The bane of small-town gossip was, this once, a boon for Winona. All she had to do was nonchalantly mention that she knew of a new policeman in Andover, and it birthed a discordance of griping from her coworkers at the tattoo saloon. She listened intently so that she could extract important details that threaded what was, for the most part, a tapestry of rumors and speculation.

"Oh, yeah. Brian Stevenson. Real piece of work, that one."

"Fits right in with all the entitled twerps on Greenwood Road."

Greenwood Road, an upper-class neighborhood with estates bordering the Changris Wetlands.

"He bought that charming duplex where the Reginalds used to live..."

Winona thanked the Great Spirit for the knowledge of that house, for the advantage it provided her with. Her nose crinkled at the touch of disrespect in her gratitude – the Great Spirit did not condone vengeance.

"Heard he got transferred here as a part of some disciplinary proceeding."

"I don't think he knows what discipline is... didn't he already get into trouble here? Something happened on Haverhill Street. He was being openly racist."

"I heard that, too. People got it on video and lodged a public concerns complaint... Andover PD issued a statement that an internal enquiry is underway."

"He's been suspended for the time being. At least his department issued firearm was taken away."

A scoff. "Like that helps. You really believe that his service weapon is the only gun he has? Did you forget we live in the US of A?"

The statement echoed Winona's thoughts. Yet, the danger of guns didn't temper her rage, didn't dissolve the bitterness of revenge that coated the inside of her mouth. It didn't matter if he had his own, personal arsenal – they'd just have to incapacitate him before he got to a weapon. They would just have to catch Brian Stevenson at his most vulnerable. And for that, they needed to know him, understand him.

In the stillness of that midnight, impelled by a need for the justice that would satisfy them, Winona laid out her basal plan for Meda. Their first step was to gather as much information about their target as possible; organs and muscles to fill out and give fuller form to that skeletal scheme.

On days when Winona worked, Meda trailed Brian Stevenson under the guise of selling trinkets and artistry door to door along Greenwood Road. On other days, Winona offered cheap labor to scope out the neighborhood. She washed cars, trimmed hedges, mowed lawns, painted fences, and from her various vantage points, she could see which houses had security cameras that kept his property in their sights. She noted the houses that had dogs, or those that had motion detectors. She memorized the approximate hour by which the last lights in the row were snuffed. And she was privy to when the last wisps of activity on the street dissipated.

With nightfall, the sisters clothed themselves in their darkest garbs and returned to Greenwood Road. Sheathed in the shadows of the Changris Wetlands, they mapped the best routes in and out of Brian Stevenson's house. Winona trusted the forest and its umbrage to keep their secret, so their final route clung to the treeline. They would be well-hidden in its murky cover, safe from any eyes still awake.

And they surveilled him. They memorized his movements and his mannerisms, his comings and his goings. They studied his predilections and prejudices. On quiet prowls they stalked him, with ghostly footsteps they haunted him. They watched him until he was a clockwork toy in their minds – unremarkable, predictable. Breakable.

Every little fact they gathered was a fruitful addition to their plan, but perhaps the most fruitful was the fact that he didn't have a home security system. Winona had spied a company visit and scope out his property, but they hadn't made any installations yet. That was their greatest advantage and she intended to exploit it before it slipped from their grip.

So, the day of Brian Stevenson's reckoning was upon them.

In the misted sighs of the swamp breeze, Winona stood wraithlike, observing the property in front of her, eyes hidden behind the gauzy screens that covered the eyeholes of her doll's mask. Under the boughs of the larch to her right, Meda mirrored her – her shape crafted from shadows, her visage an ovoid, black doll's mask, its empty eyeholes staring straight ahead. Meda would've been a statue, if not for her gloved fingers curling and uncurling around the straps of the backpack over her shoulders – her tell for nervousness. Winona felt that very emotion take root in her too; it was already half-past-one in the night and Brian Stevenson wasn't home yet. Of all days, he chose today to not return home...

