Chapter 2 - The House of Broken Glass
The drive back to his own house was a blur of high-beam headlights and twisting mountain roads. Eric kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other firmly resting on Emma’s knee, constantly squeezing it to remind her that he was real, that he was there, and that the nightmare in the dirt was over.
"Daddy?" Emma whispered, her voice cracking as the truck's heater finally began to warm the cabin. "Is Mommy mad at me too? Is that why she sent me to Grandma's?"
Eric’s jaw clenched so hard his molars ached. "No, baby. Mommy is... Mommy made a very big mistake. But I am here now. Nobody is ever going to put you in a hole again. I promise you that on my life."
When he pulled into his own driveway, the morning sun was just beginning to peek over the Pennsylvania hills, casting a cold, gray light over the blue shutters of his home. The front door was still wide open, just as he had left it.
Eric carried Emma inside, bypassing the messy living room and taking her straight upstairs to her own bedroom. It was a room filled with colorful drawings of horses, a bookshelf stacked with fairy tales, and her favorite stuffed animals. The contrast between this sanctuary and the mud-slicked grave in Myrtle's backyard made Eric’s stomach twist with an overwhelming sense of failure. He had been thousands of miles away fighting a war for strangers while a monstrous front had breached his own front door.
He filled a warm bath for Emma, staying by the door the entire time, talking to her about his deployment, about the funny camels he had seen in the desert, anything to keep her mind from drifting back to the dark. After she was clean and dressed in fresh, dry pajamas, he tucked her into her bed, placing her favorite stuffed rabbit in her arms.
"Lock the door from the inside, Emma," Eric instructed softly, handing her the small brass key. "Don't open it for anyone but me. Do you understand?"
She nodded, her large, serious brown eyes reflecting a depth of trauma no seven-year-old should ever possess. "I understand, Daddy."
Eric closed the door, heard the lock click, and then turned toward the master bedroom.
Brenda was awake now, sitting on the edge of the unmade bed. The empty wine bottle had been knocked over, rolling across the floorboards. She looked up as Eric entered, her face a mask of defensive anger and pale, hungover panic.
"You had no right to go over there and cause a scene, Eric!" she yelled, her voice trembling as she stood up, crossing her arms tightly. "My mother was trying to help! You've been gone for six months! You don't know how hard it's been! The bills, the house, the... everything!"
Eric walked over to her slowly, his boots heavy against the floorboards. He stopped just inches away, pulling his phone from his pocket. He didn't say a word. He simply unlocked the screen and held the photo of the second hole—the photo of the tiny human skull and Sarah Chun's dog tag—directly in front of her face.
Brenda’s breath hitched. The defensive anger vanished from her expression in a fraction of a second, replaced by a pure, paralyzing terror that turned her skin the color of ash. She stumbled backward, her knees hitting the bed, her eyes wide as she stared at the screen.
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"Where did you get that?" she whispered, her voice dropping into a desperate, frantic register. "Oh my god... you looked. You weren't supposed to look."
"Who is Sarah Chun, Brenda?" Eric asked, his voice a low, terrifying growl. "And why is she buried in your mother's backyard?"
