A car accident.

That's how they would explain away how badly beat-up they were. Explain the broken hand and arm, the broken orbital bone, the fractured ribs...But it didn't explain the fading bruising around her throat in the distinct outline of two hands.

She wonders if a car accident might have been better...better as in a real trauma, not something invented to hide the real one.

She looks down at her casted right arm, the swollen first three fingers of that hand...wiggles them. Numbly acknowledges the lack of feeling...but that could be because of the pills.

Russell was taken to a different room to be triaged. If he wasn't, he could've told them she couldn't have opioids. They wouldn't have given her a single dose of fentanyl, let alone three.

It didn't take a practicing doctor's advice to know she'd have cognitive defects later in life, given how many concussions she's sustained. If she lived that long was a silent part she added. Hopefully she wouldn't live long enough to see the dementia...

Her jaw tightens as she remembers Clay hitting her in the face...felt the crunch of the bone underneath his knuckles. Anything after that...it's all dull. Ringing dullness. Numbness. The adrenaline that had surged.

She thinks that's the only reason she was able to shove that knife into his throat.

There were no vans camped outside...no news crews...no cameras. It's like this street and who lived on it was forgotten.

But the grass is perfectly manicured.

Russell looks over the house in the cover of the dim moonlight, the few lights that line the street.

This was her home, and Charlie's.

It only seemed right to come back...while she was numb. To see if anything could make her feel something again...anything. Even if it was all-consuming rage.

His truck is gone. She doesn't know what happened to it. Who took it.

Katherine unlocks the door with the three fingers on her right hand that she has free. Hears the deadbolt click...she twists the knob with her left, and nudges it open with her shoulder.

It smells like...nothing. And stale air.

Russell's hand rests low on her back. Katherine's jaw clenches, and she reminds herself to breathe, to ease the pressure in her chest.

Anxiety. She can practically smell the fear on her own skin.

Charlie's work boots are right inside the entryway, almost like they're waiting for him to wake up, put them on, go to work.

Directly in front of them is the living room. The sofas, the TV mounted up on the wall, the staircase on the right side that led to two more bedrooms. She shuts her brain off before she can think of what one of the rooms should have been.

The back of the sofa is stained...a darker outline, where they couldn't get all of the spattered blood out of the fabric. All the peroxide, all the professional cleaning agents, couldn't get the stain out.

She felt like a walking metaphor for that one. All the pain medicine, all the liquor...it didn't do anything to what she felt. What she thought.

Russell's attention moves to her as she stands at the back of the sofa, staring at the floor.

"He was here," she croaks. Then, like she said nothing at all, lifts her head and moves forward. Russell stares at the wood-look tile.

He would've known it, even if she didn't tell him.

The living room is in a state. Splintered wood from the coffee table litters the rug. Smashed vinyls, books strewn about. Some tiles are out of place, holes in the concrete of the foundation...looking for a possible hiding spot for the Book.

Katherine sets her keys on the kitchen countertop and stares out of the window above the sink. The pantry to her right is still open, from when Charlie was looking for some kind of sweet thing after dinner.

She tries the knob of the sink. Unsurprisingly, the water is shut off.

"I guess we won't be staying here tonight," she rasps.

Russell turns to the kitchen. "This place is beautiful."

A smile pulls at her tight mouth. It hurts. Good. "It was," she murmurs. "Charlie was so happy to bring me here."

She didn't know why it was so easy to say his name and so hard to say Dean's. Why she never felt like vomiting at the thought of what happened to him, how brutally his brilliant, golden life ended.

All because of her.

Something weighs her down, like a wet blanket or grief or shame or anger...maybe all of them.

Russell follows a path to the master bedroom like he's been here before...guided by her memory, one he's seen before. He opens the door and stares at the queen-sized bed, looking freshly-made. Creams and light grays, jewel-toned and rustic accent colors...the rocking chairs on the patio just outside.

This was her life before this summer. Before him.

It would've been so beautiful, and she was so deserving...coffee on the patio, a huge Christmas tree in the living room, a husband who adored her and a baby who would've been loved no matter what.

"I remember coming home after Dean died and trying to think of what to tell Charlie," Katherine whispers. "I could never find the words. It's like every word I knew before just...left."

Ceased to exist. He knew the feeling.

"How could there be words for something like that?" Russell hums, not at all nasty like she deserved. But knowing.

Katherine nods in consideration, one bloodshot blue eye roaming the bedroom. Her right eye is still swollen shut.

"Are you going to say goodbye to them?"

Charlie's mother and father. Grace hasn't called this month...so far.

"It's only fair," Katherine decides.

It was ten o'clock on a Monday. Surely, they'd be asleep.

She'd do one more mean thing before she left this place again, and would only return when the men who killed Charlie were in Hell.

One of them already was. She sent him there herself just a few days ago.

Katherine moves to the closet to grab the photo albums she put together over the months she was basking in that post-engagement glow with Charlie. There are four of them. Finding space for them on the plane would prove to be a challenge...maybe she should just go buy another backpack to put them in when they're finished here.

