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
“I swear I’m alright,” I tell both Mal and a frantic-looking Gerald, “the tasering did not scramble my brains, I promise.”“Dammit, Jace this is not funny,” Gerald replies in an exasperated tone. He’s still wearing the business suit I saw him in when I called him this morning just before leaving for the stakeout, and it looks crumpled. He looks like he could use a long night of sleep, and to be honest, everyone in the room looks the same. Mal has got his computer and dual screens running still one of the screens showed footage from the café while the other was screening my email account for a new mail so he could trace another video should we get one.“I did not intend it to be,” I reply, settling down into a chair with a sigh, “and it doesn’t matter, not really. We lost him. Thanks to those fucking cops, we lost the only chance of getting to Coraline.”I expect the tears to come then, but my body proves me wrong. No matter how my hurts, tears do not escape them. But there is such a h
The tears that I have been hiding make an appearance when I see Coraline, and I feel like I’ve been stabbed. I hear everyone around me suck in a breath, and Lemon lets out a broken sound. Mal curses under his breath. Gerald comes forward to put a hand on my shoulder which he thinks is comforting, but it makes everything worse because I realize that I’m here in safety while she's under some psycho’s mercy, looking like that.All her fingers are red and swollen, and fucking flies are flitting around them. Dark brown blood is crusted around them, and it looks like they are beyond repair. Her arm is bent in an impossible manner, and the same could be said for her legs. She's been stripped to her underwear which barely covers her, and despite the psychopath saying that he hadn’t touched her in that way, I can’t be too sure of that. But then again, considering everything else that had been done to her, I don’t think Coraline would’ve even felt what he was doing because of the sheer pain tha
Gerald tells me that we will be able to do this, that we would get to her before it would be too late.I try to believe him.We move into the house eventually, because, unlike any other day, the moon does not seem to be comforting. I realizes that I had only cared about my feelings only and had not even thought about the other when I see Lemon with his head in his hands and Erikkson, who had literally only met him scant days ago, trying to comfort him. Mal looks torn as if he wants to do it as well, but he focuses on his work while glancing at them with a soothing word or two. When I return to the room, every pair of eyes in it turns on me.“I’m sorry I stormed off like that,” I tell them, “Just needed some space so I didn’t do anything stupid.”“It’s alright,” Lemon sniffs, sounding hoarse as if he had been crying, “can’t blame you for it.”“Are you alright?”He shrugs, “How can anyone be alright after seeing that?”“Yeah,” I reply and go to take a seat next to him, “it was horrible.
“Are you certain that this is the spot?” Gerald questions me, tone grave as he stares at the screen that had the screen recording, “I understand your theory here, but I want to know if you're certain of it because after we plan an attack there is literally no going back.”“How can it not be?” I question him, “We know that he’s keeping her somewhere around here, and we know that Empire City is well within the range.”“Why did we not notice this before, then?” Erikkson asks, “We had gotten three videos by now, shouldn’t we have realized this sooner?”“It wasn't there before,” says Mal, “I analyzed the video from before after I noticed the background noises but realized that during those videos, there was no background sound whatsoever. As if he was recording the videos and keeping Coraline in a building where the walls had been built to cancel noise coming from outside.”“I think he moved her after his confrontation with you,” Erikkson says, “or perhaps he moved her sooner, right after
“Hello? Who is this?” a feminine voice asks from the other side, and I huff out a breath of relief. After spending about half an hour rummaging through my room to find the contact, I’d gotten from Nurse Clara all those times ago, I had been worried that maybe I had been given the wrong number, or maybe after all this time she had changed her phone number. Or maybe she would see a strange number incoming and decide not to answer it. But to my utter relief, she does.“Hello, Nurse Clara,” I answer, “you might not remember me now, but a few months ago you gave me this number and told me that I can call you whenever I need your help, but I’ve found myself needing your specific skillset for something very important.”“My skillset? Look, my guy, I don't know what's going on here, and this sounds seedy as hell, but I don’t remember saying anything like that,” the woman replies in a confused tone, and I can imagine her scratching at her head on the other end, “I don’t normally promise people
“Oh, my god!” Nurse Clara exclaims as she walks into my house, wide eyes staring at everything, “Oh, my GOD! You people actually live in places like this? It’s not just for show?”“It appears so,” I reply, and suddenly her expression snaps to me. She looks a bit different from the last time I saw her, like she had a different hairstyle, and certainly dressed differently in casual clothes. She has had the sense to wear dark-colored, non-descript clothing and clutched a large duffle bag to her chest. I walk up to her and stretch my hand at her, “Hello there. Thank you for coming at such a short notice. You have my gratitude for this.”She carefully places the duffle bag on the couch right next to her and shakes my hand.“You’re welcome, Mr. Greyson. I just hope that this won’t be some true crime podcast episode where all of us die in the end. Or worse, disappeared off the face of the earth with no information whatsoever. Or in witness protection, God forbid.” She tells me and I can’t he