Chapter 7 #3
We still haven’t found Marie and Sofie. Not a single trace. But I haven’t stopped looking. I never will. Hope is a fragile thing, but it is all I have left of them, and I hold onto it because letting go would mean losing them all over again.
For the last two years, I’ve visited the local morgue every week without fail.
At first, it was because I needed to know.
Every time an unidentified young woman was brought in, a part of me dreaded it would be Marie or Sofie.
Another part dreaded it wouldn’t be. Grief does strange things to a person.
It leaves you suspended between hope and despair, unable to fully embrace either.
Somewhere along the way, I befriended Mr. Higgs, the mortician who worked there.
What started as awkward conversations in sterile hallways turned into hours spent listening to him explain things most people would rather never think about.
Human anatomy. Muscle groups. Organ systems. How trauma affects the body.
The ways bones fracture. The things death changes and the things it doesn’t.
Most people found Mr. Higgs to be strange.
I found him kind.
And over the last two years, while searching for my friends among the faces of the unidentified, I’d learned far more about the human body than I ever expected to.
I work on driving out emotions. It stays out of this room, sealed off. The weaponized version of me enters. I brace myself for what is waiting on the other side, then wrap my fingers around the handle.
The cold metal touches my skin, I gather my resolve and I turn the handle and enter.
The room is dimly lit, almost entirely by the gleam of Tyler’s setup. Computer monitors cover one wall, and code spills across them in rapid streams, windows opening, duplicating, and collapsing into others. Black screens blink in and out as he weaves through them.
Tyler sits in the middle of the room, unmoving except for his hands.
I enter the room and draw the door shut behind me.
“jackinthebox149?” I ask urgently, keeping my composure.
“Yeah.” He answers flatly. His eyes never leave the screen while his fingers move faster, intentionally.
Another window opens, then closes as more do the same.
“He’s online right now.”
Something moves over one of the screens. More lines cascade as more windows open.
Tyler shifts closer, attention zoned in.
“He is trying to buy a young woman from the Dominican Republic,” he informs me.
Pictures pop up on the screen of the woman. She’s beautiful and doesn’t look older than eighteen or even old enough to drive a car.
Squinting my eyes, working my mind to wholly understand what is going on as Tyler clacks away at his keyboard.
“We need him to stay online for five more minutes so I can plant a bug in his cryptocurrency wallet.”
The seller is negotiating with him, telling him everything he wants to hear, in code.
The emojis are a white heart, hands with the palms on display, chains, and the green check mark.
This means she’s a virgin, untouched, already captured, and ready to go.
My face contorts in disgust, my eyes looking at the clock in the corner, wishing time would go by faster. We almost have him.
I study the monitor as Tyler brings up years of his financial life, his mortgage, and his two car payments.
One minute.
He has a decent home with a guest house, three kids, and has been married for twelve years. I clench my hands as I battle the wave of nausea climbing up my throat as I think about how they have no idea what kind of monster they are living with.
“Got him,” Tyler affirms tersely as he scours over the screen, clicking away.
They continue to chat about how beautiful her skin is, and jackinthebox149 hints at darker plans for her once he is through with her.
I replay his words to myself, I need it seared into me, dominating the forefront of my mind when we pay him a visit.
Google Maps glows on another screen, and I walk over to it as it zooms in to where I’m standing on the sidewalk outside of his house.
Close enough to make it feel real, as if I could touch it.
“How long until we go get the bastard?” I spit out, my hands twitch as they search for weapons that aren’t there.
“We are going tonight,” he looks over at me fondly with tenacity behind his blue eyes, “You need the practice, and he doesn’t deserve to keep breathing.”
Heat floods my chest as I say, “Well, let’s not waste time then.”
I stride to the closet in the corner, open it, and collect the blades.
Steel slides into my hands like an old friend.
I secure my blades in their sheaths in my holster one by one, with my favorite, the Ka-Bar at the top.
Guns are distant.
Blades are more intimate.
He doesn’t get distance.
He’s going to be close enough to feel it, every second of it.
No more hiding behind screens, aliases, or any kind of barrier separating him from the damage he’s caused. That ends now.
I will make him wish for death, confess his darkest sins to me - including the names of his friends, listen as he begs for forgiveness, and send him straight to hell.