Girl, 11 by Amy Clarke (grave mercy TXT) 📗

agreement with the university. Acting as a teaching assistant for undergraduate classes. This was it, the reason TCK didn’t want credit for Kerry’s murder. He had made a mistake, killing someone he had a connection to.

With shaking hands, Elle picked up her phone and left the studio.

42

DJ

January 20, 2020

Douglas sat at his window in the gray light of an early morning, drinking a cup of tea.

He still remembered the first time his father taught him about sacrifices. The Bible outlined the practice, the way they were to pray and bestow all of their sins and failures and shortcomings onto something else before cutting it open, offering it up to God. Every blemish wiped clean with the blood of another. More than half the years in his life had been reclaimed this way, every second he had wasted controlled by Loretta, by his father, since the moment his brothers had died.

And then, so close to completion, the clock froze. The girl escaped.

For twenty years, he had waited. One day, Eleanor would have a child, and that child would replace her. A lamb instead of a goat. Just when he was losing hope, Natalie appeared, and he watched their bond grow. Today, she would fulfill her purpose, dying on the day Amanda was meant to. He could not wait another moment.

Amanda was not the first girl to die too early, but she was the first he had revealed before her time. Douglas tapped his teacup with a fingernail. He had brought her to the abandoned house, prepared to leave her in the cold garage until the seventh day. But police had been outside, taking pictures of a car he’d thought would go ignored in the driveway. It was too risky to bring her back to his house, and the only other option was nearly an hour away—too far to drive with a dead body.

That left one location, only minutes away. It provided a mild satisfaction, like trying to quench a deep thirst with a single drop of water.

He had planned to wait until Natalie’s six days of work were complete, but when he awoke this morning, the need was too strong. It was the seventh day since he took Amanda, and he could not let it pass. The girl would get her day of rest early. Today, he would continue what he had started more than two decades ago with Kerry Presley.

After strangling Kerry, Douglas had driven to his father’s house—the only place he knew would be safe. He brought the body to the barn, locked the door behind him. A few days later, he saw a girl challenging her boyfriend out in the street. No regard for his pride. He followed her, offered a ride, showing his university ID. The rest was easy.

When he learned her age, everything fell into place. There was a reason killing that boy, destroying the naive and lovestruck version of himself, had not been enough. The numbers sorted themselves into a formula; the Scriptures came alive for him again. He knew what he needed to do. After that, the hunger to finish the countdown was insatiable.

Now, after years of patience, he would get satisfaction. His world would right itself. He had waited long enough.

On his phone, Douglas swiped to the camera footage from the basement. Natalie was still bent over the side of the bed, her bare back gleaming bluish white in the dim light. Her body tensed and shuddered as she vomited into the bucket he had left for her. The poison was taking hold fast. He had only started feeding it to her last night, but there were ways to make sure she died today.

Douglas went to see her. He slid the lock back and walked down the stairs, ignoring the sour smells of her bodily waste. She was on the bed, hunched into a tight ball with her back to him. He sat next to her and began to stroke her back like a father would his daughter, but she heaved herself off the bed, collapsing in the farthest corner of the room. Her attempt at a scream came out a harsh croak. With her knees pulled to cover her chest, she wrapped her arms around her shins and tried to make herself as small as possible.

“You’re sick, Natalie.” He made his voice sound kind, a gentle lie. “You should be in bed.”

“My bed is covered in shit.” She spat the last word out.

Wicked girl. He stood and took a step toward her, but she lifted her chin and did not look away. She was so like Eleanor; the Lord had clearly brought them together for a reason, ordained her for this purpose.

“A mouth like that is unbecoming of a young woman,” he said. “‘Do not withhold correction from a child. For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. You shall beat him with a rod and deliver his soul from hell.’”

She glared at him in the dark. “That’s not what that verse means. I know the Bible too, asshole.”

Rage exploded through him, and in one long stride, he was close enough to grab her shoulders, lifting her off the ground. Natalie cried out, all her bravado lost as he slammed her back against the wall. “Yours is not the first sharp tongue that I have threatened to cut out, but the others had the good sense to keep their mouths shut after a warning.” His face pressed closer to hers. “Do you need more than a warning?”

She dropped her gaze at last, hands coming to cover her chest as the fight leached from her body like sweat. After another moment, he set her down on her feet. Still looking at the ground, she whispered, “I’m sick. Please”—she swallowed—“please take me to the hospital. I’ll say whatever you want. I just . . . I don’t want to die.”

How quickly she could be humbled by him. Douglas laughed, one shoulder leaning against the wall as he watched