Bel
Where are you?
She stared at the text thread for silent minutes, but Olivia didn’t answer. She tried dialing her partner, but the call went unanswered as it delivered her to Olivia’s recorded message. So Bel retreated the way she’d come, hoping she’d make it back outside before Olivia caught her snooping, but as she roundeda corner in her haste, her heel slipped through a micro-puddle. Her leg slid out from under her, and desperate not to fall, she flailed for anything to break her descent. Luckily for her, construction materials had also been abandoned, and she caught hold of a rusted barrel. It halted her fall, but her weight rocked the stack, and the top one plummeted to the concrete. The crash was deafening, and Bel cringed as the barrel bounced along the ground and rolled to a stop, her ears ringing with its violence. If anyone was here, her trespassing was no longer a secret, so she picked up her pace when she heard it.
Screams.
A female’s screams.
She was calling for help.
“Hello?” Bel whirled around as if the muted voice might be behind her, but she was utterly alone. Panic flooded her chest. Someone was here in this emptiness with her, but she’d searched the entire building. Only the ghosts of what could’ve been kept her company. “Hello?”
Nothing.
The voice died, and out of desperation, Bel shoved another barrel. It slammed against the floor, a deafening ring obliterating the silence. “Where are you?” she screamed.
The voice sounded again, and Bel bolted deeper into the building. She didn’t have time to wait for Olivia, if her partner was even on her way. She should’ve been here already, and a girl screamed for help from somewhere within these walls. A girl who might not have time, so Bel pressed her necklace’s panic button and prayed.
“Bajka Police, call out!” she screamed, trying her best to track the muffled cries. “Where are you?” But the girl’s only answer was screams for help. She probably didn’t know where she was. Bel had explored the entire building. There was no place forher to hide… unless... a tree-damaged farmhouse pushed to the forefront of her memory.
“The walls!” Bel skid to a halt. She hadn’t noticed it at first, but that sudden reminder of the man Jax Frost had mummified inside the walls brought the glaring reality front and center. There was something wrong with this building. She’d walked the outside circumference, but the interior didn’t match. It was too… small, which meant that a false wall must have been erected somewhere. That way, if anyone came snooping, they’d find nothing… just like she had.
Bel grabbed a piece of debris and launched it as hard as she could. The crash echoed endlessly, and when the silence reclaimed the air, the girl’s screams renewed their vigor. Again and again, the women danced with sound. Bel knocked something over. The girl shouted. And with every exchange, Bel drew closer until she came face to face with a dead end. This case was full of them.
“I don’t know where you are.” She ran her hands through her hair, fisting the strands until her head stung. She was so close, yet she was helpless. She needed Eamon. His hearing could pinpoint this girl’s location, but he was at least half an hour away. Did this girl have half an hour? If Bel left to wait for backup, would the killer make sure his trapped victim didn’t live to testify?
“I don’t know where you are!” she screamed, her voice as desperate as the girl’s, and she almost tripped when the voice responded. It was so much louder in this room. This room of dead ends and solid walls and…
What was that?
Bel squinted at the room’s rightmost corner. It wasn’t a normal ninety-degree angle. It was too small, the angle all wrong, and she gagged at the realization. “Oh my god.”
It was a fake wall, and whoever had been here last hadn’t slid it fully back into place. A sliver of space revealed the anomaly, allowing the girl’s cries to slip through. If not for her voice, Bel would’ve never found this false wall. If not for the perpetrator’s simple mistake, the desperate screams would’ve never reached her ears.
Bel crossed to the unlatched wall and dug her fingers into the crack. It groaned under her force just as she groaned with the strain. The heavy entrance was slow to budge, and when it opened wide enough to let her through, she realized why. It was soundproof.
Ice dripped down her spine. Even if the aquarium security guards conducted in-person checks here, they would’ve never noticed the convincing fake wall or heard the visceral cries for help. She’d only heard it because fate had been kind to her. It had given her this mistake. Bel paused in the opening and checked over her shoulder. Where was Olivia? Why wasn’t she here yet? It had been too long. Something was wrong. She wasn’t coming, and Bel waged a silent battle with the urge to venture into the darkness alone.
“Is someone there?” The girl’s muffled voice was suddenly clearer. “Please, someone be there.”
“Bajka Police!” Bel shoved herself through the space and yanked her Glock out of its holster, mind made up. Serve and protect. That was her mission, not waiting for backup that wasn’t coming.
“Oh my god, help!” the voice screeched, and Bel felt the girl’s primal fear reverberate through her own chest. It urged her to move faster, but the sound was coming from the bottom of the pitch-black stairs before her. The kidnapper must have walled off the stairwell to the subterranean level, and Bel snatched her phone out of her pocket—no calls or texts from Olivia. Eamonknew where she was, but he’d yet to arrive. She either had to do this alone or abandon a screaming girl to the dark.
And that was something Bel couldn’t do.
“Are you alone?” she called as she flipped on her phone’s flashlight and crept down the stairs.
“Yes, please hurry!” the girl screamed back.
Bel reached the bottom of the stairwell in record time, a sliver of light coming from the tiny square window in the level’s door. She peeked through, and seeing an empty hallway, she pushed it open. No sounds of life met her ears, so she slipped out into the light, shoving her phone into her pocket and aiming her gun. She moved with precision and eventually arrived at a second door. She cracked it just enough to see through, but spotted no one in the expansive space.
“Oh god! Please!” the screaming girl called. “Help us.”
“Shut up!” a new female voice hissed. “You’re going to get us killed.”
“Bajka police,” Bel said as she stepped into a nightmare. “I’m here to help.”
