgeist of their memory, though as if to keep from being human, Greyson buried it deep. Six months into her pregnancy, they both had already started wandering places which excelled in the offer of infant needs. They had looked at blankets, clothes, even a cradle to keep their baby swaddled in.

It was all set to hit a full stop just as soon as they’d both gone in for a basic checkup and ultrasound. The room was made dark while a thin screen showed shapes depicting the inside of a uterus. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

The doctor and nurse were optimistic, but it was clear they were concerned by the lack of a heartbeat. Greyson remembered standing there, off to the corner while his wife kept asking questions. “It that weird?” She held out hope. “Is he okay?”

She didn’t get an answer as the practitioners left the room. Alice would start crying, but Greyson was too afraid to touch her. They’d receive a dire answer betwixt a myriad of offered support. These things happen. It’s not your fault.

But Greyson blamed his wife. He never said it, but there had to have been something wrong with her that maybe he couldn’t see. They’d box up the many things they had already bought. All of it unused. They got a fraction back compared to what they spent.

Then came the silence. Followed by long bouts of unavoidable anguish. Greyson had comforted Alice those first few months, but then he became despondent. She kept blaming herself. And he never thought to refute that. Briar filled that blank space. And spent far longer supporting her sister than Greyson did his wife.

Alice was the first to ask if Greyson wanted to try again. She was desperate to prove that she wasn’t broken. But Greyson didn’t want to touch her. He said that he still needed time, that the wound was just too fresh. He had already fucked Briar for the first time about a week and a half before.

This was what inspired the distance. It kept up for over two years. Two years in which Greyson bled his desires into his wife’s younger sibling. Two years that he ignored the needs of his partner so to indulge in something simpler. Less complex.

Alice hadn’t deserved that. Briar didn’t either. The girl couldn’t get passed the death of her parents. He had taken advantage of this and chose to disregard what would have been the name of his son. Greyson stared at the screen of his partner’s phone for a long moment, resisting the froth in his stomach before sinking into a wealth of traded messages.

Of which there were numerous. A persistent chiding of her sister. The indifferent responses to her husband. Several instances of renewed passwords and insistent notifications from perused apps. Greyson counted the number of short exchanges with strangers on both hands, shorter conversations with increasingly distant relatives.

Alice was active in wanting to communicate with everyone. But there was one chain which stuck out the most. Travis Garrison. Greyson followed the interaction all the way back to the top, an initial interaction having started several months ago. He began the conversation with a simple ‘hey’, followed by a picture of his erect penis.

This was curated. Obviously seen as an extension from a long since deleted dating app. Alice had responded with intrigue, the former next sending a string of pictures demonstrating his abs. Alice didn’t deny these advances. Instead, she appeared to have fawned over each and every illicit image.

Something rose up from the depths of Greyson’s loins. An anger he had never felt before. It was one thing to suspect, but to see the proof in front of him, a loud crack split out from the phone as Greyson increased the strength of his grip.

Briar was watching him with wet eyes. Her own resolve having found some shape of credence given Greyson hadn’t said a word in several minutes. “Is it that bad?” She wondered. Greyson wanted nothing more than to salvage his wounded manhood through the abuse of her mirrored image.

“Travis.” He’d utter. Buried beneath a bated breath. Briar shifted her expression to that of confusion. “Is that who he is?” Again, another shock. “She told you about him?” It was an accusation, one which prompted Briar to shake her head. “I mean, she mentioned him a few times, but I never thought it was serious.”

Greyson struggled not to yell. “And you never thought to mention him?” Briar was frightened, though she didn’t seem to want and move. “Like I said, I didn’t think it was serious. Why would I tell you?” More messages brought up a bevy of interest. This man, Travis, would almost constantly speak about Alice’s appearance. About how beautiful she was, about how much he wanted to touch her.

Then came the shift. Alice’s responses choosing to tease at something playful, all while Travis began to thank her. He said he wanted more. She said all in due time. It was gross. It was excessive. The timestamps proved this was during the dull period where Greyson thought nothing of pleasuring his own wife. He was too busy finding new ways to anger Briar enough so that she would take her clothes off.

Greyson would backpedal just as soon as he saw a shared image. Alice, his wife, on her back with someone else inside her. Naked. Draped in sweat. With a flash illuminating her most intimate features. ‘This is my favorite picture of you’, Travis captioned.

Greyson couldn’t stomach anything more. He wanted to smash the phone. Smash Briar. But his return to a catalogued list revealed another person’s number. It wasn’t decorated with the interest another man earned. Greyson would tap at the option and be met with nothing but a single message. ‘Are you proud?’

Alice had simply answered, ‘Who is this?’ before the short exchange had ended. The timestamp was three days ago. And despite the rage Greyson felt towards the man who had obviously founded an intimate relation with his wife, this message was the most damning.

“Are you alright?” Briar urged, noticing the hate filling Greyson’s eyes. He closed the phone and set it facedown along his desk. What profession he may have pursued before having since become a meager fuse. He’d stand up from his desk. “I think I found something.” This was less a declaration than it was a threat.

Briar watched him as he approached her. “And?” She never got another word in edgewise before Greyson pushed her flat down along the length of the leather couch. She didn’t fight him. In fact, there was a wealthier tension to bleed after several minutes inevitably met with the stifled sound of his completion inside her.

Her stomach wanted to seize, but the weight Briar felt pressing down atop her made it difficult to push the man off. He was different this time. More violent, more needy. She clung to this impactful feeling, wrapping both arms and legs around him as the people outside occasionally took issue with the sounds being freed.

This wasn’t subtle. It was dangerous. Greyson would eventually straighten his slacks before leaving the office in order to allocate resources towards attaching a name to a sequence of numbers. Briar touched at her belly and felt the odd heat. She was content in still having him be hers.

But it was wrong, correct? Briar didn’t like that Alice came first. After buttoning up her torn jeans, she moved better towards the box left alone atop Greyson’s desk. Beside the phone and message, she picked apart what else remained inside.

