"Aiden," I breathe, "it's been you all along." He looks so different from how we saw him last. Gone is the jewelry he seemed to be always wearing constantly, gone are the flashy clothes or that infuriating smirk. In the place of that millionaire's son who acted like the whole world was there to get down on their knees for him stands an utter psychopath who looks like he had been made of stone. So pale with his hair long and greasy, falling over his hate filled, angry eyes. He looks much more muscular than before, but the ones on his face are somehow sharper. There is an almost feral look to him, like he had a beat within that he was just waiting to let loose. What shocks me the most is on how he looks exactly like a monster who would definitely kidnap an innocent woman to torture her. "Of course, it was me!" Aiden exclaims, sounding indignant, "I have left so many fucking clues basically littered throughout all the videos, I fucking emphasized every point that would make my identit
A man makes his way toward Coraline on the other side of the bars, and I feel like I’ve been hit with a baseball bat made of metal when I see who it is.“Talon!” it seemed like today was the day of unexpected, extremely unpleasant surprises. I thought he had been helped by Aiden’s father. I didn’t even think about him after the event near that convenience store because of everything else that happened. But now here he is appearing from the shadows, looking as blank as a slab of rock! He walks mechanically, faces expressionless, and even when Aiden slaps him on the shoulder, he doesn’t do so much as look at him. Instead, he walks straight toward Coraline and stares down at her for a moment before turning to me.I’m taken aback by what I see. His eyes look like they’re entirely dead inside! There’s nothing there, no emotions, no brightness, not even a single movement. And I know that is impossible for a living being because no matter what we do the eyes have to move in order to filter l
He cut her.He slashed her fucking neck.He used Talon, controlled him in some way, and made him attack her. He made him take a blade and slash her neck. He made me watch her get slashed right in front of me, powerless to stop it. She must’ve been drugged judging by the way she acted before, and he slashed her neck condemning her to death, without ever giving her a fighting chance. Later, much, much later, I would realize that Talon gave Coraline a wound that would likely kill her under Aiden’s command, and then they both walked away to the devil knew where, leaving her to thrash around her arms sluggishly as she bled to death.He executed her for no crime at all but for having met him.I remember how I screamed; I remember how I felt like a nuclear bomb had erupted within me. I screamed, and screamed and screamed until the iron bars gave away, making me fall right in front of her bleeding body.Her body was still warm when I scrambled to her so I could take her in my arms. I shook he
When the victim of a kidnapping gets killed, it becomes a homicide. And that means that the police of the area in which the homicide happened, the police were bound to get called.During the aftermath of the slashing, everyone including myself was so focused on Coraline that none of us notice the men who Mal and Lemon fought had escaped the house. It’s truly bizarre because none of the people present even noticed it happening. But after the paramedics leave for the hospital, we look for them everywhere, but they are just not present.However, we do not get enough time to do a thorough search in the underbelly of the building because not a moment later, the police officers arrived, and Gerald and Erikkson, who seems to be the only clearheaded ones out here, call us up.Outside is a flurry of police officers. A whole bunch of them floods into the abandoned house and descends upon us, asking question after question until we’re overwhelmed. Erikkson comes to our rescue and drags us outsid
The hospital is busy, and I sit in front of the ER.Although it was my duty to call Coraline’s parents, the moment Gerald gave me the phone with their number already loaded to the screen, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t call them and tell them what had happened to their only daughter right in front of me, I couldn’t tell them that I had been standing right next to her when her throat was slashed by a psychopath, watching helplessly while trying to move an automatically locked iron gate with my bare hands so I could to them. I couldn’t tell them that I’d come so close to saving their little girl only to fail at the last minute. I couldn’t tell them about how she had bled in my own arms.So, I did not take the call. Instead, I asked Gerald to do it and walked away to where we had parked the van.“Hey,” a voice comes from right next to me, and I raise my head to see who it is.Clara stands with two cups of coffee in her hands. She offers one of the cups to me, looking really tired.“Here,”
One hour passed and we still do not get any news from the ER.Every time the door opens, and someone walks out, I get a giddy feeling in my chest and spring up to interact with them, but every time they walk past me to talk with someone else. Gerald had come and gone about a dozen times, checking in to see if I had any news about her condition, only to leave disappointed. I don’t know what exactly he is doing, and why he looks so busy, but he got his phone glued to his ear and I’m pretty sure that he is pulling all the strings he could just so we could not be in too much hot water.I know that no matter how noble our intentions were, we were going against a powerful enemy here, and that enemy somehow had an entire city’s police force under his thumb. And as Clara said before, going against that police force was going to blow this case out of proportion, and I wasn’t sure if we could manage that now with everything that was going on. Right now, the priority should be given to Coraline
Mrs. Granger breaks down crying before I can even get to the middle of the report of what happened today, and although I feel so awkward, uncomfortable, and frankly hurt about telling her all of this, I see Mr. Granger who is doing his best not to follow his wife’s example, looking at me with desperate need in his eyes. And I understand and recognize that need, it’s the same thing that I’ve had since the beginning of this whole thing. The need to know what the hell happened.When I get to the part of the tale where I have to reveal the culprit behind the kidnapping I feel my throat close up.“If we hadn’t believed the word of the police and gathered information ourselves, we would’ve been able to see through the sham,” I say, “because the kidnapper was Aiden.”That pauses Mrs. Grangers cries and she gapes at me with tear-filled eyes.“What?” she utters, sounding utterly disbelieving. “Aiden Collins?”“Yes,” I nod, “Aiden Collins. Coraline’s ex-boyfriend.”Mrs. Granger buries her face
I stumble out of the hospital, swaying on my feet as if I was a crazy man. Nothing registers in my eyes, not the vehicles traveling in front of the hospital, not the ambulances coming blaring in bearing patients and paramedics, not the normal patients coming in with their health crisis sorted, coughing into tissues or holding bags of medical information…I certainly do not register the visitors coming in, bearing small comforts for their recovering loved ones, hoping to see them lit up with health upon seeing them enter their wards or their separate rooms.Recovering loved ones. What a concept that is.I do wonder, however, distantly as if I’m having an out-of-body experience, if they had witnessed loss as I had. I wonder if any of them had their loved ones rushed into the hospital after being tortured or shot, after being held in a dark basement while suffering unspeakable horrors hoping for rescue, only to be cut down like a lamb right in front of the man they thought would be their