“You’renotgoing to be on the truck,” Myro says.
“I am. We’re not arguing about this. There’s no time for that.”
“Voss, you don’t?—”
“I just said we don’t have time for that,” I tell Myro as I cross the room with a laptop. I shove it into his hands. “I’m going. Period. Start searching.”
“What are we looking for?” Haze asks.
Jessica and Dad are starting laptops. They each hand them to me once they’re up, and I bring the browser into the dark web. With two more laptops in hand, I cross the room and hand one to Haze and one to Imry. It’s only then that I realize Axl is here in Imry’s arms. I pause as I look at my sleeping baby.
“He needed family,” Imry says quietly.
I take a breath. “Thanks.”
Turning back to the computer pile, I explain. “I don’t know what we’re looking for. That’s why I need help. There are a million different avenues to follow, so… follow your gut. The only other bits of information we think might be useful are that the targets they’re told to abduct should be ‘able-bodied and relatively fit.’ Just start poking around. Try different searches. Different keywords.”
“We can make some assumptions,” Dad says. “Jessica has followed this particular truck’s trail with Uncle Kairo. Every month for the past ten months, this truck has traveled the same route, and people have gone missing. One person on the same day that the truck drives through. Not a single one of those cases has been solved, nor has the person shown back up.”
“We can assume they’re dead,” Levis says quietly.
Dad inclines his head. “Yes. A delivery a month means that if luck is on our side, we have some time to find Brek before they… replenish their victims. Obviously, we don’t want to try that theory. Statistics say that after the first twenty-four hours that a victim is missing, the likelihood of recovering them alive declines drastically. We’re racing a clock right now.”
“I’ve never seen search results like this,” Briar mutters.
I glance in his direction to see him staring at the screen with horror. Uncle Noaz kisses his temple. “This is the dark web,” they answer. “Steel your resolve. All we’re looking for is Brek.”
“This is awful,” Oakley whispers. He’s also staring at the screen.
I sigh. “If you can’t stomach?—”
“No,” Oakley says quickly, shaking his head. “I’m just… You hear stories about what you can find on the dark web, but they’re just stories. Having never seen it, you can pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s… mortifying to see that it does.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him and the room in general. “If I had time to look on my own, I would never ask you to. I just…”
I turn away and focus on the laptop again, unable to finish the sentence. I’m surprised when Jessica wraps her arms around me from behind and hugs me fiercely. My jaw trembles as I try to keep myself together. Fuck. My fear is getting the better of me.
“It’s okay,” she says quietly. “We’re relieved that you’re barreling full speed ahead to find him.”
“We are,” Levis agrees. “We’ve been sitting here doing nothing, so as horrifying as these results are, I’m glad to be doing something useful in hopes we’ll find him.”
I take a deep breath, trying to clear the emotion from my eyes. I pat Jessica’s hands on my stomach, silently thanking her.
“So… I need some suggestions,” Haze says as he taps the backspace button several times. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
Myro sighs. “Look for all the gross things. Rape. Murder. Torture. I’m going to guess that this is a service of some kind.Otherwise, the repeated deliveries don’t make sense. So there’s someone out there offering customers a live victim.”
“Able-bodied and relatively fit suggests they want someone to fight back. This isn’t supposed to be an easy victim,” Imry says.
“How will we know when we find it?” Oakley asks. Loren leans closer to look at his screen.
“A matter of location. That’s why I told you where the truck stops. Websites that offer you the opportunity to orchestrate or murder or rape or torture or something, look at the location. Start with the state of Colorado to begin with. They’re not going to give the exact location right off the bat,” I answer.
“This is sick,” Jessica mutters. She’s sitting at the table with a laptop in front of her. She’s currently backspacing too. Didn’t find anything promising on the last search request.
“Also,” I say, “they prefer men. I don’t know what that means, but keep that in mind when you’re looking.”
“I’m not sure if we should,” Dad says. “Maybe this particular driver is assigned men. We know the truck makes a dozen stops before delivery.”