Several pictures depicted the crime scene and illustrated effects of what surrounded it. Footprints, the residual of blood, even suspected tire tracks. Beyond the photos, Briar drudged up sealed bags containing some nasty homemade knife, a hair tie, even the portions of fake painted nails.

Alice had put up a fight. Briar showed a soft smile at that. She had always known her sister to have been the sort to go down swinging. She’d survived the loss of their parents and a child. Briar refused to ever think that Alice had never been strong.

Stronger than her. Briar knew this. This was enough to warrant more tears. In the years since becoming orphaned, Alice had stayed her hand and finished school, found a husband, and was persistent in making something more of herself. Whereas Briar was a leech, abusing her sister’s home and accepting the affections of a man who had sworn to be a loyal lover.

Briar had taken that. Twisted and perverted it. She was no better than the bastard who had assaulted and killed her sibling. Yet she still didn’t refuse the advances of another kind of monster. Perhaps so too was she. Briar used a terrible name and kept reading through the messages shared between Alice and Travis.

They were affectionate, eagerly pure. Alice had discovered her peace through a secondary source, often proving more ecstatic than when the two of them conversed. Here there was passion, understanding, and hope. A far cry from the fractured man who chose the least most path of resistance.

Then came the messages exchanged at the very bottom. A promise to meet again sometime soon. Travis had offered support for the day ahead, capped off with three simple words. ‘I love you’. This sentiment was alien to Briar, as well as her sister's response.

1 2

[CW: >!Child, Sexual, and Physical Abuse!<]

Morning was late to arrive due to the persistence of angry clouds, though the storm itself had sought to reduce its excess down to that of an inconsistent trickle. The rising sun brought with it the promise of a sickly heat, rolling in alongside a fog that clung heavily to everything that it thought to touch.

Briar sat quietly at a granite kitchen table with an open bottle of whisky in front of her, a half-emptied glass held loosely in her shaky right hand. She had stolen what was left of Greyson’s cigarettes and chose to smoke them inside despite her sister having told her a hundred times not to do so. Briar was waiting to hear Alice tell her to stop.

Little sleep was had in the time since coming home. Exhaustion did its part to compel a nod into the unconscious, but its consistency proved particularly lacking. Whether a sea of utter black or a warped and senseless scene, Briar kept seeing that lifeless face in the corners of every dream.

At some point, she chose to stop trying and instead sought out the warmth in an inebriated belly. She’d keep staring out the kitchen window until Greyson came shuffling down the stairs. Briar knew who he was looking for. He’d dressed it up under the guise of not wanting her to sleep alone.

Still, she kept her mouth shut as he passed through the archway leading in from the hallway. His mane was messy, puffy eyes smothered in sleep. “You shouldn’t be drinking.” He’d growl, earning nothing but aggression from the shaky woman. “Didn’t seem like the right time to stop.”

Greyson would let out a dry grunt before stumbling over to the counter. He’d fumble through the cupboards before retrieving a bag of coffee grounds and a mug. “I don’t want to have this argument with you again. Not today.” There was no hint of charm in his dour words. He’d attempt to fend off the continued silence by filling a pot with fresh water then preparing the coffee machine.

“I want you to actually stay home today.” The audacity actually brought a short laugh from out Briar. “Don’t we all.” Her mirth was made apparent between two sips of bitter caramel. Greyson pushed both fists into the lip of the countertop, urging himself not to start shouting.

“I’m not fucking doing this today, Rose.” Clenched teeth made stifled the sentiment. “If I’m going to figure out what happened to Alice, I need you to work with me. I can’t be dropping everything just because you don’t know how to keep your sorry ass out of jail.”

Again, a cooler silence, parted by a quip. “Then stop chasing after me. Let my ‘sorry ass’ rot.” The coffee machine finished warming up and started soaking a hearty portion of packed in grounds. Beside it, the refrigerator started humming. “You know I can’t do that.” Greyson didn’t mean to sound so pitiful.

Despite often putting Briar to task for many of her own shortcomings, Greyson couldn’t bring himself to actually go through with any one of his offered threats. The root of his affection ran deeper than he was willing to admit. Far too often had he gone out of his way for the youngest of two siblings.

Briar took a subsequent sip of her drink, wholly finishing it. Greyson winced as he heard her pour another. She’d light up one of his smokes before shifting against a hard seat. Some part of her was starting to realize why she kept prodding him. “Then I guess it’s a date.” Briar turned to stare at him with violent eyes. “Same place, same time, I’m guessing?”

With a bellow, Greyson drags his hands across the countertop, catching the half-finished coffee maker as well as an empty mug and shoving it all to the floor. Boiling water scalded his arms, but a spike in adrenaline staunched the immediate agony. Briar was up and out of her seat in an instant, alcohol spilling along the table from an abruptly overturned glass.

Still, she stood firm against the behemoth in front of her, an inexhaustible excitement drawing heat out from between her legs. “Alice is fucking dead!” Greyson roared. “She’s dead and we could have both been there to stop it! I could’ve been there to stop it!”

The beast spoke as though Briar knew just as much as he did. “Then why weren’t you?” She shouted back, tears beginning to fill both eyes. Not because she was weak, mind, she simply struggled with confrontation. “Admit it! The reason she was here all alone is because you were too busy fucking me instead of your own wife!”

Greyson felt her words cut deeper than they had any right to manage. But she was right. That’s why it hurt. But rather than accept the accusation, he shoved her hard up against the wall. “You have no idea the shit she and I were going through!” Briar glared up at him through a wince. “You told me enough. And apparently, a single goddamn miscarriage was enough to convince you that your vows no longer held any merit.”

Strong hands tightened around her wrist and shoulder. “We were both distant.” Greyson insisted. “You were distant. She was hurting.” Briar spoke harshly, both eyes a deeper shade of green. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was almost grateful for the tragedy. Without it, she doubted the man would have ever adopted eyes for her.  

