Page 183 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

I could not speak yet. I just clung to him, shaking.

He pressed his lips to my hair. “It is done now. He is gone.”

We stayed like that for a long minute. Then he eased me back just enough to look at my face. His eyes scanned the bruises on my throat, the split lip, the way I held my ribs. His jaw tightened but his touch stayed gentle.

“Can you walk?”

I nodded. He helped me up, keeping an arm around my waist. I glanced once at Thomas’s ruined body on the floor. No satisfaction came. Only a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion and the strange, quiet hollow where ten years of purpose used to live.

“We need to destroy the DNA,” I said, voice hoarse.

Jackson nodded once. Without hesitation, he took the lead. He found two gas cans in the garage and dragged them inside, then started dousing the living room. He soaked the bloodstained floor, the broken furniture, and the body until the sharp smell of gasoline cut through the copper. Every movement was quick and methodical while I stood by the door, still dazed, watching him work.

He lit a rag from the fireplace and tossed it in. Flames roared up instantly, hungry and fast.

“Where’s your bag?” he asked as he helped me outside.

I told him the route I had taken. He supported most of my weight as we slipped out the back. Every step sent pain shooting through my cracked ribs and bruised body, but nothing seemed broken. He helped me over the wall, then followed. We made it to his car, parked five miles away in a quiet spot. I stayed quiet the whole way, empty and dazed.

In the car, I told him to put the tarp down first. He did, protecting the seats from the blood. Then he pulled his oversized hoodie over my clothes, swallowing me in it to hide the damage. That was how we got back to the apartment.

Once inside, he helped me into the shower. The water ran red as he washed me gently, careful with every cut and bruise. A lot of deep bruises and cracked ribs, but no shattered bones. He bandaged the worst of it in silence.

When I was clean and wrapped in fresh clothes, I finally spoke.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “For sneaking out. For leaving you like that.”

Jackson pulled me into his arms, careful of my injuries. “I know why you did it,” he murmured against my hair. “But don’t do it ever again.”

I leaned into him, letting the solid warmth of his body hold me up. Neither of us spoke for a while. The adrenaline was crashing hard now, leaving me hollow and exhausted.

We still had work to do. Burn everything. My clothes, his clothes, the bag, the weapons, the tarp. Every trace of tonight needed to disappear.

But what mattered was this:

The list was finished.

Thomas was gone.

And for the first time in ten years, I didn’t have a plan for what came next.

Chapter 50: The Rightful Alpha

The weeks after Thomas’s death passed in a strange, hollow kind of peace.

The official story was simple and clean: a tragic house fire. The coroner, on the pack payroll for years, certified the death and ordered no autopsy. No one with authority wanted one. The fire was ruled accidental, a stray ember from the fireplace. Papers were signed, reports were filed, and no outside investigation ever opened. Everything was tied off neatly.

Thomas had spent twenty years buying the right men in this county — the hospital, the sheriff, the coroner, the courts. Pack members sat in all the important chairs.

Now those same people worked for Jackson. He had to threaten a few of them and use alpha command on others until he could start replacing them with people loyal to him. Most were self-interested enough to fall in line behind the new alpha without much resistance. Corruption transferred easily.

The same people who had helped Thomas bury my family’s case now helped bury his.

The pack, of course, knew better. The higher‑ups and those who lived on the territory whispered that Thomas had been killed. Jackson promised a full internal investigation. Most accepted it. By the end, Thomas had made far more enemies than friends.

Jackson claimed the body. Refusing would have raised too many questions, whether he wanted to or not. The funeral was plain and empty, with the cheapest headstone available. Only a handful of older pack members showed up. I stood beside Jackson and watched them lower the casket. It felt like a perverse kind of closure. Nothing more.

Afterward, the legal side moved quickly. He inherited everything. Black Industries, the property development company Thomas had spent twenty years building on the outside, became his the day the coroner signed the certificate. So did every account, every asset off pack land, and every dollar Thomas had put in his own name. All of it transferred without resistance.