Chapter 3: Fourteen Graves
Leah turned fourteen in silence.
There were no candles this time, no matches. Just cold. Cold air. Cold sheets. Cold breath on the mirror as she watched it fog with each exhale. The clock on the wall ticked with a cruel, rhythmic certainty, but she didn't notice. It was just another day. Another reminder that time was the only thing that changed around her. Fourteen now. And the Beast inside her was hungry.
Her mother didn't say anything. Of course not. She never did. It had been this way for years—ever since the day Leah's mother realized that Leah wasn't like the other children. There had been no celebrations. No balloons. No cake. No presents. There hadn't been any of those things for years, and Leah didn't expect them anymore. Not when she had outgrown such things long ago. What mattered now was the emptiness. The hunger. The gnawing need to fill the hollow parts of her with something... something sharp, something warm.
It started as a whisper. A thought. A name.
Matthew.
A boy from school. Loud. Too loud. Always bumping into her locker, his hands brushing against hers as if he didn't notice. Always watching her like she was prey, but didn't know it. Laughing with his friends, slapping each other on the back, pushing. Teasing. Grabbing once.
Just once.
That was enough.
Leah remembered the way he had touched her. The way his fingers brushed her skin like he had every right to claim it. He thought she was weak. He thought she would let it slide like all the other girls. She had seen it too many times—boys like Matthew, thinking they could play with fire and walk away unscathed. But Leah wasn't a match waiting to be struck. She wasn't something fragile, something to be admired and left behind.
Her fists clenched, the memory curling in her gut like a serpent ready to strike. She had made him feel that sting, that unbearable burn of helplessness, when she shoved him back against the lockers after he grabbed her waist. She had looked into his eyes, seen the flicker of confusion and a flash of fear, and then she had turned away, walking down the hall without another word. But that wasn't enough.
Leah wanted more.
She followed him home after school, not too close. Not stupid. She moved like smoke, like something just out of focus. Unseen. She was good at that. Moving like the world was too busy to notice her slipping through the cracks. The neighborhood was quiet. His house had a broken porch light that flickered weakly, a dull amber glow that barely held the darkness at bay. She memorized the layout of the street, the way his front door sat in the middle of the house like a trapped soul.
She waited.
For the right moment. For the moon.
It had to be the moon.
The night she chose, the moon was a sharp sickle overhead, cold and unforgiving. It cast long shadows on the pavement, stretching like fingers into the cracks of the earth. Leah wore black, blending into the darkness like a shadow that had come to life. No mask. She wanted him to see her. Really see her. She wasn't hiding anymore. Not from him. Not from anyone.
She could feel the Beast stir inside her, licking its lips as if it knew exactly what was about to happen. Leah didn't feel fear. She didn't feel hesitation. All she felt was the thrill—the anticipation of what she was about to do.
The front door creaked open as Matthew stepped outside, wearing his usual careless smile, one that suggested he thought he was invincible. He was alone, just as she knew he would be. His parents were out. His sister was at a friend's house. He had always been careless, always in too much of a hurry to realize that his arrogance was his downfall.
Leah stepped forward, her breath shallow, her heart steady. She knocked. It was a sharp, deliberate sound—louder than it needed to be, but it didn't matter. He opened the door.
He smiled at first. His lips curling in a way that made Leah's stomach turn. She could already hear the words he was about to say. "You need something?"
But Leah didn't wait for him to finish.
"I came to play," she said, her voice low, but steady.
Matthew blinked, his smile faltering. He took a half step back, clearly confused by her sudden bluntness. But Leah wasn't playing. Not really. She had no interest in games. Only in ending this.
The house felt too small now. The air thickened with the weight of everything Leah had been hiding—the years of simmering rage, the endless hours of silence. She stepped inside, not waiting for an invitation. The door clicked shut behind her. Matthew's eyes flicked nervously to the hallway, to the door leading out, but Leah was faster.
The moment stretched. A beat. And then, it was done.
It didn't take long.
Leah's movements were precise, practiced. She had done this before, though she'd never been so close. Never had she seen the fear in a victim's eyes like this. Never had she felt the full weight of the power she wielded in her hands. But Matthew's struggles were brief, his breath coming out in panicked gasps before the silence took over. The blood came next, flooding the carpet with thick, red warmth that seeped into the fibers and soaked into the wood beneath.
Leah stood over him, the smell of blood sharp in the air. She didn't feel the familiar rush of adrenaline, the way her heart would race in the moments before the kill. This was different. This wasn't just about killing. It was about control. Power.
The Beast inside her was full. Satisfied. But she wasn't. Not entirely. Something in her had split open, and through it poured not guilt, not fear—only clarity. There was no need to hide anymore. No need to pretend she didn't know who she was. She was the one they had feared all along, the one they had tried to bury under their petty rules. But now, no one could stop her.
She didn't hide the body. She left it sprawled across the floor like a warning. The way his arms were twisted. His mouth hanging open. The blood still pooling around him. The town would blame gangs. They would blame drugs. They would blame bad luck. No one would look at Leah.
No one ever did.
The next morning, she watched the news with dry eyes. There was the usual sensationalist rhetoric, the rush to paint the murder as the result of a bigger problem—crime, drugs, violence. It was all lies, but Leah didn't care.
She walked the halls of school while everyone whispered and cried. It was like they all had forgotten that they had never known Matthew. They all had their stories, their doubts, their memories of him. But no one ever really looked at him, just like no one ever really looked at her.
She even hugged a girl who sobbed too hard, a girl who never once thought to ask what Leah thought about the whole thing.
Leah's fingers trembled. Not from empathy, but from restraint. The urge to hurt was still there. To finish what she had started. But for now, she could wait. There would be more. More who deserved it. More who didn't.
The Beast inside her no longer growled from the shadows.
It purred.
And Leah smiled.