Greyson refused to loosen his hold, but Briar had long since stopped trying to pull away. It was always when their arguments got this bad that sex became inevitable. Briar had become trained to expect it. She assumed that Greyson was thinking the same thing.  

The two were incredibly close. Briar noticed his thick beard as it tickled her chin. “You could’ve stopped me, that first time.” The admission brought Briar’s blood to run cold, and she stared at him with wide eyes for a terribly long moment. “I was fifteen.”

A wave of guilt shuddered up the beast’s spine, and all at once, Greyson let the girl go. “I know.” Silence resumed its steadfast vigil inside the kitchen. Outside, the rain had begun to pick back up. The two would quietly go about cleaning up their shared mess, rationing the only cigarette that hadn’t gotten soaked with wasted whisky.

Bare feet chanced each step along a white tile floor, an old broom used to shepherd the pieces of broken glass from out each clever corner. Old rags were used to soak up the excess liquid. Halfway through the task, Briar would sit Greyson down so to lather his forearms with pieces plucked from a nearby aloe vera.

She’d finish wrapping his burns with a flesh-colored gauze before excusing herself to go and get dressed. Greyson would abide by her declaration, lamenting the loss of frilly boy shorts and a loose tank top for what would most assuredly be enough layers to fend off the early cold.

He’d finish cleaning up the floor while kicking himself for having taken out his frustrations on Briar. She knew only a fraction of what he did, and there was no attempt made to try and fix that. Instead, he fought to affix some deranged sort of condemnation onto the woman, hoping that in some way, it’d bleed the worst of his shame given it’s only continued to mount since laying down the night before.

He slept no better than Briar had. Though he chose to just lay there and stare at the slow rotation of a low setting ceiling fan while she tossed and turned for what felt like hours on end. He didn’t blame her for eventually calling it quits and getting up. What he did find issue with was her insistence in using that time to continue drinking.

Greyson wasn’t lying. Though the reasons behind his accusation were two-faced, he knew that there wouldn’t be any progress in investigating Alice’s death should Briar choose to use this opportunity to try and get herself killed. It was his fault for worrying about her. He had always been a coward.

But something was scratching at the back of his mind. A warning. A message. Greyson wasn’t certain if his wife had been murdered as a result of his own actions, or if she had been committing much of the same while he was distracted. Perhaps the autopsy results would prove his hypothesis true.

Even still, what would it matter? Any proof that he could uncover about his wife being equally unfaithful didn’t absolve him of his own sin. And perhaps it was this way of thinking that had him all but earnest to find some sort of validation in regard to his deplorable actions.

It would be so much easier for him to claim that Alice had started cheating first. But that would only address a tertiary issue. He was still romantically involved with Briar, and her infamy within this town meant that everyone knew exactly how old she was. He was up for reelection next year. There was no arguing that his relationship with a minor wouldn’t ruin him.

Greyson would have made up his mind before Briar came back down the stairs. The kitchen itself was clean for the most part, a few shimmering remnants catching hold of the dim light as it fell along the floor. Perhaps there was no more need to pursue a further interaction, but Greyson spoke up anyway.

“Let me go and get dressed, then we’ll head out.” This piqued the interest of Briar, who’d barely started to move towards the living room. “We?” Greyson nodded. “I have to find out who killed Alice, and you need to stay out of trouble. It should go without saying that the best way to accomplish both is to bring you with me.”

Briar simply kept staring at him. “Isn’t that grossly unprofessional?” Greyson would only shrug. “Would you rather I just toss you back in jail?” This was enough for the young woman to concede. “Doesn’t sound like much of a choice.”

She’d wait quietly while he got ready, yet the tension between them was all the more noticeable after they both climbed into Greyson’s truck and took to backing out of the driveway. Of course, they had usually addressed this ample apprehension with the use of both ruthlessly reckless and glaringly explicit actions.

Conditions such as these had often resulted in a lack of obligation and protection, the latter becoming far more inconsistent as of late. This left them both dealing with two drastically different dilemmas. Greyson having chosen to believe that no news meant good news, whereas Briar was growing increasingly erratic as to the procrastination of her period.

Rain peppered the windshield with much less zeal than the night before, though it still made for a slow progress towards the precinct. The old neighborhood they both absconded from did its best to weather the storm, but an unprepared infrastructure showed the holes in its teeth regardless.

Gutters billowed with the refuse of last autumn’s waste, leading to some streets having become roaring rivers. City trucks flashed amber against the grey, while miserable workers did their best to redirect the early morning traffic.

It became more difficult the further they traveled into town, with several voices along police channels having made mention of blockages stemming as far out as the highway. This severity wasn’t particularly unprecedented, but it was unusual for the weather to be this bad in June.

Greyson would keep his teeth grit shut throughout the whole duration of their drive. Briar didn’t prod anymore. Instead, she felt sick. Perhaps because of the booze, perhaps because she was… “We’re here.” The brute intruded upon her thoughts with a persistent grunt. He’d already shut off the truck and was waiting with a heavy hand gripping the door handle.

Briar would blink twice then nod. “Just do what you need to do, I guess. I’m under the impression I’m to be seen, not heard?” Greyson winced at the mention. He wanted her to be warmer. He sought a deeper connection, not something so dismissive.

“If you don’t mind.” He gruffly stated. The two would exit the truck then hurry inside. Wind fought against the dual doors as Greyson yanked them shut. A steep fluorescence cut through the muggy atmosphere outside with a strict intent, and beyond the rattling defense of tinted glass windows, you couldn’t see a thing.

Resident chatter and ringing telephone lines broke the insistent static both had become acclimated to during their drive. Bodies surged along organized desks and open offices, caution signs dotted the wet wooden floors. As the two marched towards reception, what usually amounted to a warm welcome became a much colder accusation.

“What is she doing here?” Samantha spoke through blue painted lips and an impeccable face full of makeup. A stern silver glare having been brought aglow against the cunning contrast of pitch-black eye liner. Greyson didn’t tempt her sharp tongue with an audible answer, instead choosing to shrug as the two made their way past her.

