As soon as the razor blade comes down on her cheek, I drop the phone in my hand and run out of the house.I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know where Coraline is being kept, but something within me just snaps, and all I can see is the glint of metal under that light in that dark room, and rage rises like an inferno within me. I throw the door open and dash out, taking a sharp left turn toward the direction of the city. There is nothing running in my mind but Coraline’s name chanting over and over again, with the imagery of the razor and the man running simultaneously, and I can’t even hear the pounding of my feet on the platform through the blood rush in my ears, and the wind rushes in my face as I make my legs move faster and faster, and I need to get to Coraline right now before he harms her even more because god only knew what he was going to her already and oh fuck he cut her, that goddamn bastard cut her I’m going take that fucking razor off his hand and slash it across his

After I tell the detective Aaron’s name, he flies into action to dig up any record they might have of him from the criminal and non-criminal databases the police have. The other members of our party are eventually released from questioning and look alert as they make their way toward one of the waiting rooms.“Jace what did you tell the detective?” asks my father as soon as I enter the room, looking bewildered. “He came in said something, and then everyone started to run around like someone set their heads on fire.”“I just told him about one suspicion I have,” I reveal to the gatherers.“Who?” Mrs. Granger demands before I can even finish with the sentence, “Who is it do you think took my baby?”“What? No, no, I didn’t mean it like that,” I quickly amend, “The detective asked me if I know anyone who might have any negative attitudes towards Coraline, you know, someone who talked all possessive about her, and only one name came into my mind.”Both Mr. and Mrs. Granger understand what

Waiting for something to happen is agonizing, and there is no way I could do that by sitting at home by myself. I want to search the city, I want to go through the subway every which way to see if I could get one single clue of where Coraline had been taken to, and I’m so tired of looking at a map of the city wondering where the hell she was being held, all while trying to decipher the identity of the person who had taken her from us, from me.I try to piece together the mystery within the confines of my home, and that proves a difficult task. I know that it only took exactly six hours and twenty-five minutes for us to get any kind of clue about Coraline’s kidnapping. Six hours and twenty-five minutes had gone from the time Lemon got her last text. And in order to send us such an encrypted video, the kidnapper must’ve needed a good amount of time. Maybe two hours, or something similar, if the guy was as much of a pro as I thought. So that meant rationally, contrary to the detectives’

The perky, bubbly receptionist at the office of Salvador, Priestly, and Erikkson seems to have been replaced by another woman. I actually pause upon seeing her, because never in my life had a seen a person, much less a woman, look so severe.It’s not that she doesn’t look beautiful, she is, but there is something so icy and aloof about her that I can’t help but stare for a moment. Her black hair, pinned behind her head seemed to have such a volume that I could positively say it was long when let down, and her dark eyes ringed with eyeliner and long lashes contrasted with her pale and sharp cheekbones like night and day.She scowls as soon as she catches sight of us, only for a moment before smoothing her features into what could be called polite, but with an undercurrent of disapproval. I wonder what that’s about, and then realize that I must probably look like shit. I just threw on whatever clothes I could find and ran my fingers through my hair before running out of the house with L

To be honest, Rick Erikkson did look like a man who’d know a guy. I mean, he is a suave, deceptively young-looking lawyer who’d had some riveting wins in the court, who was known for his tendency to look into a legal battle with a totally new perspective and win cases so fast that it bewildered those that watched the whole thing.Not to mention how much of an enigma he was to most people, including myself I had a feeling that Gerald knew things about him that no one else in this world did, but then again, Gerald seemed to know a lot of things. So did my dad for that matter.One day I’d sniff out that secret, but not today. Today, I have to follow Rick Erikkson as he guides us through the lanes and sub-lanes in the southern district of Clandestine City.“You know,” I pipe in, “you could’ve just asked the man to come and meet us at your office.”“Well, that’d be awfully rude of me, wouldn’t it?” Rick throws over his shoulder blithely, taking yet another turn into the alleys with the eas