Sutton stopped moving. “No, Ivy. Don’t. Stop. Stop!”

“No pain, no struggle.”

“I’m warning you—”

Ethan was on his feet now, too, stepping to Sutton’s right side so they formed a wall. His fury was barely contained; Sutton could feel it coming off him in waves.

Ivy didn’t notice, or didn’t care, so lost she was pulling them into hell with her.

“I saw you find him, did you know? I was in the closet, waiting. I wanted to see your reaction. When I came in the house you were drunk, snoring. Ethan was in his room, out cold. I watched you both. And then I watched him. I very nearly changed my mind. Dashiell was innocent. I nearly went back to my house, got my gun, and came to shoot you both instead.

“But I knew that would be much too easy on you. You needed to hurt. You needed to bleed. Now, you’re going to.”

And she fired.

Death, and Rebirth

DEATH, AND REBIRTH

In the moments after, three things happen at once.

Ivy pulls the trigger again.

Ethan dives to the right.

Sutton rushes forward, something like a growl emitting from her throat, toward the woman who is her child, a glint of silver in her hand as the trench knife that Ethan keeps hidden in the couch cushions slashes down toward Ivy’s throat.

It is like Sutton has become someone else. A switch has been flipped. She’s felt it flip once before, when she was thirteen and locked in heated battle with her stepfather.

She feels it again now.

It is rage, pure and incandescent, the power and fury of the angels in the palm of her hand. It courses through her, blinds her, eliminates judgment and worry, makes her a machine.

There is a flash of silver in the moonlight.

The knife is hot in her hands.

The blood is thick on her palms.

Ethan is by her side, holding Ivy down.

Sutton drops the knife and sinks to her knees.

The growing wail of the siren accompanies her heartbeat.

Her husband kneels beside her and holds her to his chest.

“It’s over, Sutton,” he says, again and again through his tears. “It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.”

And when she comes back to herself, oh so many minutes later, the blank eyes of the woman who tried to take away her life stare up at her. Cold, empty eyes. The monster that claimed to be hers, staring, staring, staring.

Just When You Think It's Over

JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT’S OVER

Six months later

“I hate you.”

Sutton said the words simply. A recitation of fact.

Ethan laughed. “You don’t. You love me. You love us.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t hate you.”