Incendiary (Inferno 4)

Chapter Seventeen

I decide to take the long way home for two reasons.

The first is to make the boy sweat. If he thinks he’s the last surviving child in the house, he’ll probably kill himself and make my life a hell of a lot easier.

The second is I need some time to clear my head. I can’t carry into their final lesson knowing that the bitch went off and had another kid after I threw her out of my house.

I should have had her sterilized.

With a grunt, I decide to go to the one place where I know I’ll be understood. Skylar has never been there, neither has Richter, but I need to talk to someone that gets me—someone that will be able to calm me down for now.

Twenty minutes later, I take a deep breath as the sign starts to loom closer in the distance.

Pinecrest Memorial.

I shake my head ruefully as I pull through the cemetery gates. I never did have it in me to abandon Taylee, I guess. Sandpoint was—and always has been—home and this is where she laid her roots.

The same ones that I’ve kept buried deep in the ground, growing stronger and stronger with each passing generation.

Even though she was a cold-hearted bitch when she needed to be, she was the only one of my parents that gave a shit about me.

Slowly, I wind the car up the long driveway and around the back of the cemetery, passing by people who aren’t here to mourn.

They’re more than likely gossiping about things that are none of their business or getting their exercise for the day.

In a place where the dead have been laid to rest and apparently aren’t worth any respect.

When I get to the row that she’s buried in, I pull the truck over to the side and cut the engine. My hands fall to my lap as I look out the driver’s side window and count the headstones to the one I’ll find my way to soon and sigh.

“Stay in the car, Skylar. I’ll be back shortly,” I tell her softly as I remove the keys from the ignition and push the door open.

I shove my hands into my pockets as I walk by strangers that I never knew until I’m standing in front of the headstone of the one I did.

Somehow, I feel like that lost teenage boy that didn’t know what it felt like to be cared for all over again.

I clear my throat as I crouch down and use my hand to brush away some of the dirt and grass that’s landed on her name before I sigh.

Even the fucking caretakers here do yardwork more often than Richter does it seems.

“I’m not gonna stay long,” I tell her as I stand back up and brush my hand against the leg of my pants.

I cut my eyes toward Skylar who’s leaning forward in her chair and watching me with curious eyes.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t even know why I’m really here. It’s not like you can say anything back to me, but maybe it’s for the best. You weren’t exactly the best person to talk to when you were alive,” I continue with a chuckle as I turn my eyes back down toward her name.

Taylee Greene.

Where all of this bullshit started.

Where it should have ended.

Where a legacy could have died if I had been weak enough to let it.

“Anyway, I guess I just wanted to tell you in person that I think I finally got it right for once. The girl over in the truck,” I say, nodding my head toward Skylar, “is going to learn how to be a wife today. But I don’t want you to think you’ve missed anything because I’ll make sure that you’re there in your own way, you crazy bitch,” I finish with the shake of my head.

I stare at the headstone, remembering the last time I was here.

It was when I found her frantic handwriting in the back of her bible; the one that set me on the mission to be the man I am today.

The one that solidified everything that I knew I had to do.

I remember the relief as it washed over me that day so many fucking years ago.

With a smirk, I linger in front of her for a moment longer before I suck my teeth and start back toward the truck.

A person like Taylee Greene may have wallowed in her madness, but she knew what it meant to be a true family, and I am merely the humble result of her tutelage.

And even though my little bastards haven’t been as cooperative as I would have hoped, I know I have more than one chance now to do this.

I just have to get Skylar back home first.