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Tyler glanced over his shoulder for what felt like the hundredth time that night.
The sound of the festival in Pilgrim World was fading little by little, swallowed up by the silence of Jericho that seemed to embrace him with every step.
He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt tighter over his head, making sure to cover every trace of his hair, and lowered his face as an elderly couple passed him on the pavement.
They didn’t even look at him. So lost were they in their utopian fantasy of safety.
A faint, fleeting smile crossed his face.
It would be so easy to shatter the illusion…
Just as quickly, the thought vanished, and the smile with it. He couldn’t afford a single mistake—no matter how tempting.
He quickened his pace and crossed the small central square.
The lights of the Weathervane still glowed, a couple rang the bell as they entered the café; a children’s choir sang inside the church, and a patrol car circled the square before stopping in front of the police station.
Tyler’s eyes followed the patrol, staying just beyond the lamplight. From where he stood, he could see the old station clearly.
The officers stepped out of the car, their hands full of food trays, their faces softened by easy smiles.
Moments later, Santiago emerged from the building, her new Sheriff’s badge gleaming on her chest, and slid into the car that had once belonged to his father.
Tyler’s heart kicked uncomfortably. The crease on his forehead deepened.
He knew every corner of that building as well as his own home. He remembered the hours spent sitting in the waiting room chair, waiting for his father to finish patrol and take him home. He remembered the faces of the officers who’d helped him with his homework in their spare time.
Carl, the history buff. Louise, who explained maths far better than Peter ever could. And Rosalie, with her uncanny knack for asking the very questions that would end up on the exam.
They had each given him driving lessons, refusing to let him touch the wheel until he’d recited every traffic law by heart.
He remembered every single one of their faces, how they’d changed over the years—just as they’d watched him grow.
And now… the moment they recognised him, they would raise their guns without a second’s hesitation.
Tyler pressed his lips tight, turned his back on the station, and crossed the rest of the square.
The voices of the children’s choir grew louder, the church lights spilling across the street, and the cemetery gate groaned as he pushed it open. The warm summer breeze greeted him like the embrace of an old ghost.
Over time, Tyler had memorised every grave in the place. From the stones worn nearly blank, to the newest one: Noble Walker. He made up stories, pieced together family lines, filling the gaps that death had left behind.
He stopped halfway through and stared at the fresh flowers resting on the old mayor’s grave. A wave of conflicting emotions washed over him. On the one hand, he knew how corrupt the man had been. What he’d silenced for money, what he’d covered up to maintain Jericho’s illusion of peace.
Noble Walker was not a man who didn’t deserve death. And yet his grave was still piled with flowers, months later.
On the other hand, Tyler remembered Lucas’s face. His father’s face. The guilt struck him again, mercilessly. As if he had been the one who stepped on the accelerator that took him to the grave
He bowed his head and shook it, as if swatting away a bothersome insect.
He had to keep moving. He couldn’t let remorse drag him down.
His steps grew more urgent as he pressed on through the rows of graves—until he froze. The earth was freshly turned beside his mother’s tomb.
Tyler’s heart thudded harder, almost painfully. His eyes locked on the mound of soil, anger bubbling hot through his veins.
He pressed his lips into a thin white line and strode towards the grave with long, unrelenting steps.
The irony of his father being buried beside his mother did not escape him. After all, if there was one place the man had avoided his whole life, it was here.
A dry laugh tore from his throat. He dragged his hands down his face as his body shuddered.
He had no right to rest there.
No fucking right to lie beside her.
His hands fell to his sides and the manic laughter faded into a hollow silence. He exhaled heavily, as though emptying his lungs of every breath.
His eyes scanned every inch of the burial mound—from the funeral wreath sent by the station to the concrete marker at its base.
Was that it? A life spent protecting Jericho, even at the cost of his family, of him; and all he had to show for it was a wreath of white flowers that would wither in two days and the absolute forgetfulness of everyone he had protected.
