# Catherine Shaw's POV
My hands shake as I fumble for my phone, Quentin Thorne's lifeless eyes still staring at me from the bloodstained grass. The smell of death clings to my nostrils, making my stomach churn violently.
"This isn't happening," I whisper, pressing my back against a nearby oak tree. "This can't be real."
But the severed head doesn't disappear. If anything, it seems more grotesque in the growing daylight. The way his mouth hangs open. The terror frozen in his features.
Someone did this. Someone cut off his head and left it here like an offering to the dead.
My fingers tremble as I dial the police, then stop. What would I tell them? That I found a decapitated head while visiting the grave of a boy I humiliated years ago?
They'd ask too many questions. Questions I can't answer.
Instead, I call the one person who might understand the significance of this discovery.
"Daddy?" My voice comes out small and scared.
"Catherine? What's wrong? You sound—"
