No Love For The Villain - vanish into fiction

A murderer who kills people so easily.

Mrs. Miles had often seen the gruesomely disfigured bodies of the dead on the news. They were the work of the wicked men of Newland, those who treated human life as cheaper than that of beasts.

She only snapped back to her senses as the man passed by her. Pastor Miles, having discovered the intruder who had stormed into their home, shouted.

“What is the meaning of this?!”

But the shout didn’t stop the man. Ignoring Pastor Miles, the man continued forward until his steps halted at the foot of the stairs.

His gaze lingered on the carpet before the stairs. It was twisted where Sierra had been dragged. A single shoe, Sierra’s, lay fallen at the passage leading to the bathroom.

The man’s eyes rested quietly on the shoe. As if he had found a trace of his pursued prey, he headed for the bathroom.

Mrs. Miles’s heart tightened as if someone had discovered evidence of a crime.

“Dear, call the police! Get out, right now, get out right now… Dear!”

Before she knew it, Mrs. Miles was screaming frantically. Pastor Miles blocked the man’s path, but was shoved aside. As Pastor Miles fell to the floor, the man roughly grabbed and pulled away the chair barricading the bathroom door.

Finally, the bathroom door opened.

The hypocrisy was laid bare. The pastor and his wife, who cared for the fatherless girl as if she were family, vanished.

Only the wicked ones who locked her in the cold bathroom remained.

Sierra, held in the man’s arms, trembled with a pale face. The breath escaping her weakly parted lips was shallow, as if it might stop at any moment.

Normally, Pastor Miles, who would open the door just before she fainted, would have been the savior of the helpless girl.

But just as Pastor Miles had said, the ‘ugly man’ was holding the shivering girl as if he were the savior. Mrs. Miles, meeting the man’s eyes as he turned, flinched and stepped back.

Would he condemn them? Harm them? She felt a foreboding anxiety, but the man simply carried Sierra up the stairs. The retreating man showed not a shred of interest in anything other than the woman in his arms.

Around the time the clear sound of Sierra’s bedroom door closing echoed, Mrs. Miles’s legs gave way and she slumped down.

“…What do we do now? I was right, wasn’t I? I told you that man had his eye on Sierra. I told you I saw him put her in his car!”

“It’s nothing. Don’t make a fuss.”

Struck by her husband’s sharp retort, Mrs. Miles was left speechless. She could only watch as her husband headed for the door.

Pastor Miles closed the door.

“What interest could he possibly have in a country girl like that? He’s just looking for some easy fun. Do you think he plans to keep her by his side for life? Of course not. Absolutely not. And if she does end up carrying his child… where would Sierra have to go then? Then she’d truly have no one but us.”

Having reached his conclusion, Pastor Miles returned to his wife’s side and affectionately patted her knee.

“She will come to see us as her true family, the ones who embraced her. True family. What a wonderful word. And the prosecutor’s inheritance will belong to her true family.”

Pastor Miles patted his wife’s knee as if soothing an excited child. He wore the face of a caring husband, a generous father, but his eyes shimmered with greed.

Even after seeing this, he’s still calculating the money?

Mrs. Miles let out an incredulous, breathy laugh.

If she ends up carrying that man’s child…?

What crime did her son commit to have to live raising that beast’s offspring? The thought of her soft-hearted son spending his life looking after another man’s child made her blood boil. The inheritance was laughable in comparison.

Mrs. Miles slapped her husband’s hand away.

“Call the police right now. Tell them to come and arrest that man, or drive him out! If you won’t do it…”

She shot up from her seat and headed straight for the telephone.

“…then I will.”

Mrs. Miles’s hands were frantic as she dialed the number. The time it took for the call to connect felt like an eternity. When the dial tone stopped, her breath caught as if she’d grabbed a lifeline.

[911, what’s your emergency?]

“Right now, in our house—”

There’s a murderer here. Just as she was about to say those words, the sound of footsteps came from behind her. Mrs. Miles’s nape stiffened. When the footsteps also stopped, a heavy silence took hold of the house.