"When are your parents getting back?" Peter asked, arms crossed over his chest. His hair fell flat along his hairline, wet from the shower he'd taken after football practice.

"Friday," Charlie said. But it'd take at least a year for her to feel normal after seeing Jonah up close. Not even Peter questioned it when she clutched her knife in a death grip the entire ride home.

"It's like they live in another world sometimes," he said. "Weird that they like me."

"Why wouldn't they?"

He motioned to the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, the mahogany table and vintage upholstered dining chairs. "Because I've never had all this. My dad's a bus driver, you know that?"

And to think this house was modest compared to the mansion they owned before adopting Charlie. After a series of volunteering trips, where they worked to renovate schools around the world, they decided that instead of luxury homes and expensive cars, they'd invest in philanthropy and a top education for Charlie. They threw money into private schools and tutors only for her to end up at Sabre College, which, according to her father, was nothing compared to the prestigious Ivy League he'd attended.

"Why do you say bus driver like it's a bad thing?" she asked Peter. "It's none of my parents' business how much money your family has, and I don't care about that either."

He pointed at the two large glass doors that led to the backyard. "Hold on. What's that over there?"

"What?" Outside, the sun's rays illuminated the ripples in the swimming pool, the tree with its bright green leaves.

"Look. There's something out there."

Finally, it caught her eye.

Something hanging from a branch, dangling above the overgrown grass.

Charlie crept closer to the doors. "What is it?"

"Another toy?"

"No..." Just as she wondered where her cat was hiding again, she screamed. She pushed the doors open, falling to her knees as she ran into the yard.

Because there hung Lilith from the tree. Gray fur matted with blood, a rope tied around her neck. 

●     ●     ●

Charlie clasped her hands over her mouth so she wouldn't retch. "No, no, no..." The tears building all day reached their breaking point. Her heavy heart burst, and she broke down in a sob.

Peter came running and stopped at her side. "What the—"

"My cat," she cried. "My cat." Lilith's right eye was gone—only a bloody hole in the skull where it used to be. Charlie crawled toward her, desperate. She could still be breathing. She could live without an eye.

Peter grabbed Charlie's shoulder and yanked her back. "What are you doing?"

"Cut her down," she shrieked, "oh my God please-please-please."

"I'm not touching that thing. And don't use the Lord's name like that."

She grabbed her pocket knife and lunged at her cat before Peter could stop her. She cut the rope, and Lilith fell to the grass in a lifeless lump.

"It's dead," Peter said. "Don't touch it. I'm warning you. Stop—"

Charlie took her into her arms, cut away the noose, and desperately checked for a pulse—there was none. Her body, once fluffy and warm and comforting, had gone cold. 

Peter looked as if he was about to retch himself. "He did this. That piece of..."
A pair of knives driven through her favorite teddy's eyes. Monday morning when he walked into class, twenty textbooks turned to The Black Cat.

"No," she whispered. "He wouldn't—"

"Who else? Who else has been breaking in?" Peter clutched his stomach. "I underestimated him, that psychopathic motherfu—"

"Peter, stop."

"Are you defending him?"

"You're not making this better," she choked out.

"I always told you to change her name. How is any good supposed to come when you name a cat after a fu—a friggin' demon?"

"How could you say that? How could you—"

"This is sick. Just sick."

She rocked back and forth. Lilith grew colder in her lap. Bodily fluids smeared onto Charlie's skirt, and a wave of repulsion overtook her, followed by a crushing guilt.
Only hours ago, Jonah had approached her in the stairwell, taunting her all while Lilith had been here—hanging. Or had he done it during Peter's football practice? Climbed the fence to her backyard while she'd sat on the bleachers in the scorching sun...

It fit too well. Too seamlessly. A theme of vengeance had always characterized his fantasies. He once had several knifes he kept in his and Charlie's collection, but he never used them outside their perverted little games. They served more as a promise, a threat—symbols to cope with the circumstances he lived in. She didn't think he'd actually hurt anyone. She didn't think he'd hurt her.

This was his vengeance. Lilith's body on her lap, flies beginning to buzz around them.

Something in him had changed, corroded the moment he woke from the jump alive.

Did you really think I'd let myself die before taking you with me?

●     ●     ●

a/n: who here has heard of lilith, the woman who came before eve, the woman who did not come from adam's ribs? the mother of all demons cast into hell at lucifer's side? do you think charlie naming her cat lilith means anything as peter mentioned? lol 😼