Was this divine intervention? The Great Spirit trying to teach them that revenge was not the way out? Brian being protected by whatever god he worshiped?

Her thoughts were drowned out by the rumble of an engine. Brian's beastly jeep pulled into his driveway and disappeared into the cave of his garage. Winona's doubts and disquiet evaporated when he stumbled into view, drunkenly tittering, only to return in a torrent when her sight fell on the woman he was latched to. She was a sex worker, Winona could tell as much from the magenta bikini top, the gold skirt, her heavy make-up, her sky-high heels.

Why...? Why tonight?

"He's with someone," Meda hissed, the inflection echoing Winona's own frustration.

"We'll wait." It took some effort to bully her worry into not abutting her voice. "She won't stay the night. If she does, we will return tomorrow."

The couple reappeared in the wide bedroom window. The woman had already shed down to her undergarments – or the bits of lace that were supposed to be undergarments. Brian, in his hurry to rid himself of his clothes, was only fumbling about and prolonging the affair. With help from his companion, he was successfully denuded. He fell on her before she even laid down on the bed, hands pawing at her bra and thong, hips rutting between her legs. His grunts became more desperate, more animalistic with each porcine push into her.

Winona almost felt pity for the woman, trapped under his filthy weight, trapped in this life itself. Almost.

Pity would have had room if only she wasn't so preoccupied with devising ways in which she wanted to hurt Brian Stevenson. The thought of torture set her nerves tingling and her brain singing – a malevolent pleasure only true sadists would understand. True sadists and Meda.

If a pig was what he lived like, then a pig was what he would be treated like.

As he sounded his release with a gurgling moan, Winona eased herself deeper into the black cloaks of the night. She signaled Meda who backed further into the larch-darkened mist. They waited with bated breaths. Soon as Brian flopped off of her, the woman straightened and gathered her garments. Shimmying into the tight cut of her skirt, she snapped at him for her payment. He groaned in displeasure, but collected his pants off the floor and removed crumpled bills from its pockets nonetheless. She swiped the money from him and immediately found her way out of the bedroom. And just as Winona had predicted, she left, her heels clacking on the pavement. But what she hadn't predicted, was her haste to leave.

Her inclination was understandable though, even Winona didn't want to spend any longer in this sty than was necessary.

Winona also understood then that luck was machinating in their favor, because the sex worker hadn't locked the front door and Brian Stevenson, snoozing sprawled across his bed, made no move to do so either. Slipping in through there would be easier, quicker, and decidedly quieter than picking the lock of his backdoor and risking discovery.

"Change of plans," said Winona, "front door. Go." Meda shot forward.

The Silverheels vaulted over the fence, slunk across the yard, their light footsteps lost to the sounds of the summer night – the chirp of crickets, the swish of shrubbery, voices of the swamp. On the porch, Meda was armed with limitless, undying patience. The knob turning a centimeter at a time, the lightest snick, the softest whoosh, the door swung open and they were inside.

Just then, an untimely draft blew, the well-oiled hinges pulled on the door. It shut loudly, as though it was determined to announce the intrusion. Winona's gaze darted to Meda, and even though the voids in her doll's mask were sightless, she knew her eyes were wide like hers. It was unlikely that their target hadn't heard that.

For all her hope of their entrance being quiet, for all the stealth that tied their scheme together, it was beginning to unravel...

No! Winona told herself resolutely.

This was only one hiccup in an otherwise solid plan. They'd made it this far.

The creak of heavy footsteps spurred Winona into action. She hastened into the drawing room, wending around furniture to press herself against the wall beside the hallway that led deeper into the house. Right behind her, Meda crouched next to the sofa. A shadow, backlit by a faint nightlamp, lengthened into the drawing room.