Where were the thanks from every person he’d helped for over twenty years? From the officers he had trained? From every life he had saved by shooting his own son?
Where?!
That damn grave should have been overflowing with flowers. He had saved every single soul in that cursed town, and now he was just another name on a stone no one would visit.
At least now his father knew how it felt—to have the world turn its back on you. Shame he hadn’t lived long enough to let it consume him.
Tyler’s gaze dropped to the headstone, his face twisting with disgust.
"Donovan Galpin. Beloved husband and father."
A harsh, derisive laugh escaped him.
Husband and father. The two things he had failed to be.
Tyler turned his back and left the cemetery, fists trembling from the force with which he clenched them, his eyes burning red with fury.
He felt nothing for that man, he told himself. He couldn’t feel anything. It was foolish to have risked coming here at all.
He quickened his pace and, for the first time, didn’t let his eyes drift to his mother’s grave. He didn’t let himself trace the worn headstones as though they were her face, or brush the flowers as though they were her skin.
How could he, after what he’d become?
With what right?
By the time the church doors swung open and the children spilled out in chatter and embraces, there was no sign that Tyler Galpin had ever been there.
Hidden in the shadows, the walk back to his house felt longer than usual. With every passerby who brushed past him came the risk of being recognized; every time a car rolled by, it looked like a patrol coming straight for him.
Tyler felt his heart pounding fast against his chest, and his hands—clawed inside his sweatshirt—itched to stretch out, a reflex he had to fight to keep down.
It wasn’t until he reached the neighborhood he’d once called home that a wave of relief began to spread through every nerve in his body. The air seemed fresher, the trees swayed lazily overhead, and his steps slowed.
For the first time in a long while, his muscles seemed to exhale, and it was easy to pretend he was just coming back from a late shift at the Weathervane—or a walk with Elvis.
Tyler cut across the small park, abandoned at this hour. Houses around him glowed with one or two lights, voices spilling out, familiar in their rhythm. But when he turned the corner, his stomach twisted at the sight of the last house on the block, swallowed in complete darkness.
He swallowed hard, his steps dragging slower and slower. His heart hammered violently in his chest.
The closer he came, the deeper his scowl carved into his face. First he noticed the boarded-up windows, shards of broken glass catching the lamplight.
Then he read the graffiti scrawled across the blue paint he and his father had brushed on just last year. Each word made the monster inside him snarl, furious. His knuckles cracked, and the line between his brows grew sharper.
“Murderer.”
“Monster.”
How easy it was to write those words when none of them had lived through what he had.
He hadn’t asked to be tortured, to be abused... He hadn’t wanted to kill. But no one had warned him what he was, or what they could make him do.
No one had told him a damn thing.
His gaze swept across the glowing windows of the other houses, families tucked safely inside.
He wished every single one of them could trade places with him—and let him be the one to judge them.
Pressing his lips in disgust, shoving his anger aside, he ducked under the yellow police tape.
The moment he stepped into the living room, his whole body froze.
Cones marked evidence across the floor, and he quickly averted his eyes. Swallowing, Tyler strode through the room in long strides and went straight upstairs to his bedroom.
He grabbed his backpack, dumping all his notebooks onto the bed before filling it with clothes. He did the same with a suitcase. His eyes swept the room, searching for anything else he might need.
Then he went to his father’s room.
The scent of his cologne still clung to the walls, hitting Tyler like a slap. For a moment, he faltered, his stomach twisting, but he had no time for that. Exhaling sharply, he went to the closet and rummaged for anything useful. In the end, he took a burner phone and a few bills scattered inside.
He rushed out, eyes locked on the floor, fists clenched at his sides. Back in his room, he shoved everything into the backpack.
At the doorway, he paused. His eyes traced every corner of the place—from the wallpaper with ships, to the laundry basket in the corner. He knew he would never see any of it again. For seventeen years, it had been his room, his space. The place where he had played, laughed, cried. The only place he had been himself. Not the sheriff’s son. Not the troubled kid. Not the Hyde. Just Tyler, however pathetic that sounded.
