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YELLOW
Four years later

Steve slumped onto the couch, the same one that Patsy had left them. Though Drew thought of the things as left behind by Lydia, Steve had always considered them bequeathed by Patsy. But the couch was tired and sagging. And so was his heart.
His mother had begun talking to him two years ago. She didn’t ask about boyfriends and he didn’t offer. No one had ever stuck anyway, so why hurt his mom with things that weren’t going to matter in the end? But this was the first time she had spoken of his father.
Dad had cancer, and to his shame, Steve had cared. The man had been bitter and thrown him out just for saying he was gay. Nevermind that he had been gay all along. His mother had stood by the old man. In the days after they kicked him to the curb, he had waited for them to simmer down, instead he saw them piling his things in boxes and taking his stuff to Goodwill. Worse, he had seen pictures from when he was a child taken out with the winter clothes and his bike.
His mother had stopped and even fought with his father after a few days. But she hadn’t called, hadn’t tried to find him. Even his younger brother hadn’t stood by him. No, Phillip had gotten mad at him for breaking up the family and making mom and dad fight.
No one had cared about Steve. So, when his mother called and said his dad was sick and wanted to make things right, Steve had yelled. “He doesn’t get to love me on his schedule! I am his child.”
No, what he was was a thirty-eight year old man acting like a child.
He turned his thoughts to the house. The couch he sat on was the same as when it had been Patsy’s, but the house was now far different. The living room had been expanded to three times the size of the original floorplan. The kitchen doubled. More bedrooms added on to the back.
For the past several years, Drew had grant money pouring into this place. She had finished her undergrad work and gone on through her masters. She had a golden touch with funding these programs through federal and private organizations alike. She didn’t just house the kids anymore, she put them through school, offered counseling, got them legally adopted – even at age seventeen. She was working with younger kids now, too. And three years ago, she had hired him.
His legal work was all for the kids now. He helped with the grants, drew up the documents and helped put the occasional kid into juvie or keep them out. By all accounts he was quite successful. But a call from his mother had him nearly in tears.
In the end, he relented. He wanted to hear his father say he had made a mistake. He thought he might be able to trade his forgiveness for that. Surprisingly, when he called his mother back, she sent his dad over right away. 
 Steve fought the knot in his heart that she didn’t come, too. But he was used to those knots by now.
On his feet, he greeted his father at the door, but there was no awkward hug or even a handshake. Instead his father started speaking.
“I threw you out a long time ago, and we’ve gone on this way for years.”
Steve nodded.
“We haven’t spoken all this time and I realize now, that was wrong of me.”
Again, he nodded at his father, but couldn’t speak.
“Don’t you think it’s time we ended this?”
“Yes, Dad.” His heart knit into something solid, tight with anticipation.
“Good. There’s a program at the church. They say they can get this out of you.”
“What?” Steve sat, stunned.
“You’ve been stubborn and I’ve let you be. It’s time to fix this . . .”
The old man kept talking, but Steve stared straight ahead, livid. All this time and his father had come here not to apologize, but to tell Steve to fix his own ‘problems’ because his father was dying. His life was seen as a stubborn rebellion against his father’s rules and beliefs. “Shut up, dad.”
“You don’t speak to me that way!”
Though his father yelled, Steve didn’t. The knot in his heart burst, but strangely didn’t cause pain. Maybe that would come later. “I do speak to you this way. I am gay. And I’m not going to speak to you ever again. You have no right to come here after all this time and believe that I am at fault. You need to leave my home.”
His father turned red, his hand shook. He looked like an angry old man with cancer. And, as Drew came in the door at the end of her day, Steve saw his father simply as a person, for maybe the first time in his life.
He was able to speak to Drew’s quizzical look in a calm voice. “This is my father. He has cancer and he came to make things right.”
Though she knew the story, Drew had never met his father. Her eyes lit at the statement, but Steve dashed it. “He wants me to go to a program to become un-gay so he can die in peace.”
He paid little attention as his father pushed himself from the couch and began his slow and furious journey to the front door. It was Drew’s face he watched as she flew into a righteous anger on his behalf.
He loved her. She was his family. And she alone would understand. Steve shook his head and put his hand on her arm, almost to ask permission. “He’s dying. And he’s leaving. He won’t come back. I thought he might be able to use an apple.”
Though she looked at him with questions in her eyes, he felt at home in his own body for the first time. He nodded at Drew, and she nodded back.
He plucked the last of the apples from the bowl that still sat on the table. He handed it out the front door as the old man turned to look at him one last time. “Here, you look like your blood sugar’s low.”
His father frowned at him as Steve closed the door and turned to Drew.

