What We Bury

She didn’t need a hero. She needed five psychos with a rope.
I wanted to disappear. Instead, I became their favorite obsession.

New town. New name. Same old monsters. I thought slinging pie at a sleepy coastal diner would buy me safety. I was wrong.

When a local predator dragged me under the jetty, my body did what it always does – it went to stone. I froze, waiting for the nightmare to be over.

But the nightmare never started.

Five masked men stepped out of the shadows and strung him up by the throat. They call themselves the Hangmen—a secret brotherhood of beautiful, broken vigilantes who bury the monsters the courts let walk free.

They came for him.

But I’m the one who finished the job.

I took their knife and painted the sand red. Now I’ve seen their faces, I’ve shared their bloodlust, and they refuse to let me out of their sight.

I keep waiting for someone to make me choose. But these greedy bastards look at me and see ‘group activity’.

So, I guess I don’t have to…?

Eli plans hangings like lesson plans and teaches kindergarten in between. He’s also working very hard not to want me.

Micah pours the drinks, reads the room, and calls me baby girl like it’s a vow.

Holden’s the cop who can’t stop investigating the one woman he wants to keep.

Milo’s a hacker with no filter, no boundaries, and a body count he won’t stop joking about.

And Knox doesn’t say much. He just put a knife in my hand and himself between me and the world.

But someone’s still watching the new girl. The night I find a noose hanging from my ceiling and a note that says you’re next, I learn the men who kill for a living might be the safest people in town.

Some secrets stay buried.

Mine have risen from the grave.