Gluskin & Ichor Family Funeral Home

Part 15 (Breaking the Cycle, and Playing with Fire)

"UGHH." Wren groaned out very loudly, the sound echoing through the valley, echoing back to her.

"Well, now what?" Tammy asked, leaning on the doorway to not fall over from lightheadedness.

"First of all, we're getting you to the police station, giving them this evidence, and then going on a wild goose chase..." Sasha sighed, heaving the shoebox full of photos in front of them.

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" Wren huffed, sprinting across the parking lot and into her father's car, slamming the key into the ignition and pulling out as fast as she could.

"Wait Wren-" Tammy could barely call out to her before she was speeding down the road, exhaust following behind her.

"I hate when she does that," Sasha whined, "Knowing full well that Maddox used to do the same thing... Now, let's get going, we need to get some ice on your neck."

Wren was white-knuckling the steering wheel, palms already profusely sweating as she felt her thoughts race through her mind, she had seen firsthand what Heidi was capable of with her own bare hands, her spine chilled to think of what she was capable of with a weapon of choice.

Did that mean that she had killed Matt too? Ryeo, that nurse? Mr. Ichor? Her mother...?

Wren's nervousness quickly changed to a boiling rage underneath her skin, a lump swelled in her throat. She felt her heart jitter as the thoughts -of making Heidi feel the same pain she currently felt- swept through her.

She sped down roads, searching aimlessly for Heidi and her black SUV, hoping, praying, she would manage to corner her at last, putting an end to this madness.

A knock came from the front door, Hestia rushed over to answer it, thinking Wren had returned from the coroner's office. She slid on her heels as she reached for the handle clicking it open to find everybody but Wren on the other side.

"Hi Hessy," Tammy grinned, trying to not draw attention to herself, and her heavily bruised neck... "Been a hot minute huh?" she tried to avoid any possible conversation about her current injuries.

"Your neck, what happened?" she asked almost too quickly.

"Well, we had another little run-in with the killer, and uhm, well this time I got more than a burst blood vessel in my eye." she described.

"What do you mean again?" she looked puzzled over at Sasha, "Weren't you just at the coroner's office?" she slowly began to realize.

"Yeah, uhm about that, I happened upon a new lead, and some crucial evidence, and ah-" he was cut off by Hestia's panicked speech.

"You don't mean?!-" she finally concluded. "I TRUSTED HER," she yelled. "And she just- lied to me?- this WHOLE TIME?!" Hestia was furious.

"Hestia, chill out for a second while we explain-" Tammy tried to hush her.

"SHE KILLED MY GODDAMN FATHER TAMMY, DON'T YOU REALIZE WHAT SHE DID TO ME?!" she raged on.

Hestia paced out of the room quickly, shucking on her pair of cheap knock-off sneakers, grabbing a pair of keys off of the wall from the staff-only room, they jangled loudly, the Hearse keys.

"Where are you going?!" Tammy ran through the funeral home to catch up with her, liming slightly, "Hessy, what are you doing?" she looked at her with eyes full of concern and worry.

Hestia looked to the side of the garage she entered, the Hearse imposing in the center of it all, she turned her head around searching for something, when she spotted it.

A red gas container, she heaved it into her arm, shaking it slightly, to make sure there was enough inside, she heaved the heavy container into the back seat of the Hearse, exiting the room once again. Breezing past Tammy, and into the kitchen area, throwing open a junk drawer.

"What're you-" both Sasha and Tammy caught up with her, standing in the doorway, she stopped, reaching for a small cardboard pack of matches, she shut the drawer quietly.

"Before I do this batshit crazy thing, as you're going to say, let me explain to you why I'm doing this." Hestia's face was straight and serious, a stoic expression that hardly ever graced her face now out in the open for everyone to see.

"Heidi killed my father, betrayed my trust, and as far as I'm aware, planned on doing it over and over again." she seethed. "What makes you think she wasn't gonna kill you too Tamm?" 

Tammy slid her hands over her neck, still feeling the sheer rubber wrapped around her jugular, gasping desperately for air under her inhumanly strong fingers.

"And, you were in the same building as her, you're DNA is in the crime scene, you technically stole evidence too, Sasha." she turned her gaze to face him.

"Shit, your right, Tamm, she knocked you on the ground, your hair is probably there, and that body is still out in the open..." he began to put the puzzle pieces together in his brain.

"And that is why I'm burning that damn building to the ground..." she grumbled, pushing past the both of them, back into the garage area.

"You can't be serious, Hestia, you'll be charged with arson!" Sasha struggled. "You might go to prison longer than she will, are you stupid?!" he scolded. Yanking the matches out of her hands with deft fingers.

"Fine, then we're at least getting rid of any evidence that could incriminate you two, or any of us for that matter." she insisted, pulling them back into her hands. "I'm taking the hearse to get that body out of there, then we're burning the autopsy room till there's nothing left.

Wren's search felt hopeless, she was turning down roads she'd been down since childhood, winding roads full of old fields and various kinds of shrubbery, the old quarry not too far away.

"Might as well look there, not gonna find anything anyhow..." she grumbled into her teeth, making a sharp right turn to the nearby quarry. Seeing the sleek outlines of the carved mountain stone the sky slowly began to darken with rainclouds, the soft rumbling of thunder heard in the distance.

"Crap, hope I make it there before this storm does..." she mumbled, foot pressing the gas pedal ever so slightly to speed up her journey, hoping once again, that she'd find some evidence to where Heidi went.

"Hestia, one question before we head in there..." Sasha asked, pulling his car back into the gravel parking lot of the coroner's office. "You're studying to be a mortician right, specifically doing the embalming?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Hestia responded, keeping a focus on the gas can in the back seat, as the sky darkens slowly with thunder clouds.

"Can you close that body up for us, I think the last thing we need right now is a body with an open chest cavity in the back of our hearse..." he explained.

"Not an issue." she stated, "Now lets get this done and over with."