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GREEN
One year later

The knock at the door was a surprise. All the kids came and went without knocking and most of their friends did the same. Drew didn’t think anyone had knocked on Patsy’s door in years. And that was how she still thought of it, even as she pulled the door wide open on her surprise . . . it was Patsy’s house she stood in, lived in. And Patsy’s work she continued.
“Jason!” Drew almost moved to throw her arms around his neck, then remembered that she wouldn’t have given or accepted a hug during the years she’d known Jason. He wouldn’t expect it from her and would likely pull back if she tried. “I haven’t seen you in . . . almost ten years!”
Her smile grew as he darted a small one at her. Probably his best effort. Drew remembered how he had grown up. The same way she had, booted from one house to another until she had landed here with Patsy. Jason hadn’t.
“Hey Drew.” He seemed reserved, but interested in her house. So she covered the awkwardness with chatter showing him around and pointing out a few nice things that had belonged to Patsy. Lydia had sold them everything in the house . . . probably just because she was too lazy to bother cleaning it out, but it had pleased Drew and Steve.
Drew mentioned the painting on the wall, by one of Patsy’s kids who was now in art school and might one day sell make a living at it. Only after she blurted out a few neat things about the house did she realize that it might not be polite to rub it in to Jason that she had found somewhere warm and kind when he had not. She remembered the way he had exited the last house he was staying at, and how he was certain the couple was still collecting money for him.
The conversation was stilted and rough around the edges and when he finally asked to use the bathroom, Drew sank to the couch, exhausted.
Why, she wondered, was this conversation so tough? She spent her days and nights talking to teenagers who had been abused, who had been unloved and kicked out, who wanted to join gangs, hurt animals, break things or try dangerous combinations of sex and drugs. But talking to Jason, by all measures now an adult, was wearing her out in away that all the kids and problems and a full load at college had not.
He emerged, looking even less comfortable than when he went in, as she stood to ask what she could help with, the words choked in her throat.
The gun wavered in his hand, jerking with the tremors in his arm and about to go off by accident in her direction. She sucked in air. “What do you need?”
“Come on!” He berated her, the words coming easy now. “What do you think I need?”
He had been her one friend for two years at the group home, and now he was here, gun in hand, wanting her money. Which she had never had and still didn’t. So she said it “I don’t keep money in the house.”
“Everyone does.” The gun waved as he gestured and the old skill of not flinching returned with ease.
“Jason, I run a foster home. I have teens in here just like we were, so I don’t keep any cash around or even cards. I don’t have anything.”
He asked for things to pawn. The painting? Not valuable for several years at least. The nice crystal bowl? Only worthy to her and Steve. Jason rampaged through the house, but it had been cleaned for just this purpose.
Finding some strength, Drew followed him, trying to limit the destruction, trying to keep him out of the limited belongings most of her kids had. The few things she tried to do earned her a hard-knuckled punch to her ribs and the crack of his pistol against her temple. When he was close, she smelled the rancid sweat and the odor she had learned to recognize a long time ago. Jason had been with her, at a foster house that the police had raided while they were in their beds. Meth.
Drew breathed deep. Jason was using, and she had nothing of value to give him, to keep herself safe. He was the boy who was always stronger than she. He had always stood up for her, and some part of her mind had considered him the big brother she’d never had. Now he was here with a gun and no rational thought process. She’d learned enough in her courses to be very, very afraid of the man who had once been her best friend.
“Jason, I don’t have anything to offer, and I’m sorry.”
Some part of him seemed to see that. She had loved him, and she had been jealous of his strength and his brains, and now Drew stood trembling before him and held out the one thing she thought he needed. “Jason, take this.”
“An apple?” His eyebrows went to his hairline as though she were the one who was high.
She started in before he could say more, trying to modulate her voice, to not sound as educated as she was becoming. “A monk came, he blessed it, it’ll help you.”
“I can’t sell it.” His voice and face became harsh, no longer her protector or even friend. “What would I do with it? Eat it?”
At her barest nod, he slapped her hand, sending the beloved apple in an arc to the floor. Though it bruised, she didn’t flinch. Nor did she show the pain she felt at many levels when the gun came at her.

