A gunshot rings out through the basement, and I race after the blood smeared across the floor.
Cassandra.
I want to shout her name. I want to scream.
But my chest is so tight I can’t make a sound.
She’s already bleeding.
She’s already hurt.
My feet fly beneath me as I round the corner.
There’s an open door just ahead, and I swear I’ll give my life for hers if she can just be okay.
The gun in my hand is shaking. For the first time in twenty years, I’m shaking.
She has to be okay.
I brace myself as I reach the doorway.
But I’m not prepared.
Standing in the center of the awful room, between the man I’ve been chasing for two decades and three more of his victims, is Cassandra.
Her arms are stretched out in front of her. And she’s gripping a gun that’s pointed at Gabriel.
And there’s blood blossoming across his chest.
Cassandra lifts her aim, just a bit. “This one is for Freya.”
She fires.
For Freya.
A lifetime of guilt and torment unlatches from my soul as I watch the bullet penetrate Gabriel Marcoux’s forehead and blow out the back of his skull.
Blood and gray matter spray through the open door behind him.
It’s done.
The world shifts around me.
It’s truly done.
My beautiful Butterfly ended it.
She took my burden and made it her own.
My sister’s radiant smile flashes before my eyes.
Images of my family, my parents and Freya, sitting around the breakfast table flicker in my mind.
Memories of a time when we were all happy slip back into existence.
Reminders of who they were before…
A vision of me bringing my children to visit their grandparents’ graves presses me to the doorframe.
I haven’t visited them.
I couldn’t bear to face them, not until I put this to rest.
The dead body of Gabriel Marcoux falls to the floor.
It is over.
My family can finally rest.
And so can I.
Because of her.
