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He cowered away, covering his head. “Okay! Okay! I’ll write it!”
His letters were slightly squiggly from how bad his hand shook. I didn’t think it mattered. Nobody would be analyzing his handwriting when they saw the sick images on his hard drive. His shoulders shook with silent sobs.
Almost like he knew. He finally knew what it felt like to be powerless.
I wanted to throw my head back and crow with victory and the power that had transferred from him to me.
But that power belonged to those little girls. I could hold it for them in the meantime, but them being safe was the real win here.
I craned my neck, reading the words he’d written. When he finished, he dropped his pen. In the distance, a wail of a siren came, and I knew my time for playing with my prey was over.
He knew it too.
“Just do it.” He sniffed. “Get it over and done with already, Zeph.”
I forced out a laugh and cocked one eyebrow. “You misunderstand, Father. I’m not killing you.”
Hope flashed in his eyes. “You aren’t?”
From the pocket of my hoodie, I pulled the rope he’d tried to strangle Lyric with. The one I’d kept in my pocket ever since.
He gasped, recognizing it.
I dropped it into his lap. "Long enough to hang a man, don’t you think?”
He shook his head. “I won’t do it.”
My hand shot around his throat quicker than I realized I could move. My lips came to his ear. “You will, or it will be your dear sweet mother whose neck I have my fingers around. Don’t you worry. Before I kill her painfully, I’ll be sure to tell her she raised a sadistic pedophile. Then you’ll die as soon as you hit the prison gates. I’ll make sure of that. All it will take is one mention to another prisoner, and he’ll pass it on to the rest of them. I’m sure you’ve heard how men who hurt children are treated in prison.”
Resignation came over him. He knew I had him. He knew there was no way out. Not after what he’d done. There was no sparing the man’s life. I was never letting him hurt anyone again.
Writing a wrong I should have fixed a long time ago, when I’d first intercepted him trying to attack Lyric.
I turned on my heel and left the room.
At the bottom of the stairs, the police had arrived. They’d separated the girls from their “teacher,” and Lyric stood with Amelia on her hip, giving her statement.
Lyric’s beautiful light-colored eyes shot to me the moment I emerged.
Panic rippled all over her expression along with silent questions. The biggest one being, is he dead?
I walked over to them and calmly put my arm around her shoulder. “My name is Father Zepherin Hart. I’d be happy to give my statement too.”
She relaxed beside me, trusting that I had this. That I had them.
I did. I occupied the police with questions and drawn-out statements, until I knew enough time had passed. When they finally made their way upstairs, and a shout came for a medic, it was already too late.
Lyric looked up at me, and I just squeezed her shoulder in reassurance.
The ambulance wouldn’t make it here in time. We’d distracted the cops long enough.
Lyric called Lleyton, and he arrived in minutes, rushing across the grass to engulf his daughter in his arms. He walked her over to me and hugged me quickly. “Thank you,” he murmured.
I shook my head. “It was my fault in the first place. You should be hitting me, not thanking me.”
“You aren’t your mother. You got her back, unhurt. That’s all that matters.”
I grudgingly accepted his praise, while keeping an eye on the door beyond which paramedics worked to bring Byron back to life.