He swallowed, and slowly shut the door. Saying goodbye to a part of his life he could never return to.
This time, he went down the stairs without rushing, fully aware it was the last time his feet would touch this house. His house.
The place felt lonelier than ever, as though the walls themselves knew its only inhabitants would never return, saying their goodbye with a silent shout.
The cold wind slipping through the cracks had already stolen the little warmth that lingered inside, and the crime scene stood as a cruel reflection of how his family had fallen—rotting from the inside out, from the very heart.
Tyler stopped in the middle of the living room. His eyes landed on the armchair, tagged with a bright “1.”
That was the exact spot where his father had fallen. And from where Tyler stood, he could picture it easily: the TV flickering in front of him, a drink in his left hand.
Instinctively, his eyes darted to the side table—and of course, the half-empty bottle was still there.
Tyler set his suitcase down and approached slowly, committing every detail of the scene to memory. His eyes drifted to the TV and the stack of VHS tapes he didn’t recognize.
He sat down in the chair, very aware that it was the last place his father had touched. His fingers brushed against the old fabric, where not a trace of his warmth or the slightest evidence of his existence remained.
It was bizarre.
And as he sank into the spongy glow, he couldn't help but think that this was the closest they'd come to a hug in the last year. He pushed his thoughts aside and rewound the last tape.
He thought it would have to do with some old case or whatever he was investigating before he died. What he didn’t expect was his mother’s smiling face filling the screen the moment the video began.
His stomach dropped. His body turned to stone.
“What are you doing?” his mother asked, looking toward the camera with a smile fighting its way through. “Are you going to record everything?”
The sound of her voice shook him to his core. He didn’t remember it—how soft, how sweet it was. Tyler leaned forward, turning up the volume.
“Why not?” came his father’s voice, laughter lacing each word even though the camera never caught his face.
“Oh God, you’re worse than Tyler with a new toy,” his mother teased, lowering her voice playfully.
“Do I get a new toy?” The camera shifted, showing little Tyler holding her hand.
His father laughed, and his mother shot him a warning look.
“Only if you behave, darling.”
“Mom, they’re empty!” he shouted, interrupting, pointing at the swings at the far end of the park—forgetting the toy entirely.
Tyler’s lips trembled into something between a smile and a grimace.
“Hurry up!”
The boy tugged his mother along, running, while his father followed behind at his own pace.
His mother pushed the swing, his little self grinning wider and wider as he soared higher.
When he swung easily on his own, she stepped back, folding her arms beneath her chest.
Donovan set the camera on a steady surface, circled around, and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing her cheek.
She kissed him back, and together, side by side, they watched Tyler play.
He froze the frame. His eyes devoured every inch of the image, desperate to burn it into memory. His chest felt crushingly heavy, like every breath was weighing him down, like something was pressing against him, merciless.
He didn’t even remember that day, and all he wanted now was to live in it forever.
Suddenly, his chest broke open and tears spilled uncontrollably. Tyler buried his face in his hands, muffling the painful sobs he had kept locked away for years.
And there, in the solitude of a tainted house, Tyler finally wept—for the father he had lost, for the mother he couldn’t remember, and most of all, for the happy boy he had once been, who no longer existed.
He didn’t know if minutes or hours had passed. But when his body stopped trembling and his eyes were dry and swollen, Tyler emptied one of his suitcases and packed every single tape inside.
It was the greatest treasure he had ever found.
He took one last look at the room before leaving. His face bore the scars of his past and the tears of his present, but something inside him felt lighter.
Some of the anger had lifted.
He carried the suitcase out to his car, slid it into the trunk, and looked back at his house.
The house.
Now, nothing more than empty walls. Everything that had happened inside lived within him instead. His father, his mother—the good and the bad of them both—had shaped him. And even if he never set foot inside again, they were with him.
He glanced at the suitcase of tapes and knew that was all he needed, all he want and all him was.