The walls of Cross Fellowship were slashed over in several layers of graffiti; after a fresh coat of paint, they just kept coming. The perpetrators--whether it be the many churchgoers who had since chosen different domains to serve their faith or someone else--went unapprehended.

Tuesday Hale had stopped bothering to cover it up several weeks ago.

The sight of the crude remarks never failed to stop her in her tracks. When Tuesday was able to compose herself, she entered the church, where an unimpressive gathering was waiting for her late father's successor to preach. As she settled into a pew, choosing the furthest one back, she couldn't help but keep glancing behind her at the door. The space she saved beside her never filled; the doors did not open again.

She had stopped coming here for prayer as soon as she'd ripped the cross from her neck and denounced God. It had become a habit, from then on, to support the people she'd grown up around; her purpose evolved again when Cyrus left her alone on Manhattan Beach, saying he had something to attend to but he'd reach out again soon.

Somewhere close to a month had passed, and all she had was radio silence. Tuesday knew he wasn't going to suddenly show up now. For all she knew, he was dead in a ditch somewhere.

Something in her, though, insisted this couldn't be true. The dreams that had randomly come to her every so often as she grew up--only frequent enough that she hadn't forgotten them entirely when she would suddenly be revisited by them--had stopped. Maybe they would come back, but something about the last time had felt final. Seeing Cyrus die--that had felt final, but he couldn't be dead, not after all that had happened.

He couldn't have left her alone.

She stared down at her feet, tuning out the sermon as everyone else bowed their heads and shut their eyes. Blood, from the things that had killed her mother and then died themselves, had soiled her old pair of tennis shoes. She'd quickly gotten to marring the squeaky clean surface of her new Chuck Taylors with more poetry. "I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night", something by Sarah Williams, was scribbled in sharpie across the toes. Tuesday didn't know then if she agreed with the sentiment any more.

They weren't practical for the weather, but they felt familiar, and there was great comfort in familiarity. It was maybe the only comfort she had those days.

Tuesday couldn't make herself close her eyes in prayer; every time she did, a twisted recap of everything she'd lived through played against their backdrop, a horror movie she didn't remember auditioning for—and yet, she'd played the supporting role willingly enough. Even if she kept them open though, the memories attacked her in flashes. The one she spent the most time dwelling on was the night she'd lost her best friend.

To think that day had started off so nicely.

She'd been on the floor beside her bed, unable to turn off her racing thoughts as the dance replayed in her head. Tuesday hadn't slept in her actual bed since her father had died; any traces of what had happened were gone, but she could feel the ghost of him weighing her down any time she attempted to sleep there. So she lay wide awake on the carpet, staring at the posters above her bed of all the places she wanted to see--and that's when she heard it. A knock on the front door.

Tuesday remembered sitting up to read her alarm clock--it was a little past midnight--when her mother let out a guttural scream.

She'd only heard screams like that in movies, and they didn't do this one justice. It pierced through the otherwise quiet house, reverberating off the walls and bouncing back at her seemingly from every direction. In just a second it cut off, and the silence returned. Tuesday had sat in the darkness, not daring to move a muscle, swearing she had been able to fall asleep after all and it was just part of a wicked dream.

Then came the footsteps, pacing down the hall in the direction of her bedroom.

Tuesday had experience with monsters. One had lived in her father; despite all her best efforts to tamp down her suspicions and only focus on the warm feeling that rose in her anytime she was near Cyrus, one lived in him too. By then she was fully aware of her own demons and if anything, she'd embraced them.

She was not prepared for real monsters.

They were upon her before she could escape, kicking the door open with such force it rattled in its frame and nearly came off its hinges. The two men looked human enough, but the eerie smiles twisting on their lips--and the fresh blood staining their clothes--told her otherwise. One pinned Tuesday's arms behind her back and held her in place, fighting off her attempted counter-attack with ease. The other watched, his smile growing even wider, and tapped the serrated blade of a hunting knife against his chin. She couldn't hear whatever taunt spilled off his tongue with all the static in her ears.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The other one whispered directly into her ear, though, and she caught this: "Settle down, now, girlie, or we'll have a little fun while we wait."

The fight left her body as she stared into the one man's eyes, sure she saw a cold resolve there. That's when Tuesday was sure she was going to die. Life hadn't been all that desirable as of late, and Tuesday couldn't remember feeling any fear at the realization.

A noise echoed back to them from the hall then, a low hiss. The two men in Tuesday's room stiffened; she felt the hands on her tighten. Eyes going wide, the first man lifted the knife and crept out of the room.