Dripping wet, they would abandon soaked jackets inside the sheriff’s office. It was placed against the furthermost wall of the precinct, between several doors that led into the lesser faculties. There wasn’t a window inside, instead a brick wall brandishing both the state and country flag.

Atop Greyson’s desk was a mess of organized folders and printed papers. Things left by the worker ants beneath him that either required signatures or second drafts. What the man had expected to find wasn’t there. An autopsy report. “Fucking shit.” He fumed, motioning for Briar to back up out of the room so that he himself could leave.

Eyes kept watching as the two made the trek across the station in order to reach a corresponding morgue. Greyson assumed things were trailing behind because of the weather. Again, he spurned the storm. “Seems pretty busy.” Briar mused, wide lenses watching as business ran at a frantic pace.

“People don’t much care to keep inside during weather like this.” Greyson growled. “They always wait until it feels like the world is ending before going out to buy groceries.” There was a tell in his assertation, something close akin to loathing. They’d reach a heavy door, and he’d usher the girl inside.

The lights were dimmer here. An overworked chill having sought to cool their contrasting frames like the leftover contents inside a refrigerator. The long hall pulled itself out towards a dead end, highlighted by a sign that pointed left to an emergency exit.

Again, more doors. Greyson would walk past each one before reaching the second to last. There was a bright light pressed against its frosted window, shadows moving slowly inside. Without pause, Greyson pushed it open. It was colder here, Briar hugged herself close and rubbed at sleeves of goosepimples.

Stainless steel comprised the material of near everything inside the wide space. From shelving to tables, doors to scalpels. Two individuals wrapped in white, one man and one woman, were moving about a flat bed which showcased the pale thin form of Alice Rosemary Walker.

“Greyson.” The man would nod, almost expectant in his superior’s appearance. “Rest assured we’re working as quickly as we can, but I’m not about to cut corners considering the circumstances.” Despite the quiet rage brimming beneath a bristling surface, the sheriff nodded. “How much longer until I have a diagnosis?”

The woman raised a brow. “The diagnosis is that she’s dead, Sheriff Walker. All evidence points to her having been alive up until the point our assailant carved her stomach open.” Briar sucked in a breath. As much as she fought to present herself as unaffected, she still couldn’t handle the worse aspects of her sibling’s death.

Greyson overcorrected by speaking more forced. “I don’t appreciate the tone, Eleanor. The corpse you’re poking and prodding at is my wife.” The woman lowered her eyes, while the man chose to interject. “It’s just been a long night, Greyson. And it doesn’t help that for the last several hours, your deputies keep poking their heads in and telling us to hurry up.”

Briar stayed by the door as Greyson approached a dire bedside. “Well, they shouldn’t keep pestering you now that I’m here, Jack. Catch me up to speed. I’m certain the laceration was what proved fatal, but what can you see that I couldn’t?”

This wasn’t procedure. Greyson was pushing for facts without allowing for a proper analysis to first conclude. “I don’t…” Jack started but found himself cut off. “I understand your hesitation, but I need to know.” Greyson chewed at the tail end of his insistence before spitting it out. “Please.”

It should’ve been a conflict of interest. Somebody else should’ve been investigating Alice’s death. But the sheriff didn’t have time to ponder whether or not this would place his character in a bad light. He knew that should anybody else begin parsing through the details of this matter, he’d run the risk of being implicated in pursuing a sexual relationship with a minor. Much less his own wife’s little sister.

He had already made up his mind back at home. Greyson would move fast and insist upon investigating further before too many eyes had the chance to second guess his intentions. He was pushing around the weight of his powerful position so to keep from being caught out as collateral. Alice deserved justice. Greyson wanted his infidelity to remain a secret. Preferably to the grave.

Jack stared at him for a moment before letting out a sigh. “Well, as you can see, our victim was badly beaten before the killing blow was applied.” The man used a dehumanizing language, almost as if to remind the sheriff that there was supposed to be a certain order to things.

“We’ve got multiple abrasions along the backside and shoulders.” Eleanor added, hoping to assist her cornered colleague. “We’ve already collected what we could with a rape kit. But it’s pretty obvious from the tearing that she was assaulted several times before becoming deceased.”

Greyson twitched. He wanted to throttle something. Anything. Briar stepped a bit closer, shaking terribly. This prompted Eleanor to frown. “And why is she here? I don’t feel comfortable discussing such details when the victim’s family is present.”

Jack nodded, finding every way he could to try and end the sheriff’s premature examination. Greyson would disregard their concerns and pressure both to keep talking. “How long until we get the results back?” He’d press. Eleanor glared at him as a result. “If we expedite the process? Two, maybe three days?”

That was too long. Turning back towards Jack, Greyson persisted. “What else have you found?” He needed more immediate evidence. Something conclusive to work with. “The knife found at the scene matches the cut along our victim’s stomach, but not the wound inside her mouth.” This perplexed the sheriff.

“So our culprit didn’t toss everything?” The question didn’t endear the medical examiners to his abuse. “We are only working with what we have, sheriff. I’m sure we’ll have better answers for you when we finish our report.” It was an antagonistic response, one that Greyson fought to ignore.

“There are a few more details that concern me.” Jack mentions, hoping to quell the tension. With a gloved hand, he provided guidance towards several instances that proved notable enough to mention. “There is excessive bruising around the victim’s neck, as well as along either armpit. This leads me to believe that the assault happened elsewhere, and her body was later dumped in Harland’s field.”

Jack paused for a moment with his hand placed upon Alice’s loose navel. His eyes staring uncomfortably at Briar, who had become about as pale as a ghost. “What’s most concerning however…” He lifted the veil and exposed a mess of innards. As well as something particularly intimate missing. “Our assailant appears to have taken the victim’s reproductive organs.”

