Revenge11 min read
"You Tried to Bury Me—Watch Me Grow"
ButterPicks12 views
"I don't have time to die today." I kicked the taxi door open and rolled off the moving seat.
The night air hit my face like a cold hand. My hands still smelled of grease and salt. My heart was thudding, and the airport lights behind me felt like a fake sunrise.
Someone had tried to kill me at the airport. Someone had tied me up, injected me, and left me half-blind in a trash-strewn bathroom. I had a smear of white powder under my nails and a crude "U" carved into dust on the wall. I had half an hour missing from my life—thirty minutes that belonged to whoever wanted me gone.
"Marie, are you all right?" Ian Boehm's voice was sharp in my ear.
"I'm fine." I lied and wiped my face. "Drive."
Ian didn't argue. He trusted me enough to drive like a lunatic down the mountain road to my family's estate.
My grandfather, Edward Farrell, had set up this whole night. The house smelled like money and old books. Guests clinked glasses and laughed like nothing dangerous could ever happen.
"Marie!" My grandfather's hand squeezed mine at the top of the marble stairs. "My girl, look at you."
"I came on time, Grandfather." I kept my voice small. The crowd saw the ragged white tee and the stained denim. They saw the messy hair. They smiled with the sharpness of people tasting blood on someone else's plate.
"Sit with me," he said, proud and oblivious. "Tonight you show them you exist."
"You could have warned me," I told him later, near the music and the fountains.
"I wanted you to choose your path," Grandpa said, tapping his cane. "Not for them, for you."
My stepmother, Teresa Duncan, watched us from a circle of women. Her face was made of money and envy. Nova Baldwin, her daughter, wandered through the crowd like a pale sun, already hunting for orbit.
Teresa's smile dropped into a blade when she saw me. "She's here," she hissed to Nova. "Now or never."
I watched them. I let them think their plan worked. I did not want their pity. I wanted them to act.
Two brothers from the Night family arrived—Rex McCormick first, swaggering and loud, every inch the spoiled heir. He smirked like he owned the chandelier and the people beneath it.
Elijah Richter came after. Quiet. Biting. The kind of man who made decisions and kept them. When he walked in, the room seemed to inhale.
Rex called across the ballroom, "Nice party, Edward. The old man still likes fireworks."
"Too loud for me," Elijah said softly, and his voice cut Rex to silence.
Later, in a quiet corner, Rex tripped on something and twisted his ankle. He wanted attention. He got it.
"Watch where you walk," Elijah said, and pushed Rex so he fell into a fountain. The crowd laughed. Rex sputtered, humiliated.
"You think you're funny?" Rex snarled.
"I think I'm done with your noise," Elijah said. "Back off."
Rex's face burned with anger. He was the kind of man who never lost face. He held grudges like weapons.
I did what I always did. I watched. I learned. I moved where they could not see.
The garden emptied. The music turned into background noise. I slipped out to the darker corners where the lights did not reach. I wanted to bait them.
"Come on, step up," Nova murmured at me from behind, breath sweet with wine. "Show everyone why you shouldn't exist."
She stepped too close. Her hand reached, heavy with wine scent and arrogance.
I caught her wrist. "Not today," I said.
"Get off me!" she screamed. She struggled, faked a push, and then made the voice that kills. "Someone! Help! She attacked me!"
Hands came. Voices rose. The house filled again. They all believed Nova—the pretty victim—before they believed me.
I let them. I let them think I had lost.
I had practiced this for years in the worst places. I had been trained to watch hands and feet and breath. I knew how to make men obey with a look and how to make fools look worse than they were.
"Nova—" Teresa's voice was sweet poison. "Are you all right?"
"She tried to hurt me!" Nova sobbed. The crowd closed in like curtains.
"Someone get help!" the hostess shouted, fingers trembling with spectacle hunger.
I smiled the kind of smile that makes people step back. "I can fix this," I said to no one and then to everyone.
I had brought a small vial with me. It was nothing lethal—just a compound that made a person see what they wanted to see for an hour. I had used the knowledge from my old training and my hobby—perfume recipes and rare botanicals—to make a one-time trick. It worked like a charm on a light mind.
"Try breathing," I told Nova when I slipped up close. "Close your eyes. Count with me."
Nova's eyes fluttered. Her sobs softened. Someone caught her.
From the balcony, Rex watched. He liked the plan. He liked the idea of me falling.
Then, like a knife dropped, everything changed.
"Turn the main screen on," Elijah said quietly to his aide.
I felt it before I heard it: a cold hand of panic turn my spine to ice. The ballroom went darker. The big screen above the band lit up like a stage light.
The feed was from the factory—the warehouse outside town where someone had set fires and tried to kill me. It was crisp. My moves, the shots hitting oil drums, my life-or-death fight with the snipers—the whole thing was on the screen, but not as they had been told. The video showed the shooter pulling the trigger. The camera traced the back of the man in the sniper's scope. The man was wearing a suit—custom, expensive. The camera pan revealed his face.
"Rex." My voice was all I needed.
