Managed to extract one frame. You need to see this.
At his office, I stood behind him as he sat at his desk, pointing at the laptop screen. “This is the only frame I could extract and enhance. It’s still pixelated, though,” he said.
“Is that…an animal?” I pointed at the gray figure on all fours in the middle of the frame.
“It looks like it is. A huge one, too.”
Squinting at the dark picture, I couldn’t make much other than that animal and the man standing in front of him. “Can you zoom in on the guy?”
He pressed a few buttons. “It’s only going to get more blurry,” he explained, scrolling the mouse up and down.
“Wait. I pointed at the man’s clothes. “That’s a cut, but I can’t make out the patch.”
“So we have a biker, probably one of your brother’s club, and a big animal?”
“Move back up. I think I recognize something.”
He scrolled to the man’s face. “I tried to get anything on the face, but it was a miracle I was able to dig up that frame in the first place.”
“It isn’t the face I recognize. It’s,” I pointed at the neck of the man in the cut, “the medallion. I saw it before.” Terror had snuck it into his pocket for Malcolm when they were going on a run two days ago. To track a man named Venom.
“You know who owns it?”
Malcolm. “No.”
He shrugged. “Do you recognize anything else?”
Shaking my head, I gestured at a little silver smudge on the left corner down. “What’s that?”
More clicks, and he squinted at the zoomed in spot with me. “I think… I think that’s another person’s half face. This silver is the eyes?”
“Yes.” Slasher’s. What was my brother doing out, facing a scary animal, while Slasher stood by? “I don’t get it, though.”
“I wish I could do more to help you, Vixen, but without the other files, that’s all there is.”
“I know, Rav. You did an awesome job. I can’t thank you enough for going through all this trouble for a terrible friend like me.”
“No problem. Come to our Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Uh… How about I pop in real quick on Christmas morning?”
“That works, too.”
“You’re the best.” I ran before he started another conversation about stuffed turkeys.
I checked my phone, my fingers itching to call Malcolm. The vague picture got me more worried for some reason. A text from Pattison popped before I tapped my brother’s number.
My office, please.
Now what?
Russell’s stupid smirk received me as I entered my boss’s office. This could never mean well. I had enough going on to keep me disturbed for a lifetime. I didn’t need to add more to the shitty life situation pile today.
“Sit down, Professor,” Pattison said, his face hard.
I took a seat and waited, hating every breath coming out of my ex.
“As you already know, this university has its traditions. They have been set for years, and no one likes to break them,” Pattison started.