1

[CW:>!Child, Sexual, and Physical Abuse!<]

The dark clouds above had already split open and dispersed their fill as the scene got cordoned off. Red and blue lights poured a haze throughout the torrential fall while weak attempts at canopies were raised as respite throughout a wet and trampled field.

Muddied tires tore through the upturned earth, marking the slow progress of Sheriff Greyson and Briar Rose Zachrich as they pressed beyond the blockade and parked beside a congregation of soaked officers. The only civilian amongst them was Frank Harland, the owner of the wheatfields Alice was found in.

Greyson left the heat on for Briar as he stepped out from his truck. Briar wouldn’t remain at a distance for long, but a decisive argument was won in order to keep the younger sister at an arm’s length until a proper identification could be acquired.

Several hooded heads turned in response to his presence, chewed cigarettes fighting against the downpour as floodlights buried the corpse beyond them in white. “Greyson.” One nodded, showcasing sympathy despite the Sheriff shoving passed him.

Lightning lit up the world with a flash that temporarily blinded the mountainous man, even as his large boots came to a standstill at the hem of a morbid scene. Most of the blood had been washed away by this point. Leaving a pale, lifeless form to have grown slick with the crystalline rivulets that clung like beads to better bruises.

Greyson brought his stare to the dull eyes of Alice Rosemary Walker. Her body was posed in a way that sought an image of solemn innocence, as though despite the violence she suffered, Alice was still met with the care prescribed by a better partner than he.

Her bountiful blonde hair was pulled by the rapids of flowing rainwater. A mature contrast to her much younger sister. Greyson swallowed before taking a shorter step forward. There was no doubt in his mind, this was his wife. Beneath the tattered layers of her simple white dress. Below the sleeve of flexible flesh that revealed a cruel incision. He noted the intimate details that were reserved for his eyes alone.

Or should’ve been? Greyson would only interpret Alice as having been summarily ruined at the hand of a monster. Many heavy eyes now stole looks at the fragile body he had alone touched. Caressed. Deflowered. Now reduced to the unobtainable image belonging to that of a freckle faced angel.

“Harland found her about an hour ago. Thomas was the officer who responded.” A nearby deputy spoke slowly, introducing information at a snail’s pace while also testing the tenacity of a trembling Sheriff. “Did Frank make mention of anybody else poking about his fields?” Greyson spoke low, unable to remove his eyes from the vacant stare of his other.

“Not a soul. Forensics should be arriving here shortly. They’ll be able to give us a better estimation as to time of death should the rain not wash away all the evidence first. Initial observations lean towards the killing having happened last night.”

Greyson shuddered but chose to await a formal assessment. To deride himself for not being home the night before… To have fled from another argument so to spend that time entwined with another… He’d rather find solace in the uncertainty than commit to the consequence of his wayward infidelity. “Start sweeping the area. I don’t care how hard it’s raining, find and bag anything that looks out of place.”

A short dispersal left Greyson alone. Hot cherries glowing bright in the dying light as evening dug in its claws and brought about the promise of a long, stormy night. More lights carried additional vehicles nearer to the edge of the field.

Out of habit, Greyson fought to light up his own smoke before taking in a significant breath. There was an equivalent storm behind his eyes. One born from the ill effects of a silent abuse. It wouldn’t take long before forensics finally arrived and moved to assess what best they could despite the weather. Shortly after, Briar left the warmer confines of the truck.

Greyson would move to try and stop her, but a mind was made up. “I can’t stop thinking that it’s her.” She’d plead, and Greyson would begin to notice the puffy red state of her muted green eyes. “I keep trying to call her, Grey. I keep calling but she won’t pick up.”

The sheriff knew there was no stopping her, and so he feigned a failure in restraining the poor woman. With the rain working quickly to waterlog her slender form, he watched as she neared the body. Watched her stop the moment it clicked. With a slow step, he sought to provide some odd comfort but failed to actually reach out and touch her.

Given the moment, Briar felt… forbidden. Like to grant her even the slightest amount of reassurance would be tantamount to a far worse betrayal. It was one thing to satiate his desires behind his partner’s back, but to openly embrace another in front of her corpse? It felt the most sinful. It felt the most cruel.

Instead, he watched as Briar fell to her knees. The mud practically lapping at her exposed legs while the sound that escaped her throat sounded akin to that of a ruined animal. This was ruthless. Greyson wasn’t sure how much longer he could maintain the act.

The rain poured. Somewhere, a shout was offered. Turned heads brought one of the searching officers to hold up something too dim to see in the red and blue downpour. Another sound was soon to catch his attention. “Sheriff Greyson?” One of the forensic officers called. They were ushering him to hurry over.

Briar had both hands pressed to her face. She didn’t notice him stride past her so to near the lifeless body of his wife. “We’d barely begun prepping the victim for transport when we noticed this…” With a careful hand, Alice was forced to open her mouth. Inside was a noticeable hole along the ridge behind an upper row of teeth, a rectangular impact that appeared bloody and new.

Upon retrieving a flashlight from his colleague, Greyson crouched down and used its light to ignite the puckered surface of irritated skin and missing bone. “What the hell…” He’d breathe, before realizing that there was a bit of moist white jutting out from the wound.

Without asking for gloves, Greyson reached in and clasped the short edge with his forefinger and thumb. The object required little resistance to procure, and soon a folded slip of paper was exhumed. Clicks of disapproval came from the woman beside him, but Greyson didn’t listen. Instead, he carefully pried apart the folds until a message was presented for him to read.

‘The sins of a false father, a mother’s turncoat seed. A cost accrued from the Leyrwite, a price to err in greed.’ The words read from a bloodstained sheet of torn paper left the sheriff apprehensive. This was no simple murder. It was a sacrifice.

“Greyson.” Forensics took the unfolded message as his attention was pulled towards another. The officer was shivering yet held out what looked like a knife. Makeshift in its design, an expert eye would have proclaimed the weapon far too unintuitive to efficiently commit a crime such as this.