She woke hours later, the afternoon light dimming, the front door opening without a knock. That, in itself, was suddenly reassuring. Thankfully, it was Steve. She recognized his shoes and his voice and his smell, even though she couldn’t see his face for the large cardboard box he held.
“Leon dumped me.” The sound of those words was sad, but resolute. Steve, through and through. “And this time I just decided to move in here with you. Like you keep asking me to.”
When he set the box down and finally got a look at her, he blanched. “Did one of the kids do this? I’ll put them in juvie.” He was at her side, not daring to touch the marks on her face.
She shook her head. “Old friend, high on meth. Luckily, he didn’t shoot me.”
Steve offered ice packs, heat pads and legal retribution. Drew asked for the apple. “He bruised it. I should eat it now, before it goes bad.”
Steve smirked, “That apple’s been good for three years, you think it can’t survive a tumble on the floor?”
“Don’t wanna find out.” She rubbed it on her shirt, then took a bite.
“You really think there was something in that blessing, don’t you?”
Drew nodded.
Three days later, she was awarded her first grant money for the house.

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RED
2 years later.

Steve and Drew sat side by side on the old couch. Though the crocheted throw was as ugly as it had always been, he wanted it. Drew simply wanted to cry in the room that had once been hers. But Lydia was here now. And Lydia was a reminder that the room had never really belonged to her.
Though Patsy’s family milled about, the conversation turned only occasionally to what an amazing woman she had been. Instead, they all asked Lydia what she was going to do with the house.
“Like I know.” Perfect in an expensive black dress and matching heels, Lydia shrugged. “I was expecting her to leave it to one of those foster kids she had. I wasn’t enough for her when she was alive, why would she give me anything now?”
Steve cringed. Drew had been one of those foster kids. And he had been a charity case, too. Patsy was the only one who would take him in after he’d come out to his father and had his clothes scattered across his front lawn by his mother just two months shy of his eighteenth birthday and five months before high school graduation. His church had cut him off, and they cut Patsy, too, for taking him in. But she had shrugged it away.
Lydia had been mortified to have him in the house. To this day she had spoken to him only when Patsy had forced her.
In Drew’s mind, the only problem Lydia had ever suffered was not having her home to herself, but Lydia had never forgiven her mother for making her only daughter one of many rather than the one and only she wished to be.
As the crowd thinned, Steve and Drew stayed behind, though they weren’t sure what reaction that would garner from Lydia. Steve stayed as a buffer. Drew stayed because she had been checking in on Patsy as she had needed more and more care this past year. It had been Drew who found that Patsy had passed. It had been Drew and Steve who cleaned for the service, and now they sat with Lydia and her husband at the same table where Patsy had fed them for so long.
Lydia spoke first. “I know she left things to each of you. Surely you aren’t expecting more.”
Steve knew better than to be affronted, but he was. Every time. “No. We wanted to see if you were planning on selling the house. And for how much. We’re interested in buying it.”
Lydia laughed. “I’m going to flip it. All the furniture is going to Goodwill and if I can swing it, I’ll have a crew in by next Tuesday to start knocking out walls and taking down cabinets.” She huffed. “It has to be gutted.”
Drew’s heart sank. They’d never be able to afford it refurbished. Her eyes squeezed, fighting tears, and she grabbed Steve’s hand.
Lydia snapped again. “Oh please. You were her favorite. I got this hideous old house and no mother.”
Her husband gently touched her arm. “I think your blood sugar’s low. You haven’t eaten since breakfast. Here.”
He pulled an apple from the bowl that Drew had left on the table just as Patsy had. She bit her tongue. Not that one. She hadn’t replaced it since the monk had visited. It was still shiny and red, but when Lydia bit into it she would get a shock. Oh, well, the bitch deserved it.
Drew waited.
But Lydia chewed without comment. After several bites and a labored sigh, she glared at them, “What could you offer for the house?”
Their highest offer only made her roll her eyes. She polished off the apple and tossed the core into the trash as Steve winced.

