Chapter 34 Indie
Indie
i don't know you anymore - sombr
Age Twenty-Three
I find Regina sitting in the office; the place is small, bare, and cold.
The only items we have so far are a desk and laptop. It’s situated on the other side of town, miles away from Harrison, away from all the names we seemed to have captured a couple of weeks ago.
We haven’t started up our company just yet. I’ve been working on the research needed to build the clientele.
Regina’s been working on software to get into the police records. She has a few projects under her belt, mostly as part of a showcase for her skills.
This one is something she started in university—not for this specific purpose, but one she wanted to try during her darker web searches.
Even though she had a prospering career ahead of her, she’s always been intrigued in how hackers do what they do.
I used to say she watched too many damn cyber thrillers.
But now…I’m kind of grateful for it.
Her green eyes glance up at me, her brows set in a deep frown.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, walking over to sit on top of the box next to her seat.
She turns in the chair to face me. “Well…the program worked.”
My eyes widen. “That’s good, right?”
She’s been building this for years; it was more a hobby to see if she could do it, no real intentions to deploy it, I think.
She’s spent so much time working on a VPN to hide her tracks, and I’ve never really asked who would end up as the fall guy if it was ever traced.
She nods, gaze travelling back to the screen.
“That’s deplorable,” she retorts, her hand moving to the mouse to click various web tabs, and a list tumbles down the screen.
She leans back, giving me room to move forward and read down the information she’s showing me. My breathing hitches.
“Are those—”
“Police reports for all the names we took of Sumus.”
My blood runs cold.
Each of the twenty names we gathered of the Sumus members are highlighted in each file.
Regina must have pulled the vital information in them, along with the status.
Bile rises in my throat, my eyes narrowing as I begin to see a pattern.
Powerful families.
Sumus member.
Sexual assault charge.
Insufficient evidence.
Not taken forward.
“What in the fucking world?” I hiss, taking the mouse from Regina to scroll further. All the incident dates are around the same time for when the two groups graduated.
“Whatever this group is, they seem to have immunity from whatever crimes they committed. There was more, but I couldn’t stay in the system long.”
Her faint words echo around my head, and I scroll frantically, trying to find the names of the two who harmed us.
“Why aren’t ours there?”
She gives me a knowing look. “Nothing was filed.”
Those motherfuckers.
“Are you sure? That’s not ethical. The chief of police—”
“I know, girl. I know,” she whispers, and dread promises to consume me.
All these names, all these women.
Suffered attacks of similar nature to us, and not one of them was taken forward.
The fact there’s twenty in the capital’s police file, and not a single fucking thing has been done?
It’s diabolical.
I know the odds are low when it comes to a conviction, but these haven’t even gone that far?
Ours isn’t even noted. Is this because they don’t care, or does this run so much deeper?
I run a shaky hand through my hair, my elbow thumping on the desk. “I can’t wrap my head around this.”
There were so many books there. Regina said the emblem was the same in the older one she picked up.
A chilling thought sweeps over me: have they always been doing this?
This has to be some secret university society.
“Neither can I. It’s bullshit,” Regina adds, shutting down the laptop, both of us staring at the grey screen, like it just revealed the world isn’t as black and white as I’ve always thought.
I jump to my feet, my heart pounding as the thoughts run rampant in my mind. “Something needs to be done. They all just can’t get away with this!”
These people are all in a position of trust; most of their families have powerful roles around the state.
And the police chief brushing us off like that?
Was he a name we didn’t have time to discover?
Or does this Sumus have people in their back pocket?
Regina has her palms pressed into her eyes.
“Indie, I know. But what can we do? They wouldn’t even help us, two of us with collaborating stories, witnesses.
” She moves them away, her eyes looking tired.
“Look what happened to Jenna. I know it’s all related.
She spoke up in the street against them and ended up dead.
I don’t doubt the same fate would be handed to us if we did anything with this.
What resources do we have, going up against these kinds of people? ”
I’ve never felt this feeling before.
It’s like a dark energy is overtaking me, all these unanswered questions in my mind.
How far does this go?
What happened to the women who did report this?
Are they dead?
Why is our report the only one not recorded?
Regina’s voice pulls me back from the edge, but my one foot is still hovering over. “They’re too powerful to fight against.”
My gaze is fixated outside the office window, watching the rows of different buildings stretch across the outer city, the dominating wood line shielding in the corruption that lies beyond miles ahead of it.
But it’s not the light that catches my eyes; it’s the darkness.
When I eventually speak, my own voice raises the hairs on my arms. “No, they’re not.”
Footsteps sound beside me, Regina walking over to join me.
“What do you mean?” she asks quietly. There’s a hint of concern in her tone, and quite frankly, I don’t blame her.
I don’t know what’s come over me, but I feel as though something’s calling out to me, a primal urge within me to fix this.
“They need a taste of their own actions. They want to do shit illegally? Then their punishment will be received the same way. They’re not going to continue to get away with this. Not with what they did to us, to Jenna. To every single one of those voiceless women out there.”
“What are you saying?”
I turn to face her.
“I’m saying…we need to be the ones to deliver the vengeance they deserve.”