Chapter 36
Blood-soaked Fingers
brIGIT
As soon as I step one foot out of the hidden room, my phone rings.
Skyler.
I ignore him, running upstairs to throw on some clothes.
He calls again.
And again.
Only on the fifth call, once I’m dressed, packed, and ready to run out the door, do I finally answer.
“Brigit Danaan, get your ass back in that office,” he orders, his voice shaking.
"Was Cormac stalking me before his incident?"
He sighs, "Brig-"
"Was he, yes or no?" I demand the answer.
When his only response is silence, I release a furious scoff, "I knew it. I knew you fucking dicks-"
“For fuck’s sake,” he clears his throat, “Listen. I can’t deal with you bolting right now. Morrison is going to kill Cormac. Steele gave me a fake background check and address.”
“What? Why?” I shouldn’t care. I don’t care. This man has been stalking me for years. He’s a psychopath. Let them have him.
Even as I think the words, they feel false.
Yes, I’m fucking pissed.
And I have every right to be. This level of violation is sick and wrong.
But I still can’t make myself want anything bad to happen to Cormac.
“No idea,” he bites. “But I have to go save his ass.”
The slam of a door echoes through the receiver, and I hear the muffled sound of him running.
Even though I don’t want Cormac to get caught, I still can’t be here. Can’t be in the hands of a man who did that to me, and then I let him… Jesus Christ.
A sound stops me in my tracks from gathering the last of my things from the couch.
“Skyler,” I whisper into the phone.
“What?” he mutters. “Fuck, that alarm better not be you trying to open a door.”
The front door handle jiggles again, but doesn’t open.
“It’s not.”
After a beat, Skyler’s voice is deadly serious, “Saferoom. Now.”
I don’t bother arguing, knowing whoever is on the other side of that front door is going to be on this side of it any second. I don’t want to find out who it is that way.
Keeping the phone to my ear, I use my free hand to type in the code, taking the entire bag full of my stuff with me and slamming myself into the office I fled not ten minutes ago.
Skyler breathes out a sigh of relief, “It’s Steele. Do not leave that room. We’re on our way.”
“But you said-”
The phone beeps to alert me that he’s already gone.
Locked back in the safety of the office I just tried to escape, I’m stuck in a room full of the proof of Cormac’s betrayal.
And all the proof of who he really is.
Everything Officer Steele is looking for is right here.
I could open the door, hand it over, and walk free of all of it right now.
I’ve been asking over and over for a way out of this, haven’t I? And now it’s right in front of me, along with even more motivation to do so.
Nausea spills up the back of my throat just thinking about doing it, but wouldn’t it be the right thing to do?
Cormac has killed these people. And probably even more that I don’t know about. Skyler helped. Don’t they both deserve to face some judgment? Some justice?
A voice in the back of my head screams, "Yes."
My allegiance to the rule of law and the black-and-white of it all is calling me to turn them over.
But I know I can’t.
They’re violent criminals, yes.
But they’ve become this to stop innocent people from being harmed. They’ve risked their lives, their freedom, their very souls to save others.
Am I the kind of person who could live with myself if I stood in their way?
No.
If that makes me no better than them, I guess that’s what I am.
Being stuck in a noise-proof room sounds great in theory, but that means I also can’t hear anything outside of it. I have no idea if he’s getting closer to getting in here, or if he’s tearing apart the house.
All I can do is sit and wait.
For how long?
Even if Cormac and Skyler came home, I would have no idea until someone opened up the door to find me.
If Steele were to get the drop on them and… I can’t even think the word, but if he were to stop them, how long until I have to come out, and what would I find when I do?
There has to be a way for me to know what’s happening.
My eyes travel back to the desktop computer.
I know that what’s in there is going to be worse than even my worst nightmares could conjure. Whether it’s proof of his victims or his incessant stalking, either would destroy what’s left of my sanity.
But I have to find a way to help them.
Then I’ll leave.
I can be mad at Cormac, hate him even, and still not want him to die or spend his life in prison.
I’ll fix it all, then walk out that door and never look back.
Lie.
Fuck.
I can’t fucking think about the future, and what I’ll do afterwards, all I can focus on is finding some way to get those two assholes out of this.
Sinking into the computer chair, I jiggle the mouse again, waiting for the password input to pop back up.