But three days later the call came through. Lydia called Drew, probably still not willing to speak to Steve. Drew’s heart soared as she listened to the diatribe about the podunk town and how no one would come out to work on the house for at least two months. Lydia demanded their highest price, but Drew and Steve scrambled for a week and came up with what they needed.

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They sat around the table not saying anything. They didn’t know what to say. Patsy had set a generous table. Mostly American home-cooked fare, but that was what she knew how to make. And surely the monk hadn’t traveled all this way to eat the cold rice mash he usually ate at home. She had no goat’s milk and she likely wouldn’t be able to find any in this little town just outside Little Rock. Though she had checked the internet and seen that some sects of monks ate only one kind of food at each meal, Patsy couldn’t fathom serving this holy man only fried chicken or only mashed potatoes. So she had fixed what she knew how to do well and sat quietly while they all politely ate.
Her friends were as silent as she was – none of them knew what to do to change the course of the meal. Drew kept her mouth closed. She had rehearsed a thousand ways to ask the monk to bless the necklace she always wore. It had been a gift from her grandfather just days before he had died and the blessing would make it that much more special. Unfortunately, of all the openings she had practiced, none was right for breaking such a long silence.
Steve had hoped for conversation, he desperately wanted to learn something worthy. He wanted to be worthy. And so he had worn his best shirt, a pale blue bordering on purple with a nearly matching silk tie, only to discover that he clashed garishly with the yellow and orangey-red robes the monk wore. It seemed none of this made a difference to the monk.
He had greeted them with smiles and American handshakes, and had nodded as though he understood when they met him at the door. Their little group was just another meal on his cross country journey and they had wanted to make a good impression. Though he uttered a few phrases here and there, it was apparent that his English was broken at best and none of them knew how to surpass that barrier. So, aside from blessing the meal in his native tongue, he said nothing during the evening.
Eventually it was over. Patsy was proud that at least she had made the right amount of food - there were only two slices of pie and half a serving of green beans left. When she had set the table she had feared – as she always did – that there wouldn’t be enough, and so she had put a bowl of apples in the middle as a centerpiece and told herself they were there as backup food if necessary. The three apples were the only thing that sat untouched as the odd quartet rose to say goodbye.
A stilted ‘thank you’ was all the monk spoke before he left, shaking each hand and offering a kind smile. Then he was gone, back in the small rental car with the man who was ferrying him from stop to stop, and the three friends looked to one another.
Steve broke the silence, “I liked him, but that was a bit of a bust.”
Drew, a full ten years younger than him, didn’t seem to take it quite as well. It was only then that he noticed the way she held the gold heart in her fist, and he was sorry he hadn’t spoken up for her. Instead, he offered the only consolation he could, “I’m sorry about your necklace. You know, the monk blessed the food. So the apples are blessed, right? We could each take one.”
The two of them turned to Patsy, as they always did.

