They’ve switched them off now.
The cold grit of brickwork presses on my palm when I shift. I feel the need for someone to dump a bucket of ice water on me. Can I wake from this, please? I close my eyes, lean my head into the wall.
In the darkness of the night, I’m free to contemplate what I said to Hailey and what happened before that, when I had her bound and at my mercy.
I remember the second I saw it, felt it, and knew what I was.
How panic crumpled my heart, unraveled my bones, and turned my stomach to soup.
I almost collapsed while looking at her, inches away fromkilling her with the knife or whatever took my fancy. Fuck her, slice her up a little, wallow in her cries. Repeat ad nauseum.
Bile filled my mouth. That I managed to stagger away and not throw up was a miracle. Somewhere down inside me is thispresence, a thing of dead-eyed, blank-brained, sadistic evil. When I try hard, I can sense it there…waiting.
It stares back at me.
Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss gazes also into you.
Except I am the monster who thought he was human.
I’ve fucked up, no matter what happens. I know I have.
I made her sad. Me? I’m just full of crap, dangerous, and a man with two brains.
Who am I even? I may never know.
I said I’d fix things for her, so that much I will do. Somehow. Before I exit Revenant and go fuck knows where.
Fix things by getting her something concrete about the institute that she can use. “Bodies, bodies, bodies,” I mutter. Some pics of dead people they should not have in their vaults would work. Assuming those exist and they must. If they’re conducting research on cryogenically preserved bodies, why store them anywhere else?
The USB rotates under my fingers, hard, uncompromising plastic. It might be packed with nothing code.
I shove myself upright, and a vibration tells me the phone Esau gave me has a message. I fumble my way in, punching the numbers. Passcode not facial recognition, it trips me up every time. The glow of the screen should be okay at this distance. I glance up to check the police presence at the Laramie house then down at the text message.
ESAU: Need you here, K. My place, ASAP. Leave H wherever she wants to be. Just you.
KAIL: Okay. Just me coming.
Since Esau can’t know I’ve split from her, that requirement is odd. Unless she texted him?
I set off at a jog, slinking under cover when I need to but heading for his house as quickly as I can without being seen.
When I reach his place only one light is on at the rear, so I approach from that direction, checking for anything on the perimeter. I only see him through a window with Rasmus sitting beside him. Quietly, I move along to the rear entrance and knock. From the direction of the room comes the sounds of chairs being moved then footsteps approach.
Esau opens the door, stares at me for a moment, then gestures. “In.”
I slip inside, and he shuts the door.
“Back here. My games room.”
“Rasmus is here too?”
“Yes.”
I follow him to the room which has a desk and a wraparound, three-screen set-up for a large desktop computer. I nod at Rasmus where he sits on a black leather sofa. When he nods back, I find myself a chair opposite. Esau picks the desk chair for his seat and rotates it to face us.
“Big problem.” He claps his hands together. “Rasmus was arrested tonight and taken to the station, kept there while they grabbed all his stuff, including that phone of yours.”
“Okay. That’s…bad.” Though not the same level of bad as my news. “Keep going. You’re out now, so that’s good?”
