After that bizarre conversation with Gerald, we decidedthat it would be for the best if we took the whole operation to the estate. There is security there and no one would expect an operation like the one we're trying to do to take place in a billionaire's house. Also, as Mal stated after we moved, apparently the internet connection of the Wi-Fi was faster than his own too, so it was a plus. As it was the middle of the night, we could cut off the cameras that we'd hacked into because we were certain that the kidnapper wouldn't enter the place at that time. Because I only had one computer in my place and as it was not as powerful as Mal's was, we knew we had to pack up his devices and transport them back to my place. So that is what we did. Erikkson had to leave because he had work to do but promised that he'd swing around the next morning to see how it was going. Mal, Lemon, and I packed the devices that Mal needed into cardboard boxes and brought them to Gerald’s beat-up Honda. For
I am sitting in a file, and it is nighttime. It is quite strange, because I'd never seen this particular field before, and have no memory of coming here. The file is filled with long blades of grass that brush gently against my legs, which seem to be bare. In fact, I'm not wearing any clothes whatsoever, and it is disconcerting because I do not think there was ever a circumstance in my life where I would step out into the open buck naked, much less wind up in a field without a stitch of clothing! I look around frantically, searching for my clothes in the grass, but the only ones I find are pebbles and dirt in between the blades. I stand up, feeling the chill of the night biting against me. I notice while I'm searching for my clothes that there the dark blue sky is blank. That stops my search in the spot. There are no stars in there, there is no moon. There aren’t even clouds. Something is amiss here because I can clearly see what was surrounding me as if there was light, but I did k
It took us two more days to get a hit.Two torturous days of unblocking the Grangers and trying to calm them down so neither of them would end up in the hospital with heart palpitations or something else, two days of hoping that maybe I was wrong about the police and maybe they might be able to actually do something about it only to be proved wrong, two days of living with all the demons in my dead telling me that I was not going to make it, that I was going to get us all arrested with my scheme and Coraline will end u dying in the end because I messed up, two days starting at two screens with my friends waiting for the man we flagged as the kidnapper or anyone suspicious to arrive at the internet cafe, two days of waiting and waiting…until we finally get the hit.Well, something of a hit. More of an idea. That morning, Mal tells us, “There seems to be a two day difference between the first video and the second video. While we normally need about three or more circumstances in order
I call Erikkson and Gerald, but Gerald is in a super important meeting in another city, so he can’t make it. But Erikkson doesn’t have any appointments in the morning, so as soon as I tell him what we have discovered, he tells me that he would come by my place in a few minutes.“I’m the guy in the chair,” Mal says as Lemon and I run around to get supplies for a stakeout, “so I’m going to wait here. Unless you got a fully equipped vehicle with all the devices, I could get my hands on stashed around here somewhere, I’m going to have to stay here and steer you all from the distance. I suppose you all got some Air Pods available.”“Yep,” I tell him, “If not we’ll just buy’em.”“No need to spend your money on me, Mr. My-father-is-a-billionaire, I mooch from you enough,” joked Lemon as he breezes past me, “by the way, what car are we taking? It gotta be something nondescript right?”“I’m not taking that Honda Gerald found from God knows where. Just one of the black ones that don't look too
When we park in front of the internet café on the other side of the road so the chances of the kidnapper noticing us are less, I feel such a sense of déjà vu that all the hairs on my neck rise with the tension that seems to be in the air.Never did I think that I would have to be in this position, with two guns tucked into the waistband of my jeans, in a car with two guys and another speaking in my ear, waiting for a kidnapper to arrive so he could upload yet another video of my lover getting tortured.If Mal’s prediction is correct, then the kidnapper had a video he would be unloading. Another montage of him physically assaulting Coraline, or doing something worse this time, and I will have to watch it for the third time. I feel such a sense of hatred when I think about it, and when I see a policeman around the corner of the town square, we’d parked right next to, I feel positively murderous. If they had done their job correctly, then I wouldn’t have to be here, I they had not been s
“Move!” I immediately shove at the man bending over my side and opening the car door so I could get out. The guy looks stunned at my audacity until I manage to get out of the car. But the moment he recovers from it, he is furious.“Who the fuck do you think you are?!” he tries to grab me by the shirt collar, but I expertly dodge him, “You want to fight me? Is that what you want? Are you going to fucking fight me for this?”“No, but you need to get out of my way right now!”“Jace, what’s going on?” Erikkson and Lemon are both getting out of the car, and I point in the direction of the internet café where the black-clad figure wearing a pair of large wire-trimmed glasses, a black beanie, and a black mask.“That’s him!” I yell. Even the man who had been trying to get rid of us turns to look at what this fuss is about. “The kidnapper!”The guy’s eyes widen, “wait what?”The kidnapper suddenly freezes on the spot and turns right at us. What little we can make out of his eyes narrows and th
Detective Reverend sits next to me, fuming. I sit on the other side of a table to which I am cuffed, feeling like all kinds of shit and angry beyond words. The room is cool and there's a one-way glass dominating one wall, and I've never felt more like a criminal in my life. When I had not even committed a crime. “You went after him,” Detective Reverend says, “after everything I told you, after everything we did here to get to him, you took matters to your own hand, and you jeopardized the whole operation.”“Funny how you tell me that I jeopardized the whole operation as if there was an actual operation going on,” I reply, “when you couldn’t trace a video and find the kidnapper when I could.”“I will get to how you did that shortly,” the detective snaps, “but for now, I have to ask you, what the hell were you thinking?”“I was thinking that no one here is doing any fucking thing, and there seems to be no development in the case whatsoever, so at least I should do something about it.
Erikkson and Lemon are waiting in the parking lot when I walk out of the police station, feeling like a man who could just watch the world burn and want to laugh at the moment. The note that Detective Reverend gave me before is clutched tightly in my hand, and I feel like I’m going to have difficulty breathing soon because of the emotions that I am desperately trying to take control of but failing. There is just so much anger and fear in me that I feel like would end me if I just let it.And damned if I don’t want to let go.As soon as they see me, the two men rush towards me. Lemon reaches me first and tackles me in a hug which surprises me out of the rage stupor I had been building. As my arms automatically go around him, I can see that he is actually shaking.He isn’t crying or anything, in fact, I’m pretty sure that his face was inched in what looked like anger before he hugged me, but he is shaking.From fear or anger? I do not know. But as soon as I feel it, the most bizarre thi