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Lee was at the bar taking the last swallows of his inheritance when they found him. He hadn’t been hiding. In fact, he’d been waiting.

The day before, they had called him from work and suggested he come back in, as they had for the past three days. The voice on his machine said it was time to start working. He didn’t have anything keeping him any more. He’d been appalled as he listened to the message. He’d been appalled by a number of things. Like the fact that he was half upside down, his head half in the toilet as he vomited up what felt like his actual stomach rather than just the contents of it.

He’d hardly heard the phone ring. Another wave of nausea had prevented him from even attempting to pick up the line. And he’d emptied his stomach for the fourth time in less than twenty minutes when the voice came through the air as the old machine recorded it.

After the voice ended, Lee sat back on his heels and shook. Whether it was tremors from the alcohol, the fear, or the callous reminder that he had no one at home now, he didn’t know. But he sat on the cold bathroom tile and vomited repeatedly for another twenty minutes before he even considered taking off his jacket and tie.

However, once he thought to do it, it became a panic. He clawed his way out of the cloying black fabric. Small sounds told him he had ripped his suit in more than one place. He scratched his own skin in his terror and clumsiness, but didn’t quit until he was naked in his own bathroom and the nausea had given way to the feeling that he was imploding.

In an attempt to gain some equilibrium, he leaned over the sink and washed his face with cold water, then leaned over further to drink directly from the faucet. He’d done this a thousand times. But this time he saw a drop of red where the silver spout met the white porcelain of the sink.

Blood.

The cleaners had missed it. His mind tried to push back the images that suddenly crowded it. He had kept the pictures at bay for several hours, but they crowded back in now. The ones that woke him up in a cold sweat at night, of his wife and daughter, gunned down in their own living room. But, as much as their blood had been flung and splattered everywhere, it shouldn’t have gotten in here.

No, this was a drop that he had carried in on his own hands. Or perhaps it had dripped off his tie or from his shirt. He had gathered his wife and child into his arms and held them until the police came and pried him loose. He had bathed in their blood.

And he had been broken.

Once he had bathed and stood upright again, he had felt the urge to get out of the house. The bar had called to him. And he had answered. He spent every day and night, moving slowly from one establishment to another. Drinking the best whiskey while he waited for the autopsy reports. The dual funeral was held up for days while everyone waited for the coroner to tell exactly how many bullets had pierced the family he had made.

But, just the night before, the bartender had asked him if he was rich. Because he’d been drinking the most expensive whiskey in the house like a fish. Lee had almost replied that he wasn’t. But he was.

Samantha and Bethany both had life insurance policies. Bethy’s had been intended to cover a funeral, rather than replace lost income. But his and Sam’s policies had both been designed to pay off the house, put Bethy through college and leave the remaining parent at home to take care of her. So, yes, suddenly he was rich. But the way he acquired the money was loathsome, and it occurred to him that he was drinking what was left of his wife and daughter. He’d left rather quickly.

He’d vomited, as usual. But unlike every other night, he’d cried. Great heaving sobs that he was certain would convince the neighbors to call the police. Around three a.m. when he finally had the urge to eat something, he found the message. A page of a tax return had been left on the counter in the kitchen.

It would have looked like a random misplacement for a tax attorney, but he had known what it was. A warning. He had tried to turn them in once he’d realized what they were doing. They had killed Sam and Bethy. And now they wanted him back at work, ‘unhindered’ as the voice on the machine kept saying.

Standing there in his kitchen, something had changed. He accepted his loss. Finally stopped the feeling of imploding that had persisted almost all the time he hadn’t been drinking Bethy’s college fund. He had to get to work.

So tonight he had gone to a bar near his home and ordered his usual very expensive whiskey. This time, the bartender didn’t eye him, as Lee had been here three times this week doing nearly the same thing. Only this time he wasn’t three sheets to the wind – just drunk enough.

