Twisted roots

Crimson Retribution

The rain came in thin sheets, misting the pavement with a damp sheen that mirrored the city’s grime. Jessie stood beneath the awning of an abandoned pawn shop, her hands deep in the pockets of her black windbreaker, eyes tracking a man across the street. Kyle Mitchell. Street name: “K.” Known to the cops as a low-level pimp. Known to Jessie as next on her list.

She had watched him for weeks—studying his patterns, memorizing his routes, and learning his ticks. Kyle wasn’t subtle. He ruled his girls with clenched fists and the back of his hand, his rage as erratic as it was cruel. The youngest of his girls—Tanya—couldn’t be more than seventeen. Jessie had seen the bruises, the limping gait, the way Tanya flinched whenever Kyle was near.

Jessie wasn’t driven by sympathy. She didn’t feel pain for Tanya. But injustice… injustice scratched at something deep in her bones. Kyle made her skin itch. He made her fingers twitch.

Tonight, she would kill him.

Not fast. Not mercifully. She would carve a message into his body that echoed louder than any scream. She’d make him feel what he made those girls feel.

Pain. Fear. Powerlessness.

The Setup

Her plan had started the night before. She'd slipped into Kyle’s flophouse—a piss-reeking tenement two blocks from where he worked the corners—and unscrewed the back window. She’d placed a bottle of ketamine-laced whiskey in his cabinet, knowing he liked to drink when he got home from a “productive” night. She’d left her mark—a white scrap of paper tucked under the neck of the bottle.

One word, scribbled in red marker.

“Guilty.”

Tonight, she’d return to collect his soul.

Entry

The back window slid open without a sound, the silicone she'd applied to the tracks keeping it silent. Jessie slipped inside like a shadow, landing softly on worn linoleum, boots barely making a sound. The apartment stank—sweat, smoke, stale beer, and the rot of forgotten food. The place looked like it had been ransacked, but this was just Kyle’s style of living.

He was passed out on the stained couch, shirtless, arms sprawled, one hand still clutching the empty whiskey bottle she’d left him. A thick rope of drool hung from his mouth. His chest rose and fell in uneven waves.

The ketamine had worked.

Jessie approached with the reverence of a surgeon. She wore nitrile gloves, already smeared with a thin coat of charcoal to obscure fingerprints. Her black hoodie was pulled tight, masking her hair. Every tool she needed was laid out in her bag: zip ties, a scalpel, a field suture kit, plastic sheeting, and her signature embroidery needle threaded with red nylon string.

Her fingers brushed his throat. Pulse: weak, but steady.

She zip-tied his wrists and ankles, pulled a black plastic bag over his head, and cinched it tight around the neck—not enough to suffocate, but enough to terrify when he woke. She dragged him from the couch onto the tarp she'd laid beneath him. Then she waited.

The Awakening

Kyle woke with a groan that turned into a cough, gagging as the bag clung to his face. His body jerked against the restraints.

Jessie crouched beside him, scalpel in hand, and whispered in a calm, detached tone, “Breathe through your nose.”

He thrashed harder.

She ripped the bag off. He gasped for air, panic wild in his eyes.

“Who the f**k are you?” he spat.

She tilted her head. “Someone who sees what you do to girls. Tanya. Lisa. You remember Lisa, right? The one you put in the ER with broken ribs?”

His eyes widened, his bravado shrinking fast.

“You don’t understand,” he rasped. “They wanted—”

The blade sliced clean across his cheek.

He screamed.

“Don’t lie to me,” she said.

The Interrogation

Jessie worked with practiced efficiency. She peeled away Kyle’s tank top and drove the scalpel into the meaty part of his thigh, twisting it just enough to make him howl. Blood seeped in thick rivers across the plastic tarp.

She leaned in close, her face inches from his. “You like control, right? You like making them beg?”

He whimpered, trying to pull away. “Please…”

Jessie raised the scalpel and carved the word GUILTY across his chest, each letter deliberate, deep, and ragged. He screamed so loudly her ears rang, but she didn’t stop.

When the cuts were done, she took out the needle and thread.

“This part,” she murmured, threading the red string through his flesh, “is for the girls.”

She began to stitch the word into the torn skin of his stomach, the thread tugging through with wet, sucking sounds. He convulsed, vomit pooling beside his head, his pleas incoherent.

The Kill

When the stitching was done, Jessie stood. Blood painted the floor, her gloves, even flecks on her cheek. She looked down at her work like an artist finishing a canvas.

Kyle was barely conscious now, trembling, the word “GUILTY” grotesquely embroidered across his abdomen.

She knelt one last time.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “No more girls. No more fists. No more nights.”

Then she slipped the scalpel beneath his chin and carved upward, slow and deep, until his throat opened like a second mouth. The gurgle was wet, thick, final.

The Clean Up

Jessie wiped the blade, removed her gloves, and slid her tools back into the bag. She pulled out a burner phone, snapped photos of the body, and texted them to an encrypted number used by an anonymous whistleblower she’d cultivated on the force.

Let them think it was a vigilante. Let them wonder.

She poured bleach over the tarp, then rolled it up with Kyle’s body still inside, stuffing the whole thing back onto the couch. It would look like an overdose when they found him—or perhaps something worse. Something personal. She took the bottle of whiskey and left it out with a fresh fingerprint smudged on the neck—one she'd taken from Kyle’s own doorknob days ago using tape and graphite powder.

Let the scene tell its own story.

She left the apartment through the window, just as she’d come, her breath fogging in the cold night air.

The Reflection

Later, in her basement, Jessie stood beneath the red light of her workspace. The photo of Kyle’s body printed in full color, pinned to the wall alongside the others—each marked with that same stitched word: GUILTY.

She poured herself a shot of vodka, tossed it back, and sat on the stool in front of her corkboard. Names. Victims. Suspects. Murders.

Kyle’s picture joined the lineup.

There was a brief moment—a flicker of something close to peace. But then it passed.

There was more work to do. More names.

And the copycat was still out there.

Jessie stared at the word beneath Kyle’s bloody torso, stitched in neat, looping thread:

GUILTY.