I had to force my mind off the guy whose house I’d showed up at several times per day.

There was no way I could let him get away that easy. The only thing I’d done was hit him, but I wanted to hurt him much, much more.

Pet’s past finally revealed how bad I felt inside. What a wicked, jealous and sick fuck I’d really become. And she wasn’t to blame, but the need to avenge her innocence felt like it was taking over my life.

She seemed pleased lately, reveling in the memories of both me and Stranger inside her. I knew she’d loved fucking us both, and we’d done it several times since that. I hated every single time that prick came over, although I couldn’t really deny it felt hot as sin to feel him throb in her other hole. It got me off as well, the only thing I really hated was him developing feelings for my girl so fast.

I had to keep reminding myself not to let it get it to me. This was what I’d wanted. All of it had been my idea.

But looking at Pet in our home, happily cooking or flicking through channels, or flashing me her pretty pussy, didn’t fill me with the ease I was hoping to feel. Instead, it made me fucking anxious.

I needed to know she was safe, once and for all.

I caught myself driving more than I ever used to, and every single time, I ended up in the same neighborhood. The one where her abuser lived with his new family.

The need to feel his blood on my hands grew. I wanted to kill him. I wanted him to pay. And I wanted him gone, with no chance of ever coming back.

Through several drives up to his place, I found out more about the guy, and what I found fucking sickened me.

His name was Aaron James and he was a teacher.

He’d taught at Pet’s school and posed as a teenager on the forum she and almost every student had joined. I wondered how many other girls he’d hurt. I wondered how many children had lost their innocence because of the disgusting prick. It was the only thing on my mind unless I was fucking my girl. She was the only person who could make me forget, which was ironic, since my revenge was to be in her name.

I learned and learned about Aaron James. I studied him.

He taught Math. He was a calculating, evil sonofabitch. His wife was his own age, but she looked much older. Harrowed, tired and thin as a rail. Every time I saw her outside their home, she looked scared, her eyes dancing across her field of vision as if she was expecting a blow any second. I had no doubt that he’d hit her plenty of times. I’d even heard them fighting from outside, her wails pathetic compared to his dominant screams.

And his children… A little boy about five years old, and a girl who must’ve been eleven or twelve. I watched them too.

They didn’t spend much time outside. The boy seemed relatively normal, but I never saw much of the girl. She seemed to prefer staying inside, and while I found out the boy did several after-school activities by following them around, she didn’t seem to have many interests. My spot in the street looked into her bedroom, though, and I saw her reading a lot of the time. It was a painful reminder of Pet. I hoped her father hadn’t hurt her.

I knew what I was doing was insane.

I was following a man around without any proof of what he’d done.

I was trying to hurt him without knowing if he truly was the real culprit.

But all of that was about to change.

I’d tracked him for long enough to find out he’d be home alone that night. As he pulled into his driveway, I wondered whether his wife had finally packed up the kids and left like she should’ve done a long time ago. Maybe I’d never get the question to my answer.

I didn’t knock this time. I went around the back once it was past eleven, and I sneaked through the door that led into the backyard. The moron had left it open. Must be hard to feel afraid of monsters when you’re one yourself.

I found him on the couch with his sorry excuse for a dick out and porn on the screen. He tried to scream when he saw me, but I knocked the fucker unconscious before he could.

* * *

“Wake up.”

I poured a glass of water over his head, and the man came to with a yell of shock and surprise.

“And shut the fuck up while you’re at it,” I said calmly. “I don’t want to hear a fucking word from you.”

Of course, he ignored me completely, panicking when he realized he was tied to the chair in his office.

“Who the fuck are you? What the fuck do you want?”

I stared at him, the once handsome face, the body he’d let go of. I wondered if he really was stupid enough not to know.

“I’m here because of Sapphire Rose,” I told him. “That name ring a bell?”

He blanched and cleared his throat. “She was a girl in my class. You have the wrong man.”

“Oh, but Aaron,” I told him, leaning over. “I haven’t even told you what happened to her.”

