Chapter 2 Firefly #3
As I stare up into his shadowed face, I catch the microexpressions he’s trying to conceal. The worry line carved deep between his brows, the tight rim of his lips.
“Look at the victim,” I tell him as I scoop up my tablet.
I punch in a web search and turn the screen around, showing him an image with the stars connected by lines so he can clearly see the shape.
“Aquarius. The victim has been posed like the constellation. The arms outstretched…the legs curled inward.”
He takes the tablet and studies the image, comparing it to the body. He glances back and forth, his silence burrowing beneath my skin like abrasive grains of sand.
“Darby—”
“Yeah.” He cuts me short. “I mean, I see it, Hol. But you know it’s likely a coincidence. There’s a billion different star patterns. If you try to find one to match every victim, chances are, you will.”
Disappointment tightens my throat. I swallow, swiping the hair from my face. “Why do you always do this.”
His exasperated sigh stirs my irritation further. When he finally meets my eyes, I’m devastated by the doubt I see banked there. “To keep McCallister off your case,” he says. “Just…if we do find any correlation, let me take it to him.”
He stands before me like an imposing obstacle. Hand braced on his hip to part the bottom of his black blazer, tie side-swept by the wind. A fierce devotion carves his features that, I know deep down, he’s only trying to protect me. That’s his nature.
And yet, a flame fills the hollow pit of my stomach.
This rage is always festering right below my surface.
At times, I latch onto it and let it char my insides to ash.
I try not to give it enough oxygen to blaze hot enough to burn those closest to me, but it’s malignant, tainting every relationship.
As I feel the bubble of anger rising, I smother it. “Of course, all right,” I say to ease Darby’s concern.
He expels a lengthy breath. “We’ll finish up here and then look through the past cases, compare the poses of all the victims. See what, if anything, it could mean. Okay?”
I nod again in reply, only hearing the crash of the waves, the howl of the wind. Seeing the glowing embers of fireflies blinking against the starry backdrop of night.
But even as I gently consent to his suggestion, my mind is racing as quick as my pulse.
I accept the tablet from Darby, the star map still displayed on the screen, and a surge of adrenaline heats my blood.
Map.
It’s a fucking map.
The realization clicks into place so effortlessly, I almost feel buzzed. Desperation claws at my waning patience. Time is always against me.
“I can find him,” I say, my voice softly muffled.
Darby watches me closely, that hint of worry creased between his brows, but fails to respond when the spotlights flick on, illuminating the dark beach. All around, agents begin to assemble and erect a tent.
“I was watching this documentary on Michelangelo last month,” Darby says, and I can hear the solemn inflection in his tone. “It was about how he saw raw materials before transforming them into art.”
Normally, I can follow his winding commentary on all the things he uses to fill his idle time, and I can even sympathize, knowing the reason he does so, but my mind is humming too frantically, impatience fraying my nerves.
“He put it this way,” Darby continues. “‘Every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it’s the task of the sculptor to discover it.’”
Clicking the tablet off, I let him have my full attention. “What are you trying to say to me?”
“That the artist should never impose their will on the stone.” He folds his arms across his chest. “I know how badly you want to make this case, but you can’t impose your will on it, Hol.”
A ribbon of anger coils around my bones, and my muscles burn. I can’t tamp down the reactive flame fast enough to prevent my next words from hitting the air. “Maybe if you had imposed yours harder, you could’ve found her killer.”
The immediate shock of hurt contorts his features. The resulting lash of guilt strikes back at me, my gaze falling to the leather bracelet circling his wrist. A pang of regret murmurs through the bruised organ in my chest.
“Shit. I didn’t mean that—”
“I know,” he says, saving me the awkward apology. He tips his head up and glances around the scene, then scrubs the back of his neck with his hand. “Come on. I saw a beach bar on the way here. Let’s go clear our heads.”
While he wraps up with Valdes, I grab my briefcase and start the climb toward the top of the dune. I only make it halfway before my lungs fail to pull a full breath, and my ears pulse with the struggle.
Palm flattened to my chest, I seal my eyes shut and take measured breaths, fighting back the dizziness.
One. Two. Three.
The attack fades, replaced by the dull ache of cold fury. I clench my teeth, gritty with the grains of sand, and lower my hand.
The climb up is always so hard. It’s what makes us want to give up, to give in. To finally let the darkness have us.
Every day, giving in feels easier.
In a previous life, I was something of an artist. Though Darby knows this, he won’t blatantly come right out with it, instead using vague metaphors to deliver his point. Still, being reminded of what existed in the before feels as raw as my sand-beaten flesh.
When I reach the top of the dune, I let the bite of wind assault my skin and glance around at the darkened habitat. Caseworkers churn within the lighted tent, the inside aglow like a firefly jar.
It’s deceptively beautiful, the violence hidden within.
As the night wind intensifies, the illuminated bodies of the lightning bugs fade out, save for one errant straggler striving to claim shelter in the sea oats. She’s tossed by the sand spray, pitched to the ground. Caught in the fury of the storm, the firefly is a victim of the cruel elements.
I lower myself to the grass and pluck the beetle from the sand. Cradling the insect in my palm, I realize just how delicate she is, how fragile. Even if she survives the storm, there’s a predator waiting to descend on her in her weakest moment.
As she crawls along my thumb, I think about how cunning the femme fatale firefly is—how she lies in wait, mimicking the flash signals of other fireflies to attract and lure in a male. In essence, she tricks him, convincing the male that she’s like him, allowing her to get close before she kills.
My gaze shifts to the star pattern on my wrist, the only link I still have to my before—and that’s when I see it, a beacon flashing from the sand.
Hand trembling, I brush away the grains, my breath stalling as I uncover a brass object. One moment where I war with indecision, then I curl my fingers around the piece of evidence.
Darby appears at the top of the dune, all concern washed from his face. “You ready?”
My resolve never more firm, I clench the slender brass in my palm and nod. “Yes.”
I will find him.
Before I stand, I release the firefly back to the sand, where a fiddler crab makes her its target.
Yet, nature gave her a way to fight back, to get even. Her veins are primed with poison.
In death, she will have her revenge.