Yet the bowed design showcased pale flecks of flesh along a painfully serrated edge. “It appears the murder weapon was tossed after use. Though in the same field?” There was no immediate answer to the question he poised. If the blade had been fashioned by hand, there was little they could do but hope to salvage prints.

Briar was still sobbing behind him, and Greyson could no longer ignore her. He was cruel for having simply left the young woman to cry over the corpse of her elder sibling. Far worse a monster for wanting nothing more than to bury his own shame in the front of her chest.

After passing the blade over to forensics, Greyson focused his stare upon a fellow officer. “Keep up the search. I want this entire field scoured from top to bottom. Damned if I’m going to let the rain wash away anything more than blood.”

Turning back towards the former, his insistence was almost palpable. “Gather what all you can then move her. I want a detailed autopsy by tomorrow morning.” Greyson effortlessly invoked his command as the sheriff, and no words were offered in contest.

Even still, despite the sudden presentation of overwhelming intent, he paused a moment before approaching Briar. She needed comfort. Greyson knew that he could give her that. But how much would be wanted? How precarious would his position become should a shoulder turn into another overly affectionate interaction?

Shock curtailed the worst of his hunger, but a great length of distance had become the driving force in a vile understanding. Greyson had stared down the destruction of his late wife. The woman that he had adored and promised to support through richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. He felt nothing.

Yet when he looked at Briar, bearing a similar face yet a much more chaotic ire, he wanted nothing more than to curl up with her and speak endless of soft nothings until she proved calm enough to sleep. There was a renewed passion in his want. A feral intention to comfort and sate.

Had Greyson carried the corpse of his prior marriage through to the formation of a new one? The sheriff would roughly shake his head. There was no need to talk of wedlock. He felt wildly uncomfortable thinking that at any point he had become stricken by another, much less his partner’s younger sister.

Clasping a quivering shoulder, Greyson chose to challenge his guilt with an emotionless action. “Get up, I’m taking you home.” Briar would glare at him through soaked prescription lenses. “I’m not leaving Alice alone!” She’d shout, and without a second thought, Greyson would drag her up into his arms.

She’d kick at him and scream. Faces turned towards the outcry, but no one raised contention. They knew who Briar was. They knew her relation to Alice. This wasn’t the first time any of them had to deal with an inconsolable relation.

“Put me down!” She’d demand, slapping Greyson across the face. “No.” He’d respond, moving further away from the crime scene and towards a running vehicle. Briar refrained from touching his face any further, instead beating both fists against his wide chest while he clasped his grip more surely around her writhing anger.

“I can’t leave her!” Yet she would. “I’m her sister!” She had a strange way of showing it. “I can’t… I need to tell her I’m sorry.” Greyson knew all too well what for. He’d inevitably yank open a passenger side door and place the girl inside, keeping both hands pressed down upon her in case she thought to try running. But the poor thing was already spent.

Greyson could tell that she’d exhausted herself. Briar had probably been awake since yesterday morning, with the only opportunity she had between then and now having been spent either gasping below him or out driving while under the influence.

She’d lock her arms around his neck once he sought to pull away, burying a wet face into his chest. “I’m scared.” Greyson knew she was lying. What she felt wasn’t fear, it was guilt. He felt so much of the same thing. “I know.” He’d whisper regardless, pulling her into a hug that went for as long as she needed to spill out the last of her tears.

There were so many. So much so that Greyson grew worried they’d never stop. The rain had all but flooded her side of the vehicle once she grew weak enough to let go. Greyson was careful in touching her body, moving only what he felt was necessary so as to not catch anything once he finally shut the door.

Still, he didn’t immediately turn over the engine after climbing into the driver’s seat. He was soaked to the bone. So too was Briar. But while his several layers took the brunt of a terrible tumult, he could practically see through Briar’s thin shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

A fervent expression, Greyson could feel the rising heat as it pressed against his sodden jeans. He was evil, perhaps? His wife lay gutted barely a hundred feet from where he sat, yet an instinctive reaction was to distract himself with the traumatized woman curled up in the seat right beside him.

To force himself on her now was atrocious to think about. Greyson was rioting against his warped wants and desires. Even so, Briar had clung to him moments before. For the first time, she’d proven vulnerable without the implication of sex. Greyson latched onto this in the worst possible way. A coping mechanism? Hardly. It was an excuse not to see his own wife as a victim of two crimes.

A loud engine would sputter to life in spite of the humidity, and a heavy set of tires had to fight through the layered mud before eventually finding enough traction to pull out from the side of a thin gravel road. Lightning unspooled itself along the skies overhead, and the subsequent thunder threatened to incite a schism beneath them.

Briar kept sniffling, spectacled eyes pointed forward and out the windshield. The wiper blades worked overtime just to garner the briefest glimpse of the road ahead. The radio would occasionally chirp with the sounds of static which fought to drown out the voices behind them. Without his supervision, the others would wrap things up quickly and head back into town.

The possibility of there being anything to procure from the evidence gathered… never had Greyson cursed a summer storm so harshly before. But besides that, he obsessively began to ponder over the esoteric message left buried inside his wife’s skull.

‘The sins of a false father, a mother’s turncoat seed. A cost accrued from the Leyrwite, a price to err in greed.’ A terrible feeling began to further upset the contents of Greyson’s sinking stomach, enough to make him roll down his window a bit so to swallow fresher air. Did the murderer know about his infidelity? Or rather, had Alice been pursuing much of the same?

[CW: >!Child, Sexual, and Physical Abuse!<]

Somewhere, the sun stares down upon an endless sea of curated wheat, shifting amongst a heated summer breeze like the roiling waves of a gilded ocean. A faraway birdsong buoyed above mother nature’s exhale while the occasional passage of lonely traffic carried itself down a cracked length of coarse concrete.

Somewhere, amidst that field of golden grain, a pair of dull green eyes stared beyond the veil of what the living could see. She wore a fearsome expression. Her linen dress both dirtied and torn. There were the obvious signs of a struggle, violently accentuated by a horizontal cut of uneven length that traveled from the base of her left breast down to the birthmark along a bruised hip.