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t heard them come in. A footstep falling right behind him was the only warning he got before he was jerked from his seat by a fat hand. The fat voice told him he needed to sober up. It almost sounded caring, and Lee almost laughed. But he didn’t.

Once in the parking lot, the voice became a lot less soothing. He was informed in no uncertain terms that he was needed at work. He was told with both voices and fists. And he agreed. He whimpered a little and said he’d be there.

Lee wove his way home, driving as though he were uncertain, though he was certain they were watching. His brother-in-law, Jason, was waiting at the house as Lee had requested he be, but Lee didn’t answer the usual ‘what happened?’ questions that poured from his brother-in-law’s mouth. Just took Jason’s truck keys and thanked him for his help.

Grabbing the bag he had already packed with jeans, t-shirts, a credit card Jason had reluctantly lent him and all the cash he could find, he climbed into the truck without waving good-bye to the last of the family he was sure he would never see again.

The next night he threw away Jason’s driver’s license and credit card as he exited the gun show. Jason had Sam’s money now. So the three guns Lee had bought with the credit card would be covered. They clacked against each other and the ammo boxes that more than tripled the heft of the one bag he carried. They weighed heavy in his heart and on his mind, too.

But he didn’t feel remorse or guilt. The voice on the machine was right. He was unencumbered now. There was no need to fear retribution, he’d already suffered it.

That night, Lee drove off the grid.

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She was becoming.

She was no longer Cyndy and never would be again. What, or who, she was becoming, she wasn’t sure. But she was changing. Even as she walked through the woods, cheap sneakers crunching leaves, she felt things sharpening inside.

There were twinges and tugs where injuries pulled at her. She’d picked a fight at school just for the purpose of getting bruises. That way no one would notice any new ones after tonight. The damage was both an asset and a liability. But she wouldn’t let it hurt.

In the dark, her vision had changed to the grayscale world that the night allowed. But even in the depth of night she could see the house was painted a sunny yellow. A big Victorian with white trim, it loomed over her.

The backyard stretched before her, beckoning her out, calling to her where she stood at the edge of the trees. Sliding back into the cover of the woods, she slipped what she needed out of her pockets. A black hat had been jammed into one, and she now forced her ponytail up under it. Several attempts were required to make it stay and all the while she was fighting with it she was cataloguing better options - a haircut, braids, hairspray - because this would not be the last time she had to do this.

Gloves came out next. Black leather, bought at a discount store, they were the singular most expensive item she owned. And even as cheap as she had gotten them, she’d had to save up. As painful as that had been - the waiting, the saving was of no concern to someone so single minded - it had probably been a good thing. She had accused Robert Listle of things, and had she done this a while ago, it might have gotten traced back to her. A little distance gave her an advantage.

Her body covered as much as possible, she slunk across the back yard. If any of the foster children living in the home saw her they didn’t sound any alarms. Someone slinking in to rob them was no worse than other nights, at best it was a diversion they wouldn’t have to pay for later.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t breathing heavily by the time she reached the house. She was calm enough to take a moment for silence, just in case someone did see her, or get worried about a shadow, or hear a noise. She pushed into the bushes and waited until she counted to twenty. She leaned back against the wall, startled by the soft crackle. The wood was weak here. Clean and sparkling up where it showed, no one had forced the new coat of paint down here behind the bushes. Though the house had worn yellow for several layers, here it was chipping away, showing a dull coat of gray that had once been the house’s main color.

She knew this house. She’d been inside as a guest. And at the small memorial service that vile man had thrown for her sister, she’d checked the layout. She now crouched under the window to his bedroom.

Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep breath and let it out, focusing on her goal. One . . . Two . . .

She stood abruptly, bringing her elbow up and behind her head to smash the window. In a fluid movement, she turned and grabbed the ledge above her using the brute strength she had developed in her arms to haul herself up.