Rex's mask fell. He laughed once too loudly. "You must have the wrong man," he said.
Elijah didn't smile. He didn't have to. The screen flipped. A close-up—taken from a different angle—showed payment transfers, a text thread. The phrase repeated like a drum: "Make it look clean. Burn the evidence."
"Who gave the order?" my grandfather said, voice small and panicked.
"Someone who needed you out of the way," Elijah said. He walked down to the stage, and his shadow cut Rex in half.
The room went quiet as if the house had seen a ghost. "Rex McCormick," Elijah said, loud enough for the whole hall. "Explain."
Rex's jaw clenched. "I didn't—"
"Turn the audio up." Elijah's hand did the motion, and the screen played the intercepted call. Rex's laughing voice, ordering the hit. The room gasped. Nova's eyes widened into small moons. Teresa's painted face turned gray.
"No—" Teresa said, but the sound was small. People started to move away from her like hot coals. Their hands left their champagne glasses. Phones came up. Videos started.
"Where did you get that?" Rex screamed. "Who allowed this?"
"Security footage and a bank trace," Elijah said. "Someone sent it. Someone who knows the truth."
It was not a legal scene. It was a family disaster staged into public ruin.
"Take them out." Rex's voice was a croak.
"On the contrary," Elijah said. "Let them speak."
A woman from the guest list—one of those wives who loved a scandal—stepped forward, phone held high. "Tell us why you wanted her dead," she said.
Teresa's face cracked. "You—you don't understand!" she said. "He—Rex—was helping us. We needed him to—"
"You sold your dignity for power," Elijah said. His voice had the cold of a blade. "You thought you could bury a granddaughter to take the house." He looked at me. "She saved herself."
The crowd shifted. They wanted spectacle. They wanted the soil of truth turned. They wanted to see a villain fall.
"Tell them everything." I heard myself say it.
"Everything?" Grandpa asked, his voice small as a child's.
"Everything," I said.
I spoke slow. I told them how Teresa had hired men. How Nova had pretended. How the taxi driver had been an assassin. I told them about the fake shooters and the burnt oil drums. I told them how they had tried to have me forget. I told them about the white powder under my nails and the message carved on the bathroom wall.
"No!" Teresa cried. Her face had started white, then red, then a sickly lemon. She lunged forward, hands flailing.
"Stop her," Rex barked, but no one helped. People started to film.
"Now the cameras," I said, and Elijah turned three of the hall cameras to face the crowd. I wanted this public. I wanted them to see the order that had been given.
Teresa stepped up to the podium. "You—it's a lie. I never—" Her voice broke.
"Begin with your threats," I said. "Begin with the bank transfers."
She tried to lie, and the screen played another clip—this one a voice message between Teresa and a shell man named Lin—Eaton Song, I remembered, because I'd once seen him at my father's office. It had been recorded. The voice said plainly, "Make sure the girl is gone. Burn the wreckage."
Gasps. Phones pressed closer.
"No!" Nova screamed, and she struck out wildly. Two men in suits grabbed her arms and held her like a child.
"Turn on the hospital cam," Elijah said. A new feed, a blurred figure in dark, the same car, the same trunk. The crowd saw it all. The smell of burning came to the front of everyone's thoughts.
Teresa dropped to her knees on the marble. "Please!" she cried. "Please don't ruin me. I'll give you everything. I'll—"
Elijah walked up to her. He leaned down so only she could hear. "I want your apology," he said. "And I want you to hand over every cent you hid. Then you'll apologize in public. I want you to beg."
She tried to smile. "Beg? For what? I'm—"
"Beg for your crimes," he said.
She looked up. The lights flashed. The phones were brighter than the candles.
"Forgive me! Forgive me!" she screamed at the ceiling. Her voice cracked into a ragged thing. She grabbed onto the stage edge, then let go and fell face-first onto the marble as if she had been pushed down by something heavier than guilt. Several guests began to clap like a judge striking a gavel—some in delight, some in horror.
Rex staggered back. "You can't do this," he rasped. "You can't—"
"Stand up, Rex," Elijah said softly.
Rex got to his knees. The room seemed to tilt. He looked rotten. His hands trembled as the luxury of his life slipped from him. He had always been the man who expected people to fall behind him. Now he was small and alone.
"Get off me!" he barked. But his voice had no command in it. He clung to his cuff as if it were a lifeline.
I walked down from the stage. I stood in front of them while the cameras recorded each breath. "Why did you do it?" I asked Nova.
She opened her mouth, and she could not find a single memory that matched her lies. She began to cry, but the tears were thin and useless.
"Why?" I repeated.
"For power," Nova said finally. Her voice had the brittle shut of a glass window. "For being better than you."
A woman near the terrace—someone who had never forgiven Teresa for an old slight—yelled, "Get out of our sight!"
I did not raise my hand. I raised the truth. I let the crowd be the jury.
Teresa had an order in her pocket. She had used the name of a "Night" boy to get things. She had paid for men's lives. She had hoped to bury me and take my grandfather's favor.
Everything she had been cooking for years soured in her mouth.
