The Darkness I Carry

Chapter 27: The Beast in Me

The House of Ashes

In a burned-out memory on the edge of town, a house once stood.

Now it was nothing more than a scar—ashes and bones and twisted rebar, a testament to something long forgotten. The earth had started reclaiming it, as it always did. Ivy crawled across the brick, moss sprouted through cracked tiles, and trees began to grow up through what used to be bedrooms. The ruins were silent, as if nature itself had been forced to make peace with the devastation.

Leah stood at the threshold of nothing. She didn't remember walking here. Didn't remember telling Caleb, either. But somehow, they both stood there now she, staring into the ruins, him watching her from ten steps back, like she might catch fire again. Like she might combust with all the ghosts she carried.

"This was it," she said, her voice softer than the wind that passed through the wreckage.

Caleb didn't ask what she meant. He didn't need to.

But she told him anyway.

"The home. After my mom OD'd. After foster number three threw me into a wall."

Her fingers brushed across the blackened stone, an almost ritualistic motion, as though the touch could somehow make it whole again. As though she could will it back into being.

"I was eleven. Small. Forgettable. That made me perfect."

Caleb stepped forward, slowly, hesitant to disturb the air around her. "Perfect for what?"

She stood up, her back straight as she turned toward him, eyes shadowed, distant, like she was speaking from another time.

"No one ever looks too hard when broken things go missing."

Her words hung between them, and for a moment, Caleb didn't know whether she was talking about herself, or the girl she used to be. Or the monster she was becoming.

Detective Avery's Burden

Detective Avery didn't sleep much anymore.

His desk had become a battleground a patchwork of maps, photos, post-its, and a single, scorched file that had been dug out from the ashes of what could have been the start of something real.

Holloway, Eleanor Jane. Age: 9.

He had read the report a dozen times, each time hoping it would make sense, that it would give him the answers he was desperate for. She had been pulled from a closet after the fire—silent, covered in blood that wasn't hers.

She'd said nothing for days. Not even when the social worker came. Not even when her new name was assigned.

But Avery knew better than to think silence meant safety. It was an illusion. A defense mechanism.

Sometimes, silence was the sound a monster made when it was learning to mimic the world.

The realization gnawed at him, hollowing him out with each passing hour. He didn't know who Eleanor was, but he was starting to understand what she had become.

And it terrified him.

The Gas Station

They found a gas station a few miles from the ruins. The kind of place that looked like it hadn't seen a good day in decades—flickering lights, windows stained yellow with age, the smell of oil and dust in the air. The kind of place where things went to disappear.

Leah walked inside, and Caleb leaned against the car, arms crossed. He watched the way she moved, like she was untouchable. Like she had already passed through the veil of things long lost.

When she came back, she was holding a small red box of matches. Caleb glanced at it, then back at her.

"You planning a bonfire?" he asked, his voice flat.

Leah shook her head, the corners of her mouth twitching, just barely. "No. Just making room."

Caleb frowned but didn't press it.

That night, by the side of the road, she burned something.

He didn't know what. He couldn't see it in the flickering light—old papers? A journal? An identity? She crouched by the small fire, her eyes fixed on the flames, like they might consume the past if she stared long enough. Like they could erase it.

Caleb stood behind her, a little closer than usual. Close enough to ask the question that had been on his mind for too long.

"What happened to the other girls?"

Leah didn't turn to him.

"They weren't like me," she said, her voice quieter than the crackling fire.

He waited, but she didn't elaborate.

"And that's why they died?" he pressed.

Leah tossed another page into the fire, the paper curling up with the heat. "No. That's why I didn't."

Caleb stood there for a moment, the weight of her words sinking in. He had heard them, but it wasn't the same as understanding them.

He wanted to ask more. To demand an explanation. But he knew better. The words would fall like stones between them. So, instead, he stayed silent, watching the fire burn the past away, as if it could cleanse everything.

The Message

Back at his motel room, Detective Avery stared at the message that had been scrawled in Sharpie on the mirror.

"You're not ready to see her. And she's not ready to be seen."

The window was still locked. The door still chained. But she had been there.

He could smell it sulfur from the match she'd struck. It clung to the air like a scar, impossible to ignore.

And the photo on the nightstand the one of Eleanor, age nine was missing.

The hollow ache in Avery's chest deepened. He could almost hear her voice in his head, cold and distant. I'm still here.

He slammed the file closed. The missing girl. The fire. The girl in the motel footage. It was all connected. But how?

And why hadn't she left him a single trace? Why had she left nothing but a trail of broken lives?

He rubbed his eyes, but the answer eluded him. It always had.

One thing was certain now. She was no longer a ghost.

And soon, there would be no one left to stop her.