NOVA
February
I’m attending church via satellite connection thanks to Booker and his technological expertise and computer-like brain. Most of us who primarily work from home have this exact setup. We’re catching up with Icer and Shade today, communication with them has been sketchy since they spend nine-tenths of their time scouring the woodlands for Jennings. But we got word from them that they would be available today since they’re coming out of the woods for food and other supplies.
Freyja is sick again and I’ve just scheduled a home visit with the club medic, Splicer. He’s going to jump on his bike with his medical bag once the meeting concludes and head this way to try and diagnose her. He’s already warned me that he may need to do some blood drawing, which I’m sure won’t go over well with her. But even if I have to hold her down, he’s going to get his samples.
Worrying over how she’s going to react has me distracted, but when Riptide clears his throat and calls out my name, I snap out of it.
“Sorry, pres. My mind’s divided, it won’t happen again,” I apologize.
“Freyja that bad off?” Rip asks, his nose creased with concern.
“It’s just been troubling me, pres,” I tell him. “One day she’s fine, running around the house, laughing. The next, she’s in her bed wrapped in her blankets like she’s an eskimo. It’s like she’s a yo-yo being controlled by an invisible string.”
“If it eases your mind any, Nova, I’m of the mindset that her lack of nutrients and vitamins is the cause of her illness,” Splicer informs me. “I’m sure when her bloodwork comes back, it’ll show us that she has several deficiencies. Most of which can be taken care of with prescriptions.”
“You thinking anemia, Splicer?” I ask. Thinking back on it, she was pretty damn pale when I rescued her from that basement and her lack of sunlight could be a factor in part of her ailment. Lack of good old-fashioned Vitamin D.
“That’s one of the things I’m thinking,” he verifies. “But we’ll know more once the lab gets back to me. I won’t give up until I have her up and moving.”
“Not trying to be a dick here–” Shade starts, which has us all reacting, either by snorting or laughing because that’s his personality. The asshole runs deep in him as well as his cohort, Icer. They just can’t help themselves, it’s ingrained in their DNA. “Well, I was going to try really hard not to be,” he excuses, flipping us all off with a double shot of his middle fingers.
Icer, not one to beat around the bush, starts talking over the room’s roarous activity. “We found his latest campsite. In the safe under his desk, not only did he have his banking details, he also had maps with red drawn lines of dump sites that had certain areas which were boldly circled. He led us straight to them.”
“How do you know they’re dump sites, Icer?” I ask, leaning forward in my chair, my nose practically touching the screen of my laptop.
Icer scowls at me and answers, “We dug them up.”
“You what?” I shout out the question, wishing I could reach through the screen and wring their necks for this massive fuck up. “Your prints and genetic material are going to be all over that crime scene, Icer. What were you thinking?”
“Lighten up, Nova. We aren’t rookies!” Shade barks, leering at me. “For fuck’s sake, man. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to cover our tracks while dealing with a dead body, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” I say, glowering at them.
“We’re veering off track here,” Slayer, our VP says around a sigh of irritation. “Y’all can fight and compare dick measurements later, preferably when we’re not around to witness the contest, but for now, we have bigger fish to fry. Tell us what you know, Icer.”
“It’s the same MO as his current victims. All of them raped, brutally beaten, tortured, then killed. I think we found the girls’ mothers, too,” Icer announces.
“How do you know that?” Indiana pipes up and asks.
“Because they were the only two buried with afterbirth evidence, if you catch my drift,” Shade updates us.
“He buried them with their daughter’s placentas?” Splicer probes, his face losing all its color before he grimaces. “The motherfucker had the last laugh at their expense. I didn’t think he could get any lower than what he’s already done.”
“We also found a journal. It’s Jennings’,” Icer continues, sounding contrite. “It has a list of all his victims going back twenty years, and it even mentions the girls and the dates they were born. The moms are the ones he kept the longest, for obvious reasons.”
“He states in his writings that he contemplated burying the girls with their mothers since they were girls and couldn’t carry on his legacy, but then he thought further on it and decided that girls bring in a lot of money at auctions so he’d keep them until they became a certain age,” Shade reveals, briefing us. “Keeping them virgins would bring him a bigger payday. That’s when he made up his mind and decided to keep them locked up and away from others.”
“Less chance that they’ll act like teenagers do when they find puppy love and their teenage hormones kick in,” LoneStar spits out. “It’s the only way he could guarantee their woman bits stay intact.”
Indiana snorts and smacks LoneStar on the back, leaving his hand hanging on his shoulder as he continues teasing him. “Woman bits, you scared to say the word hymen, brother?”
“No, I’m not,” LoneStar says, brushing Indiana’s hand off his shoulder. “But in this case, it leaves a foul taste in my mouth.”
“This is not a goddamn circus!” Slayer thunders. “This shit is serious, it shouldn’t be turned into a joking matter. If this was your mother, sister, or niece, would you want us sitting around cracking jokes at their expense?” When all the brothers’ faces tighten and their lips become fine lines, Slayer mumbles, “I didn’t think so.”
Before we get tossed down another rabbit hole, I ask, “Icer, can you get me the girls’ dates of birth, please. I’m sure they’d appreciate having that information.”
