The doors were closed. On them, carved and stained and polished, was the Frankenstein family crest that I had so often run my fingers along over the years. The shield that protected them was my shield now, too, according to the law. I was Elizabeth Frankenstein, married into this diseased and broken family tree. Which somehow made me even more their possession than I was when I had depended on them for everything.

I thought of the woman in the asylum, locked away for daring to want a life free from pain and abuse. How mad she must have been indeed for dreaming such a thing was possible.

Bleak sadness soaked and chilled my anger as certainly as the rain had chilled my clothes. What hope was there in a world such as this? Was Victor really so wrong to look for ways to circumvent the demands of nature? Because if we had grown to be this way as a society through nature, surely nature itself was as corrupt and malformed as Victor’s monster.

I had tried to warn Mary about the monster, but I could see that she did not believe me. It was just as well. She already believed in the real monster and was prepared to face him.

“Are you ready?” Mary whispered. She pulled out her knife.

I nodded, cold down to my soul and trembling as my pale fingers wrapped around the handle of my own knife. I wished we were there with an army at our backs. Wished I knew someone, anyone, who would believe us about Victor’s true nature. Wished this desolate responsibility fell on anyone but me.

So do all guilty wish to foist their burdens onto others.

I pushed the doors open, brandishing my knife and bracing myself. Mary screamed, and I whipped around, looking for her attacker. But then I saw what had made her cry out: she was screaming at the horror of the scene before us.

Victor stood with his back to the windows. Between us was the table where we had eaten, the table I had often squirmed at, wishing we could leave his father’s presence. It had been covered by a metal sheet, and on that lay a body. Judge Frankenstein’s sightless eyes stared up at where the ceiling and roof had been cut away to make an opening for the metal rod courting the storm’s lightning. Towels and sheets had been discarded along the floor to soak up the rain.

Victor looked up at me and frowned. Rain dripped from his hair down his face. It almost looked like he was crying.

Victor never cried.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. Mary raised her knife. He cursed, pulled out a pistol, and shot her. She staggered back, falling through the doorway and onto the floor.

“No!” I screamed, turning to help her.

“Stop!” Victor commanded.

“Shoot me,” I snarled.