His face reddened as I stared him down.

“She was asking for it,” he told me. “She was always asking for it.”

“Even when she was a kid? When she was only a few years old?” I snarled at him, and he looked away, shutting his eyes. “Was she asking for it then, Aaron?”

“How do you know about that?” There was real panic in his voice this time, and I enjoyed it way too much. “She wasn’t supposed to be telling people. Still as stupid as ever…”

I hit him then. I think the impact broke his nose and blood dribbled down his face, over his chin and onto his shirt. He cried like a little bitch.

“I only have one question,” I told him simply. “And you better fucking answer me honestly, otherwise I’ll tear this place apart until I find out the truth. I know you’re alone tonight, you nasty fuck.”

He stared at me and breathed heavily, and I leaned in and asked the only question on my mind.

“Have you hurt anyone else besides her?”

He didn’t answer at first, staring at me with his eyes fearful. He was afraid of me. Good.

“There…” he started, swallowing the blood that was still trickling from his nose. “There have been a few.”

I swept his laptop off the desk in rage, and it clattered to the floor, breaking.

I realized that might have been a stupid move, and I cursed out loud, moving away from the jackass in front of me.

“Who?” I asked him simply. “Who have you hurt?”

“Not hurt,” he objected, and I didn’t fight him. I wanted to know the truth. “A student… Maybe a few. At her school. It wasn’t bad… They were all older than she was. They knew what they wanted.”

“Fifteen-year-old girls?” I asked him, and he looked away, gulping.

“Yes, most of them,” he said. “Maybe some were a little younger.”

I stared at him because I didn’t know what the fuck to say. This sadistic, disgusting bastard had been abusing young girls for years, and no one had done shit about it. Not his wife, not the authorities, not the schools he worked at. I did find out he was fired from the job at Pet’s school, but it was all swept under the carpet and I never found out exactly what happened. I would soon.

“Have you hurt your son?” I asked him, and right away, he shook his head.

“No, don’t be crazy,” he said, sounding genuinely shocked. “He’s a boy.”

He’s a boy.

The only reason he had for not doing it.

He’s a fucking boy.

“Your daughter then?” I asked him. “Have you fucked your daughter?”

He stared at me vehemently, and he smiled. “I know how to handle my family.”

I decided he had to die.

Calmly, I sat down in a chair. I passed him some paper and a pen.

“What’s this?” he smirked at me.

“You’re writing your goodbye letter,” I told him. “You’re telling your daughter, and your wife, and your son, how very sorry you are for being such an unbelievable fuck-up and ruining all their lives. I want them to have some closure after you’re gone.”

“You’re going to kill me?” he asked incredulously, laughing out loud.

“No,” I explained. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

He didn’t believe me at first. He didn’t believe a word I said until I showed him proof.

I’d done some digging alright, and on top of the child abuse, I found something he thought nobody knew about.

There was a girl gone missing in the town he lived in as a kid. I went down there a couple of weekends ago.

I spoke to the bereft mother, who even after all those years passed, still only blamed one person – her daughter Amie’s first boyfriend.

Aaron James.

She said he was older, bad news around town. She said everyone knew he was the one who’d fucked and strangled her daughter. And then fucked her again when her body wasn’t even cold. She cried so much when she told me.

I talked to the local sheriff.

He told me they’d found some new evidence with the help of improved DNA tests becoming available. And finally, they were coming for him.

It was all true, and as Aaron James started to realize the manhunt was going to begin, his face paled.

“So, you have a choice, Aaron,” I told him. “Either die now, as dignified as you can for a man like you… Or wait for them to come for you, ruin your family, and put your ass in prison or in the chair. Up to you.”

He stared at me with so much hatred, and I reveled in it.

“You think I’m going to off myself on the word of a madman?” he snarled at me.

Instead of responding, I reached in my pocket with my gloved hands and brought out his own gun. His eyes widened. I’d taken it from his cabinet earlier.

“I’m going to enjoy seeing your brains splatter the walls,” I told him, and he laughed out loud.