I have no fucking idea what his password might be.
Based on my own extensive searches, Cormac's birthday is February 12th.
Nope.
Is he dumb enough to use his own name as a password?
No.
My name?
My birthday?
A small kernel of disappointment flits through me that I shake off. Of course, it’s not about me. Even if he was stalking me, that doesn’t mean everything in his life had anything to do with me.
Anything about Balor? Balorindustries. Mingle. The date Balor was officially started.
No.
No.
No.
God damn it.
I look over the photos on the desk again, a final, last-ditch idea coming over me.
Typing in the date of the worst night of my life, I hold my breath, hoping the universe can be kind enough to give me this.
The loading icon appears, and I have to refrain from jumping out of the chair with joy.
As tabs and open applications autoload onto the screen, I remind myself that there are things in here that are probably going to terrify me. I have to take myself out of the equation.
I’ve compartmentalized my emotions for years. I can do it for another 30 minutes and then go have my feelings about whatever I see in the safety of my home.
The first thing to fully load is a mirroring app, showing a black screen in the shape of a phone.
There’s no way.
I tap my phone screen twice, and the second it lights up, the mirror app does too.
Breathing through my heartache, I keep going.
Cameras in my apartment.
Angry, hot tears threaten to spill.
I can’t let the emotions in. I can’t.
But they just won’t stop.
Seeing it all in vivid detail on the screen, I can’t keep pretending my fury is just about the violation of having cameras and watching my every move.
I thought what we had was real.
That our connection was real. Not that he’s been watching me and cataloguing everything about me, so Cormac knows just how to manipulate me into falling for him.
This changes everything about us. None of it was real for him. It was all a choreographed, targeted strike. And I fucking fell for it.
Devastation sits heavy in my stomach, fueling the rage threatening to boil over and destroy everything between here and Cormac.
Exiting out of the apps without tearing apart the whole computer takes everything in me, but I can’t make him pay for this if the police or death get to him first.
Searching through every folder, every open tab, I scramble through the endless mess of the computer until I find what I’m looking for.
Six cameras across the bottom level of the townhome, one facing the street from above the exterior door, and one facing each window upstairs, both inside the bedrooms and in the hall.
It seems like overkill, but I guess after what happened, I’d be extra cautious too.
Dressed in plain clothes, I find Steele ripping through everything in the kitchen, throwing plates and coffee mugs onto the floor. If I didn’t already know who he was, I might just assume he was a robber or something. I guess walking around uniformed would draw too much attention.
But plain clothes means no camera, which means he knows what he’s doing is well outside of the law. He’s not afraid of there being any consequences for this, which likely means he’s not counting on leaving Cormac alive if he can find him.
He’s already turned over one of the couches and emptied the entertainment center.
All I can do is sit and watch him destroy Cormac’s home, terrified that he’ll find something that helps him get in here, and I’ll be stuck without a way to defend myself.
There has to be something in here.
Cormac isn’t stupid enough to have a room without a weapon stashed somewhere.
For fucks sake, he has them stashed in my home.
I really don’t want to face what’s in these drawers or cabinets. I saw only a glimpse of one earlier, but digging through them means seeing the worst things mankind has done to each other.
Swallowing down the nausea, I pull one open, not letting my eyes focus on a single image or piece of paper, flitting through them to find at least a knife or something.
The desk itself is empty, so I stand to search the cabinets behind me, my fingers dancing along and between each file, digging frantically to find something for self-defense.
When I still come up empty, I run my hands through my wild hair, nearly falling into a fit of frustrated tears.
Okay, Brigit, slow down.
He’s given me so much shit about good hiding places for guns, there’s no way he’d leave it somewhere so obvious.
The opposite corner of the room calls my name.
The couches and coffee table look as if they haven’t been used in years, covered in dust, completely unwelcoming.
That’s where he would want me to hide one.
Removing all the cushions, I find my prize tucked into a hole meticulously cut into the base of the couch.
Well, it’s not a gun.
But a hefty, serrated steel knife is better than nothing.
Returning to the computer, I sit, keeping the weapon within arm's reach in case I need it.
Steele continues to rotate back and forth between frantically ripping the house apart and lifting his phone to his ear, sometimes with a few seconds of angry pacing.
After what feels like ages, Cormac and Skyler appear in the exterior camera.