The knife nicked Ethan’s throat and Katy found herself mesmerised by the trickle of blood running down towards his shirt collar.
“Megan, let’s talk about this rationally. Don’t be like them, you’re better than that. What’s done is done, it’s time now to live your life the best you can.”
“It’s too late, I realise I’ve gone too far now. I have one more task to perform and I won’t let you or anyone else prevent me from doing it. To this day, my family are still suffering. Daniel in particular.” She angled Ethan’s head to look at her. “Do you know he’s in hospital right now?”
“No. I’m sorry, what more can I say?” His face belied his words, there wasn’t an ounce of remorse visible in his expression.
“If I thought you meant those two simple words, then none of this would have happened, it’s too late to feel sorry now. The only reason you’re saying it is because I’ve got you pinned down and in a corner.”
Katy noted how Megan’s voice was tainted with hatred. Keep talking to her, I have to try and make her see sense. “Megan. Let him go. I promise you we’ll do what we can to address the issues you have with the system. What will Daniel think of what you’ve done? Do you really believe he would want you to take retribution for something that occurred almost two decades ago? I doubt it. He needs you. What if your uncle doesn’t make it? Your aunt is going to need your help even more then, isn’t she?”
Megan appeared to pause for a second or two. “It’s too late. I know what you’re trying to do, to disarm me, to make me let this fucker go, it’s not going to happen. He needs to die, just like the other three. They deserved it, but their deaths were quick. I wanted to prolong his death, his suffering, to make him really consider how much he’d wrecked all of our lives. My parents died when I was four, can you imagine the trauma I had to endure when I realised they’d gone for good? My brother died that day too, not physically perhaps, but mentally he did. My whole family wiped out because of this shithead.”
Katy witnessed the darkness fill Megan’s eyes. She sliced Ethan’s neck wide open and let him drop to the floor.
Ethan gurgled and thrashed about for a few seconds.
Charlie gasped.
Crap, I know where this is leading. I have to step in. “Give me the knife, Megan,” Katy ordered. She took a step towards the young woman, but Megan instantly placed the blade against her own throat.
“Come any closer and I’ll do it. I need to watch him die, like I watched the others. You have no idea how satisfying it is to see. It’ll never make up for losing my family, but it has gone a long way towards it, I can tell you. You should go now, there’s nothing you can do for either of us.”
“Megan, I’m pleading with you to think about your family, they need you, don’t do anything rash. Think of them.”
“I do. Every waking minute of the day, I’m thinking about them. You need to back away. To go. There’s nothing for you to see here, not now.”
Ethan spluttered blood and reached out a hand to Katy, then it crashed to the ground.
He was dead.
Katy’s heart slumped. “Are you satisfied now? All of them are dead, they can no longer hurt you and your family.”
A smile tugged at Megan’s lips. She nodded and her mouth moved as if she was speaking to someone other than Katy and Charlie. Her gaze eventually met Katy’s.
“I’ve done my duty. It’s time for me to go. Don’t try and save me. I no longer want to live in this world. I want to be with them.”
Katy took a step forward, and Megan retreated a little. “Don’t, Megan. Your brother, he needs you. Your aunt… her husband is ill, how will she ever cope caring for your brother and for him at the same time?”
“I can’t think about that. My parents need me to be with them, I need to go to them. I’ve missed them. Yes, they’ve been in my head for years, but now, I have to be with them forever. It’s my destiny. I couldn’t go before killing these bastards, though. They had no right to live a life with no regrets.”
“Megan, is there nothing I can say?” Katy pleaded.
“Nope.” With that, she drew the knife across her throat and at the same time an angelic smile appeared.
Katy rushed to help her. She tried to stem the bleeding while Charlie called for an ambulance.
It was too late, the cut was deep, she’d successfully severed her carotid artery as intended.
“Jesus, no. Don’t go. Come back, Megan!”
Charlie tapped Katy on the shoulder and shook her head. “It’s too late, Katy, she’s gone to be with her parents. It’s what she wanted.”
Katy’s head slumped, she rose to her feet and stared down at the two corpses. Her frustration mounted. “I should have done better.”
Charlie grabbed Katy’s shoulders and shook her slightly. “Don’t you dare blame yourself. She had an agenda which she was determined to see through to the end. She was brave to take her own life as well as theirs. Maybe the pressure proved to be too much for her come the end. The voices in her head, that of her parents, if you listened to what she said. They’ve been slowly driving her mad, it was inevitable her life would end this way. We need to stay focussed. Now, we have to think about the boy. We have to find him.”
Katy shrugged. “How? We haven’t got a clue where she