“I’m not going to kill myself,” he told me. “You’re fucking crazy if you think I will.”

“I thought you might say that,” I said pleasantly. “So, here’s something that might persuade you.”

I got my phone out and showed him several screenshots.

They were from his work emails. He was getting sued by a former student of his, and no one knew yet.

“Oh yes, I know all about her,” I told him with a grin. “And I know you’ve been trying to keep it under wraps. But I know something you don’t.”

“Like what?” he laughed in my face.

“Your student, Priscilla?” I grinned at him. “She’s eight months pregnant with your child.”

He looked like he was going to be sick.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “Did I say child? I meant children. She’s carrying your twins, you fucking jackass.”

He struggled against his ropes one last time.

“I’m going to untie you now,” I told him. “And you’re going to die.”

He stared at me as I undid his ropes. The moment he was free, he jumped me, but I saw it coming.

He headbutted me fucking hard, but I blinked away the blood, pinning him against the wall.

“Time to die, Aaron James,” I told him. “You don’t even have to do it if you’re still a pussy. I’ll be happy to do it for you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” he snarled, and I walked him back to his chair with the gun jammed into his back.

I sat him down and looked him in the eyes, both of us knowing how his story ended. The only choice he had was whether he wanted to hold the gun.

“Be a man,” I told him. “Be a man and blow your fucking brains out.”

He reached for the gun. His fingers were shaking. I really thought he’d point it at me, and I didn’t let go. We both held it as he pointed it at me first, but I made him move it until the barrel was under his throat.

And he was the one who pulled the trigger, with my voice in his ear telling him it would all be over soon.

His blood splattered everything. The walls, my clothes, the floor. It was everywhere. I tasted the metallic tang of it in my fucking mouth.

I left as fast as I fucking could. I didn’t even have time to clean up properly.

I drove home blasting a song I’d long forgotten, because it was the only way I knew how to stay sane. He was gone. He was dead.

And it was because of me. I should’ve hated myself. I’d assisted him in killing himself. I had blood on my hands. Literally and figuratively. He was gone, gone, gone.

I parked and went upstairs, feeling like a monster.

I opened my front door and saw Pet on the couch. Her eyes widened.

“What on earth?” she asked me.

I’d cleaned off most of it. My nose was still bleeding from his headbutt though.

I wiped the blood away again, and it was only then that I saw him on the couch with her. Stranger.

I wanted to fucking kill him, too.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly. “I was in the neighborhood, I thought you’d be home…”

“I’m home now,” I barked at him. “You don’t come here unless you’re invited.”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, getting up while Pet stared at us both. “I’ll be going. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come by like that. I won’t do it again.”

I stepped aside so he could leave. The look that passed between us made me think he knew what I’d done.

I locked the door behind him and ignored Pet as I went into the bathroom. She came after me, her soft voice scared and begging for an explanation. I looked into her pretty blue eyes and slammed the bathroom door shut. She didn’t need to know.

Staring at myself in the mirror, I remembered I did it to protect her. To avenge her, to make sure that chapter of her life was over, and to make sure that bastard never hurt another girl, another child.

I threw up into the toilet a second later. Not for his sorry head blasted open like that, but for all the girls he’d hurt. For his daughter, for the pregnant girl who was barely a woman, but he’d forced motherhood on her because the sick fuck didn’t even give a shit about protection. He was gone now. Gone forever.

I left the bathroom what seemed like hours later, and I felt like a very, very bad man.

So bad I couldn’t even look Pet in the eyes when she bombarded me with questions. I didn’t let her sleep in my bed that night, and I saw how it broke her. I watched her go to her room, closing the door painfully slowly, her eyes on me until there was barely a crack between the door and the frame. She was hoping I’d explain, call out to her, ask her to come to me anyway. But I couldn’t. She could never fucking know.

I went to bed only after wiring the money I had set aside to the pregnant student, and James’ family. I wanted them both taken care of. I made sure to make it anonymous through a glitch in their system, and only left a single message.

For what he did to you. To get better.