If she ever got out of the car to go do what she came here to do.

"I should wait here," Russell murmurs.

They're staring at the front door across the street. Charlie's parents always left the porch light on. She can see the number 29 glinting in the harsh white glow, nailed into the frame beside the dark blue door. The knocker casts a shadow on the door.

He's right. He should wait here. No matter the explanations or the reasoning, bringing another man to the home of your dead husband's parents just isn't right.

"I don't know how long it'll be," she says.

He shakes his head. "Take your time, Kat." He turns the lights of the car off and leans back in the seat.

She forces herself to swallow the pooling saliva in her mouth, opens the door, and takes a terribly stiff step outside of their rental.

Patrick left the property this morning with the horses in a rental truck and trailer. He's taking them back home, to the Parsons ranch, where they know they'd be cared for, and see some familiar faces in their new lives.

Katherine forces herself to knock before she can worry herself with the fact that she has nothing to say. Doesn't know what to say. I'm not staying...just wanted to show you I'm not dead yet.

She knocks again after a few minutes, this time with the knocker. Lights in the house start to turn on. Then on the other side of the door, she hears Charlie's father's voice.

"What the hell?"

The deadbolt clicks, and Katherine takes a step back. "Hi, Dad." Dad. It was always a word that made her tongue feel heavy. Calling anyone else's parents mom or dad was just...foreign, especially since she hadn't said those words in what felt like eons. But she supposed, when she married Charlie, that if she had no parents, then adopting his was a good place to start.

"Grace!" He hollers behind him. "Katherine's home!" He turns dark eyes to her, smiling and sobbing all at once.

"Jesus, what happened to you?" He chokes out. "What happened? Come inside, honey, come on. My God...Grace!"

"Katherine?" Charlie's mother is tying her robe as she rounds the corner, a bonnet over her hair. Then she's saying a lot of words Katherine can't process. But they're both sobbing and praising God and Jesus and every other religious figure they know...and Katherine is numb.

"George, go heat up some water or somethin'," Grace says, shooing him with her free hand as she wipes her face. "Come to the sofa, honey. Oh, I'm so glad you're here." She looks like she wants to hug her. Katherine takes it upon herself to initiate it. Grace's arms are delicate as they wind themselves around her shoulders. "Honey...what happened?"

"I killed one of them."

Grace pulls away, looking at her with an expression she's never seen the woman wear before. Grave, haunted, knowing.

"It's a long story," Katherine says. Every word is a dull ache in her throat. "And graphic...I'll spare you the horrifics."

Grace shakes her head. "He was my son, Katherine," she says. "I deserve to know." Brown eyes, twins of Charlie's, bore into her soul. "The truth, Katherine...because I think I know it."

"You were right, on the phone," Katherine whispers. "Monsters...but they're human. They're a family called the Stynes...and my father was one of them."

The entire ugly truth was out there for Grace and George to hear, to absorb...to choose to accept. There were so many details to include, and it hurt Katherine's head to keep an organized train of thought.

In a totally shocking twist of events, Grace revealed that she and George met on a hunt in mobile and never parted ways. Of course, the running story, the lie she was told, was they met in a diner in Mobile, not hunting some backwater swamp monster.

So Grace knew the whole time. George knew the whole time. Where Katherine ran off to when she wasn't at home, why she always seemed tired and worse for wear. It's why they never questioned it.

Keeping a low profile at the airport was damn-near impossible when you looked like you'd just been jumped outside for everything you owned. She wore Charlie's blue baseball cap with an orange F in the middle, the one he wore every college game day. After security, it partly shielded the raccoon eyes, the swollen mass on her right side.

How are you holding up? It's the only thought inside her busy mind. Busy with...deafening emptiness. Russell's voice, slicing through it all.

I'm fine. A blanket over all the words she couldn't find. You?

He audibly sighs, leaning back in his seat beside her, stretching his legs out. I do this thing...I used to, anyway...when I would get overwhelmed, or I didn't know what to think about something, I'd write a letter to Heather. I have a whole journal of them...I think I should start doing that again.

Katherine nods a little. Do you think that helped?

Russell shrugs a lame shoulder. In the way that...it clarified any conflicting thoughts I had. It didn't make the pain of not having her go away...and I guess it created this false sense of closeness...the delusion that she'd read these letters and understand. But it got me through losing her, thinking that she still knew everything about my day. Like a dinner table conversation. Made the world less lonely.

It makes sense, even though he couldn't find all the right words to accurately describe what he was trying to say. Neither of them would be able to understand all the big words they could use, anyway.

Made the world less lonely.

She doesn't know who she'd write a letter to...maybe she'd just have to address it to all of the people she'd lost.

Dear Charlie, Dean, Sam, Sophia, and Mom...

The thought makes her snort a little. Russell, too. But then, she remembers the most innocent of souls in this whole mess...the one she'd known and loved in secret.

Dear Genevieve...