Somewhere, a man absconded with the miracle that he reclaimed. Somewhere, a little sister sits teetering in the backseat of an old cop car, slurring her words while an unimpressed police officer drives the inebriated young woman to a home away from home.

Neither of them would glance over at the field embracing a crime scene. A distant depression of smothered oats proving all but ineffective at attracting the onlooker stares of anything besides the sort which feasted on worms and carrion. But even they weren’t eager to eat.

“It’s not even noon yet, Briar.” The officer would huff from his position beyond a perforated screen, belly wide enough to touch the steering wheel despite his seat being pushed all the way back. The young woman would perk up a bit at the use of her name but otherwise fail to see well past the thick glaze of drunken lenses to grant him a steady look.

“You make that sound like a bad thing.” She’d chide, pressing her freckled cheek against the window despite the way it pushed against her thin round glasses. “On a fucking Wednesday?” The accusation was enough to slightly sober the mood. “I had a bad night.”

A short silence followed her meager admission, and the two were forced to listen while the road roared underfoot. The occasional crackle would upset the radio shoved into the front of a messy dashboard, but no words would ever come out.

It would be a long drive to the station. “Could I have my phone?” Briar asked, only to be waved off without a second thought. “You can call your sister once we’re back at the station. I’m sure Alice would rather have a conversation with someone who isn’t twice the legal limit.”

The bastard. Briar rolls her green eyes then resumes a prior posture. “Fucking bullshit.” Her attempts at a rise weren’t without just reward though. “No, what’s bullshit is that you keep having the grand idea to get behind the wheel of a car every time you find yourself shit faced. Like this isn’t the first time, Briar. What the hell is wrong with you?”

In spite of her intoxication, Briar understood what was being said. She’d heard it a hundred times or so by this point, almost like a mantra. Yet whatever grace came with losing both parents over five years ago was gone. She’d moved on from being presented excess compassion to being treated like a liability. And maybe that was fair.

It would only be a matter of time before she ended up just like her parents. Alice had told her this a great many times too. But Briar wasn’t the sort to want and listen. She was still angry. At herself. At the world. Maybe god for good measure. She strove to distract herself with the illegal act of underage drinking because the idea of self-reflection utterly terrified her.

So yet again, Briar steeled herself for a similar series of repetitive events. She’d be tossed in the drunk tank, at least until her liver had the chance to appropriately contend with an excess of alcohol. Then she’d endure the shame of having to call her sister again, after which Alice or her husband would have to come and get her.

Something sick twisted deep in Briar’s stomach, and she hoped her sister wouldn’t send Greyson. Briar didn’t want to have and deal with him again, especially after last night. Unlike Alice, he saw her drinking for what it was, and he despised it.

The farmland transitioned into ramshackle buildings after about half an hour. And it was as the empty roads proved a tad bit busier that Briar was forced to endure a harsher judgement at the hands of her insulted captor. “I’ve honestly never been more excited for someone to turn eighteen. You’ve got, what, seven months? Hopefully by then everyone will stop treating you like some broken child and start punishing you to the fullest extent of the law.”

Briar raises a brow. “That’s not very professional, sir.” She was purposefully combative. The officer didn’t respond, though he was chewing his tongue so much there was a threat he’d bite it off. Two red lights and a left turn brought the cruiser up alongside the precinct. It stood a proud fixture, brick and mortar walls with marble steps and trimmings.

A light foot traffic did little to upset the officer as he subsequently parked the vehicle and silenced its throaty engine. A series of insistent heaves eventually procured the man from a groaning seat and stood him out along the steady lull of a calm morning traffic. Briar would watch him as he rounded the vehicle and let her out, the immediate switch from sitting to standing reminding her that she was still reeling from a proper inebriation.

She’d stagger, and the officer caught her. It wasn’t a mercy however, considering he’d then push her to start walking despite the world refusing to ever sit still. It made for a slow procession, but they’d eventually ascend the steps and enter through the dual doors settled at the entrance to the magnanimous building.

The heat from outside was immediately dispersed through the unrestricted use of centralized air conditioning. It came as a slap in the face to Briar, who had all but immediately become lightheaded. This happened every time, yet she would always forget to prepare for such a sobering chill.

“I’m not carrying you, move.” The bastard was insistent. Briar would grit her teeth and oblige. They’d traverse the old wooden floor of a sizeable lobby. Past the orderly wooden benches peppered with people, and the curious eyes which proved effectively insincere just as soon as they realized who she was.

“Briar Rose Zachrich. Under the influence again, I wager?” The receptionist hadn’t the patience to humor Briar with a look. “Hey, can we skip the paperwork this time? Greyson’s just going to let her go again anyway.” There was very little put up in opposition to his exasperated remark. “Procedure is procedure, McDrummond. But I’ll just copy last week’s intake forms.”

Gander and goose, this wasn’t surprising. Officer McDrummond ensured that Briar’s pockets were empty of everything before shoving her off towards the drunk tank. “It was nice seeing you again!” She’d call back towards the receptionist, hoping to get across the point that she thought her a bitch.

A dismissive wave. Everything else was business as usual. Briar was set to occupy a holding cell alone, the promise of an inevitable phone call coming only after she could successfully pass a breathalyzer test. Briar would sit along a thin steel bench while pressing her brow against the cold stone wall beside her, grateful for the sensation while the rest of her body began to ache.

She had remained one step ahead of a recent memory for the better part of five hours but was now starting to break. It didn’t help that she drank to forget. The tolerance she’d built up over the last several years having become a terrible inconvenience given she sought the same solace by simply drinking more and more.

She’d have to call Alice. Briar could already recite the cruel things an older sibling would tell her. She didn’t hold that against Alice though, Briar knew she was a constant source of strain. After their parents died, Alice took it upon herself to step in as caretaker. She was only eighteen when that decision was made, and despite its sincerity, not a day had passed where Briar didn’t seek to punish her for it.