Alertness lost to the daze of his fornication, stability buried under the haze of his intoxication, Brian Stevenson wandered out of the passage, unaware of the black mass on the wall at his left. If he'd come to investigate the sound, he seemed unprepared for an attack. Winona didn't know if it was because of his faith in his invincibility, or his confidence in his self-defense capabilities, or just sheer stupidity, but she was thankful for it all the same. At her cue, Meda came out of her hiding and stood blocking his path.

He staggered. "What the—"

Winona kicked the back of his shin; his leg gave out and he dropped to a knee. Meda's swift, low roundhouse hit him right on the side of his head. His weight tipped, then he fell, unconscious. While Meda dragged him back into the windowless hallway he'd emerged from, Winona brought along a chair from the dining table and hefted him onto it. Meda then slung her backpack forward and procured bits of rope. He was trussed to the chair within minutes, his arms going around the backrest and tied at the wrists, his ankles bound to the chair's legs. Another length of rope acted as a makeshift ball-gag, circled twice around his head with the large knot in its middle wedged into his mouth. It would make sure the pig's squeals didn't get past the walls of his sty. 

With a firm hand on Meda's shoulder, Winona whispered to her, "after he comes to, we have ten minutes and not more. Only ten minutes." With that, she went to stand behind Brian, peeling the gloves from her fingers. Unzipping the pocket of her hoodie, she took out her phone, turning the text-to-speech app on.

Meda lowered herself to squat in front of him. A black streak against the dimness, her palm landed a cracking slap across his face. His head snapped to the side, then lolled back. He groaned, his eyelids sliding up in fractions as if weighted. Focus lit in his dull irises, lines of fear and confusion settled on his expression, and he jerked, straining against the ropes.

A tap on the screen of Winona's phone. A feminine monotone. "Listen carefully. And nod when you understand."

He stiffened, eyes wide as saucers. All of his initial confusion was eaten by pure terror. Meda's hand reached out, a vice around his crotch. She tightened her fist, crushing and constricting.

His agonized cry, though subdued by the gag, was wild music. It was the squall of storms, the howl of hurricanes – a deluge inside Winona. Her body sang in harmony, thrumming with the wicked pleasure that his pain wrought.

A demand. "Nod when you understand."

The response from him was prompt and frantic this time.

The electronic drone rang out with a fresh set of instructions: "You will hand in your resignation at the PD. Then you will leave Andover forever."

Sweat-heavy brows arched up and he tried to shake his head in denial, but Meda ended it with a twist of her fist. He screamed, arms pulling his restraints so taut they fissured through his skin in red and raw abrasions. When he quieted, Winona played the demands and a threat.

"You will resign. You will leave Andover. If you don't, you'll lose your dick."

Swivel-eyed and panting, his head bobbed in frenzied agreement.

The mild-toned, artificial voice spoke again, "we are watching you. And we will continue to. You try anything smart, you open an investigation into this, and we will be forced to hurt your friends and family."

­Brian Stevenson took a moment too long to answer and he was reminded of his vulnerability with another squeeze. Winona's phone reiterated the message, along with an addendum: "Nod if you understand."

The man whimpered, but obeyed. His genitalia released, he slumped under the smallest relief he was offered. Behind him, Winona tucked her phone back in her pocket and zipped it. She replaced her gloves on her hands, then her right arm went around his face. Her left held his head still, trapped in the sleeper hold, and she compressed. Mentally, she counted down, because as much as she wanted to kill Brian Stevenson, she had to remember that – if at all it came to it – the sentence for breaking-and-entering and aggravated assault would always be milder than that for murder. Panic evinced in his futile fight, he struggled to only be etched in rope burns, the sight of which trilled through Winona. Then his resistance faded, his muscles relaxed, and his consciousness abandoned him.

The girls quickly untied him, stuffing the pieces of rope into the backpack in a bid to leave little to no evidence behind. Like phantoms, they departed the way they'd come in, crossed the larch threshold, and vanished into the tenebrous swamp beyond.