The leather gloves protected her hands from the glass edges. Mostly.

Even as she swung her leg over and into the room, she saw him coming awake. A simple looking monster, all the more lethal for his likeability, Robert Listle sat upright in bed.

He opened his mouth, a possibility she had not really accounted for. She had simply thought she’d be faster than him. Luckily, he’d been asleep and wasn’t really processing the fact that a person was coming through his window. Instinctively, he pulled the covers up, but he asked a gentle “What?”

She didn’t answer, just came all the way into the room as he was standing, a man naked but for his underwear. His eyes shifted at her, suddenly looking mean, and she got a glimpse of the way her sister had described him forcing his way into her room after dislodging the chair she had attempted to shove under the door. Wendy hadn’t been the only foster kid he’d gone after. And she hadn’t been the last.

The narrowed eyes pushed her into action.

Though he was much taller she reached out for him. Grabbing his arm and tipping him off balance hadn’t really been the plan. She wasn’t as fluid as she’d always imagined she would be when she got here. The fist fight yesterday had all been calculated moves and factored hits. This was a mess. Her adrenaline had kicked in.

He probably hadn’t expected her to grab him. He faltered toward her and as she stepped out of the way he teetered toward the broken window in the tiny room. His arm hit the glass where she had come through and he twisted away from her.

She wasted no time. She knew what she had come for. There would be no fighting, sweating, punching. Just one arm tight around his neck, the other bracing it to be sure the flat of her forearm went across his windpipe, crushing it rather than just locking his head in place.

He thrashed but she was behind him. His legs were hampered by the fact that she was shorter and he couldn’t stand to get any proper aim or force. Several blows landed, but none were strong enough to break the grip held steady by the lingering memory of her sister’s death.

When he ceased to fight and her arm began to ache, she forced herself to remember his baby. The one her sister had surely killed when she slit her wrists. It was hard to find much sympathy for the tiny offspring of this monster. It was hard to find sympathy for anything. Or much of any feeling at all.

So she counted to one hundred after he stopped flailing and she listened for sounds in the house, not hearing anything of importance. When at last she released him and let him slide, leaden, to the floor, she felt satisfaction.

Her brain then snapped back into place.

She had a job to do here. Listle was dead, that had been most important. But if she was going to get to Jansen and Leopld she had to make certain that none of this pointed back to her.

She pulled drawers and looked under socks, shifted the mattress as though looking for something. Twice she found small wads of cash which she pocketed.

Then cautiously, she went to the bedroom door. Slowly she opened it, venturing into the hall, trying to keep her face hidden lest one of the household kids see her and get the idea to call the cops - even though she’d just stopped the horrors they all knew were happening.

Quickly, she messed up the living room and kitchen only at the last minute tipping lamps and breaking the glass in the back door as she went out it. She stuck to the stepping stones not wanting to leave shoe imprints then dove straight for the woods, never looking back to check if she’d been seen.

Peeling the hat and gloves, she used her precious pocket space for the small folds of bills leaving her gear clutched in her hand. It wouldn’t do to drop them back here and have them found. She walked off the adrenaline, through the woods and around in circles, and still she didn’t hear sirens. Good.

Later, she changed into the clothes she’d left behind a rock on the other side of the trees. Bagging the ones she’d worn in to Listle’s house, she hauled them for a while, eventually pushing them under other bags in a dumpster she passed on the way home.

No one seemed to be out at this hour. For that she was grateful.

Her feet were tired. The twinges in her arms had advanced to actual pain. But the money in her pockets was a badge, a prize. The one thing she had taken from Listle’s house besides her self.

Just beyond the foster home where she stayed, she stopped. She breathed in deep against the weight of satisfaction and the knowledge of what she had done. Of what she would do again. But better next time.

She had become.

Read more about Sin in my novel, Vengeance.

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