Not three seconds later, a scream even more animalistic than her mother's sounded in the air and what could be seen of the hall lit up blindingly white. The hands loosened from Tuesday's arms and she threw her hands up to block out the light.

"Stay awhile," a voice purred from the doorway. "We were just getting to the good part."

It was the man from the park--well, not a man, considering men couldn't disappear into thin air, but Tuesday had enough to process at the moment without that fact. He gave her a quick once-over and winked. "You might wanna close your eyes, doll."

For a moment, she forgot how to do so and watched as the second intruder flung himself at the window. He hadn't made it two feet when the newcomer turned a cold glare on him and crossed the room in seconds. Tuesday finally shut her eyes just as the room was again thrown into total brightness; she heard a sizzling behind her and clenched her eyes closed even tighter, covering them with a shaking hand.

When another hand landed on her shoulder, she bolted from the room. He was right on her tail, she could feel it, but this only spurred the adrenaline coursing through her. Tuesday made it to the kitchen, sliding the first knife her fingers touched from the block on the counter when the man had caught up with her.

She turned and jabbed the knife into his stomach.

A string of expletives left his lips as he stumbled back, clutching the handle protruding from his abdomen. Now the full force of his stare was on her as he said under his breath, "Sometimes I think this whole vigilante thing is overrated." He let out a hiss as he slowly pulled the knife out, letting it drop to the ground. "Now listen to me very carefully. We're going to have more company soon, and there's a good chance it'll be far worse than me."

Tuesday had stared wordlessly at him. He took a deep breath, opening his mouth to speak again--before groaning and sliding to the floor. "Before you ask, no, you did not incapacitate me with a paring knife," he muttered. "I didn't know how much killing those things would take out of me."

They'd remained in their places for several minutes, quiet, looking each other over. Seeming to have regained some of his energy, the man slowly picked himself off the floor, glancing at the clock on the wall. "This is either very good or bad," he stated before whisking out of the room. In her effort to follow, Tuesday's feet hit something solid on the ground and she was sent careening into the wall, balancing herself with her hands splayed on it.

When she looked down, she saw she was standing in the blood seeping from the gaping cut across her mother's throat.

The next moments were hazy. Tuesday didn't remember how she reacted, or how she ended up outside on the porch, but then the memory picked back up an immeasurable amount of time later. The man was standing several feet away then.

"Trust me, there's a thousand places I'd rather be," he muttered, staring up at the black sky. "But if the boy gets this right, things just might go back to normal."

She couldn't say anything to this. She couldn't remember what normal was, or why she should even care. Two monsters had been disintegrated into a pile of ash and she had just been orphaned.

Her mother's cruelty vanished from her mind. All Tuesday could think about was her body.

She'd never get the chance to fix her relationship with her mother now.

Back in present time, the sermon was coming to a close. Tuesday was shaken from her thoughts as people rose from the pews and passed by. She was the last to leave, giving the statue of Jesus one last look before deciding she would never come back to that place.

After all, she was no longer the pastor's daughter. It was time to stop pretending.

If absence made the heart grow fonder, at this rate she might as well profess her undying love for Cyrus. It didn't reach that far, Tuesday was sure, not really—but what difference was there when she cared enough to die for the kid?

Not that the occasion would rise. Certain doom, or whatever the man had been prattling about, had apparently been averted; Cyrus, after having done whatever the hell he had been up to that hellish night, was not coming back to her.

She felt the remnants of him, scarred upon her soul, though. It ached, the memory of every single thing she'd done since crossing paths with the boy again. Back in grade school, Tuesday just remembered him as the quiet kid who had no friends. She had been stuck with that image for the longest time, and when she finally came to terms with the truth about what Cyrus was—well, it was too late for her.

If there was a hell, which she was beginning to doubt in the fire-and-brimstone sense, Tuesday Hale was surely condemned to it.

It was a long walk to the subway entrance that would take her to her new home in the Bronx. She passed her old house on the way, stopping for just one moment to peer into the windows. The curtains were drawn and did not reveal whether things had changed; a sign still was posted out front, proclaiming that the unit was still up for rent.

It didn't hurt to move on from there. Home isn't where family is in every case, and the real blood that had been spilled there only served to push Tuesday away even further. Then again, maybe the saying had it wrong all along—maybe home is where the hurt is. Whatever the case, she was glad to put it behind her, but couldn't get away from the sense that she couldn't run away from all her problems.

After all, what goes around comes back.