It was unfair to say the least. Her sister wasn’t at fault for what happened. Yet Briar didn’t know where else to point her rage, much less learn to cope. It was much easier to become a terrible person. To be selfish and reckless, a mix that constantly found her either in the hospital or in jail.

And now, here she was. Huddled up inside a cold cell. She knew this place all too well. Alice once said that it would do her good to actually rot in here. Briar knew she didn’t mean that, but the sentiment remained. Eventually, Briar would be let back out. She’d spend a few days pulling herself back together, making promises, then doing something stupid enough to warrant coming home again.

The door opposite the cell opened and Greyson stepped inside. “Rose?” A swift glare rewarded his sustained use of affection. “You don’t call me that.” He’d close the door behind him before awkwardly standing there, the sight of a tall broad figure seeming all but deflated. “Sorry, Briar. Have they let you call Alice yet?” A previous flare of anger subsided, and she’d grant him a curt response. “No.”

Greyson would nod, a bit relieved before stepping up to the cell door. “Did you really have to go and get yourself arrested again?” His tongue flailed a bit as though it wanted to say something else. To provide some more context maybe. Briar stopped him with the swift upheaval of her emaciated form. “Did you really have to jump at the chance to come rub it in my face?”

Her words were sharp. Greyson held his ground. “You know that’s not why I’m here.” It was a simple, pointed fact. Briar lost a bit of her footing. The mountain of a man would attempt to ease the tension by rubbing his chin. Briar was impressed with how easily he could find it beneath that bushy beard. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

He clearly had more to say. Briar too. But both were seemingly stuck at an impasse. She’d maintain his sure stare for a longer moment before finally releasing the air she kept pent up in a pair of small lungs. “Fine.” She’d move towards the only exit to her cage. Greyson unlocked then held open the door for her.

“Could you grab-” Briar would start but the bear calmly interrupted her. “I already got it.” He’d retrieve the sealed bag from out of his coat and hand it to her. It possessed all of Briar’s seized belongings. A phone, wallet, sealed condom.

She’d shove it all back into the small pockets of her jean shorts, taking another moment so to imbibe a second breath before glancing over at Greyson. “Should I call Alice?” Another moment of hesitation, then he shook his head. “I’m already here. You can put off the lecture until we get home.”

It felt like a mercy, but Briar still maintained a certain distance. “Okay.” It was brief, her obedience, but Greyson didn’t take too much notice of it. Instead, he moved across the gap then held open another door. She’d follow.

Wagers were won and undertone comments were traded amongst the others as the two made their way back to the front of the precinct. “A new record.” The receptionist would quip as they passed, Greyson turning towards her with a stern stare. “Not now, Samantha.” She’d roll her pretty eyes at him but seemingly acquiesce.

Rain clouds had started to form above as both Briar and Greyson next exited the building. The end to a pleasant summer day had come too soon, though neither seemed affected by the sudden shift towards stormy weather. Briar noticed Greyson’s truck parked further down the sidewalk, the title ‘sheriff’ emblazoned along its side.

She’d direct herself towards it while Greyson watched her, concern deepening the color of his dark brown eyes. Yet it wasn’t until the two had both entered either side of the vehicle that a worse silence came to embed itself into the shorter space between them.

This wasn’t the first time Greyson had taken her home. Nor was it expected to be the last. Many arguments were had inside this gasoline scented cabin, many snide remarks made and threats offered. Greyson had never taken kindly to Briar’s alcohol abuse. He’d often make a point of shouting that had Alice not been her sister, she’d have been booted out onto the street years ago.

Yet that didn’t explain the fact that they both knew how far back the driver’s side seat could lean. It didn’t explain the bruise developing at the base of Briar’s spine from where the steering wheel had kept hitting her. “Briar, about last night…” Greyson started, but was met with the violent shake of the head.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She’d assert, obfuscating the truth. Briar didn’t want to discuss the implications surrounding the way that she’d let him touch her. The way that he’d let her kiss him. The shared understanding that there was still a condom in her pocket, unused.

“It’s not like it was the first time either, and nothing’s happened. So let’s just keep pretending, yeah?” Briar’s voice shook, yet she remained steadfast in her obstinance. Greyson didn’t appear to want and abide by that. “But it keeps happening.” He’d assert, and Briar glares. “As if I’m the only one that instigates?”

Greyson furrowed his brow. “You never stop me either.” Again, another argument. “What, you want me to start putting up more of a fight? Would that make you feel even more like a man?” Briar replaced her culpability with barbed responses. She was only ever vulnerable when he was inside her.

“I want us to stop.” Greyson replied, that underlying growl proving his want for anything but. Briar quieted down a bit, feeling all too suddenly wounded. “Should we?” That was selfish. Briar was being selfish. “Rose, we can’t keep doing this.” He’d insist, riling himself up so to indulge the momentum needed to keep himself from lunging across the console.

“Alice doesn’t deserve this. Not from her husband, nor from her sister. I know we’ve become increasingly distant the past year and a half, but it was a mistake to use you as a way to curb my own urges. Besides, your seventeen and I’m-” Greyson’s voice trailed off after noticing Briar dragging both feet up onto the seat and wrapping her slender arms around them.

“Don’t do that…” He’d growl, proving volatile towards another’s insistence to make herself small. “It’s not like I jumped at the chance to start fucking you.” She’d utter, quiet and hurt. “I just liked the way you wanted me.”

There was still so much to unpack. The two sat opposite each other with wanting eyes though their hearts were beating rapidly against the option of saying no. The radio between them spoke up and broke the tension. “One-eight-seven. All officers respond. Repeat, we’ve got a one-eight-seven at Harland’s farm, please respond.”

A shift in nearing postures brought Greyson to grab at his radio. “This is Sheriff Greyson, what’s going on?” There was a brief exhaust of static before the voice came through again. “Sheriff, it seems Thomas has come across a corpse over at Frank’s wheatfields. I don’t know how else to tell you this, but it looks like the victim is your wife.”