She staggered to her feet, fell to her knees, and pressed her palms together like a beggar.
"Please," she whispered. "Please, I'll do anything. I will give back the money. I'll step down. I will leave the house. Please—"
"Beg," Elijah said, and he did not look cruel. He looked cold and clean. "Beg in front of everyone."
"I beg you!" Teresa cried, head bowed, voice raw. "I beg you all. I have been a wicked woman. I—" She broke into small sobs.
The crowd watched. Some turned away. Some filmed. Some called for police. A woman near the doorway stood and shouted, "Shame!" Several voices answered with the chant, and it echoed through the chandeliers like an old church bell.
Rex's knees finally gave. He dropped to the floor and covered his face with shaking hands. "Don't—" he begged at the people, as if the whole world could ignore him now.
Nova fell apart into heaving breaths. Her friends could not reach her. One of the women removed her bracelet and threw it on the floor like a crown of thorns.
They had wanted my ruin. They got their apocalypse.
For fifty minutes the room became theater. People came forward with questions. The police arrived—not because anyone dialed them first, but because the city heard the buzz and the cameras did their work.
My grandfather took my hand and looked at me with a mixture of shame and pride. "Marie," he said.
"I know," I said. "You did not know."
He squeezed my fingers hard. "I will fix it," he promised. "I'll make it right."
The press swarmed. Video of Teresa on her knees, of Rex begging, of Nova crying, of the Night brothers moving like predators to protect truth and their own interests—everything spread faster than the supper had ended.
They were ruined in an hour. Their businesses' shares dipped by the next morning. Friends and allies stepped away like gulls from a sinking boat. People watched the footage and judged, and this time the judge sat in every living room and scrolled through the evidence.
Teresa was escorted out. She cried and begged and called my name like a curse and a prayer. Rex was taken to a quiet room and ordered not to leave. Nova vanished into a corner, shaking.
In the weeks that followed, their phone lines filled with calls from journalists, their social feeds were swamped by messages, and their reputations, which had been built on the soft sand of other people's illusions, collapsed one click at a time.
But this was not the end. It was the beginning.
Elijah and I had stacked the deck like coin and mirror. He had phones, bank traces, a secret lab that held a man who had built terrible things—my blunt clue from the airport—Decker Dawson. He had his own scars and secrets. I had my island, my Redline friends, my fights, and my stubbornness.
"You did well," Elijah said later, when we sat on the roof of the house under a weak moon. "You turned poison into proof."
"I wasn't alone," I said. "You could have killed me at the airport."
"I didn't," he said. "Because you matter. Because you can get things done."
We did not say we liked each other, not yet. We said what had to be said.
"Will they come after you?" he asked.
"They tried already," I said. "They set a trap in the factory. They thought my death would be clean. They were wrong."
"I will keep your back," he said.
"Don't keep it because I asked," I told him. "Keep it because it's yours to protect."
Weeks became a shape we could measure. My grandfather returned to his study, tired but unharmed. The estate buzzed with lawyers and auditors and men who wore better suits than apology.
Rex's world shrank. He learned how it feels to be watched. Teresa found herself alone in a house that no longer heard her orders. Nova left the city with her face in the mirror and her hands empty.
They were not merely punished. They were shown.
People who had once bowed to them now shook their heads and walked away. Their friends' calls dried up. Videos of Teresa sobbing in the hallway were shared and split into thousands of retweets. People shouted for blood one day and for mercy the next. They had both.
There were nights after that I could not sleep. I dreamed about the island and the green vine and the man with the broken voice who had been locked beneath glass. I dreamed of Decker Dawson and the lab and the secret that made men kill for control. It had all tied together: the erasing, the injection, the ransom, the paid killers, the white powder.
"You wanted to erase me," I told Elijah one night.
"I needed to limit what you saw," he said. "Some things can't be spread. I chose half a truth to keep you alive."
"You lied," I said.
"I did," he admitted. "And then I tried to protect you."
We argued like thieves about honesty. We argued like children about mercy.
In the end I forgave him in the only way I knew how: I kept standing.
"We go find Grandpa," I said. "S City. The old man's last known track."
He nodded. "We move in the morning."
"Good," I said. "And Elijah?"
"Yes?"
"Don't stop liking me because I break things when needed."
He laughed then—a soft, flat thing. "I wouldn't dream of it."
Months later, when the dust settled and court dates were set and the Night family had shuffled their pieces, I stood in the same ballroom where the screen had shown my near-death and watched people who had shunned me now hesitate to meet my eye.
Elijah stood beside me. He did not hold my hand—he had never been that kind of man in public—but his shoulder brushed mine, small and certain like a promise.
I opened my palm. My grandfather's walnut beads sat warm against my skin. "This is mine," I said.
He smiled. "Yes. It is."
Outside, the city lights blinked. Inside, the echoes of their fall kept ringing. The world had rearranged itself around truth and revenge and a thin, stubborn girl who refused to be buried.
I put the bead back into my pocket and laughed once, loud and free.
"Watch me grow," I said. "I already have."
The End
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