Page 16 of Girl, Bound

He would continue hismission to bring enlightenment to the masses, one victim at a time. And if afew unfortunate souls had to be sacrificed along the way, well, that was justthe price of progress.

He navigated to thehabitat's inventory system, scanning the lists of drugs and supplies in thenearby storage room. He was running low on his secret weapon, the preciouselixir that made his noble work possible. Without it, his targets would benothing more than meat, their suffering meaningless in the grand scheme.

He had to act fast,had to replenish his supply before the hunger grew too strong to ignore. With afurtive glance over his shoulder, he slipped out of his chair and made his waydown the hallway.

The storage room was averitable candy store of chemical wonders, a treasure trove of compounds bothexotic and mundane. He moved through the shelves, searching the labels untilthey landed on the one he sought.

The king oftranquilizers, capable of dropping an elephant in its tracks with just a fewwell-placed milliliters.

This was the key toeverything, the magic bullet that would unlock the secrets of the human souland pave the way for a new era of enlightenment.

He reached for thebottle, but just as he was about to slip it into his pocket, a sound frombehind froze him in his tracks.

He spun around to findone of his coworkers standing in the doorway, eyes boring into him with morethan a hint of suspicion.

Amanda, goddammit.

'Everything okay inhere?' she asked.

For a moment, he felta flicker of panic, a cold sweat breaking out on his brow as he scrambled foran explanation. But then he remembered who he was, the role he had to play inthis little drama.

'Just doing a quickinventory,' he said, his voice as smooth as silk. 'You know how it is, got tomake sure we're not running low on anything important.'

She studied him for along moment, her eyes narrowing as if trying to peer beneath the mask ofnormality he wore like a second skin. But then she shrugged, her posturerelaxing as she launched into a story about her day, the mundane details of herlife suddenly spilling out like a broken dam.

He let her talk,nodding and smiling in all the right places, even as his mind raced ahead tohis next move. He had to get out of here, had to get back to the sanctuary ofhis office before anyone else noticed his absence.

With a finalreassurance that everything was in order, he slipped past her and made his wayback down the hallway, the bottle of Xylazine burning a hole in his pocket.Back at his desk, he wasted no time in covering his tracks, his fingers flyingover the paperwork as he adjusted the inventory levels to account for hislittle borrowing spree.

It was a small thing,a tiny discrepancy that would likely go unnoticed.

But to him, coveringhis tracks was everything.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ella Dark shovedthrough the doors that led down to Autopsy Room B1. Even in the corridor, thestench of death slapped her in the face. It was a smell she knew all too well,a putrid perfume that clung to her hair and skin long after she'd left themorgue behind. But no matter how many times she walked into this room, nomatter how many corpses she'd seen splayed out on those cold metal slabs, itnever got any easier. Never lost its power to turn her stomach and remind herof the frailty of mortality.

Ripley gagged besideher. ‘Christ. Smells like a morgue in here.’

Ella shot her a wrygrin as she knocked on the door to the autopsy room. Gallows humor was hit ormiss, but Ripley usually hit the mark. The door swung open, and the morbidbanter died a swift death as the coroner manifested like a phantom in a cheaphorror movie. Ella eyed him, a tall, gaunt man with a wild shock of curly hairthat seemed to have a mind of its own, standing up from his head in agravity-defying halo of frizz. His skin was pale and waxy, stretched tight overhis angular features, and his eyes bugged out from their sockets like a pair ofoverripe grapes.

‘FBI agents, Ipresume?’ he said, his voice a nasal whine that set Ella's teeth on edge.

‘That’s us,’ saidElla. ‘Agent Dark and Agent Ripley. Wish I could say it was a pleasure. You’reDr. Goodweather?’

The coroner waved adismissive hand, as if the presence of two FBI agents in his morgue was no morenoteworthy than a pair of flies buzzing around a corpse.

‘Please, call me Eph.And don't worry, you get used to it after a while. The dead, I mean. They'renot so different from the living, when you get right down to it.’

Ella exchanged asidelong glance with Ripley, both of them struggling to hide their discomfortat the coroner's macabre observation. They'd met their fair share of odd ducksin this line of work, but Dr. Goodweather clearly made no attempt to hide it. Afew fries short of a Happy Meal, as Ripley might say.

They followed him overto the autopsy table, where two bodies lay draped in a crisp white sheet, twomacabre sculptures waiting to be unveiled. Ella steeled herself, taking a deepbreath and letting it out slowly through her nose. No matter how many times shedid this, no matter how many horrors she'd witnessed in the course of hercareer, it never got any easier. Never lost its power to shake her to her verycore.

With an almosttheatrical flourish, Goodweather yanked back the sheet, revealing the lifelessform of a young woman. Ella's heart clenched in her chest, sorrow and angercrashing over her like a tidal wave. The girl was young, barely out of herteens, her face now a mask of waxy pallor and sunken hollows. Her skin hadtaken on a sickly yellow hue, the kind that only comes from prolonged exposureto the ravages of death. And her eyes were milky white orbs, staringsightlessly up at the ceiling like marbles in a doll's head.

Ripley swore under herbreath. ‘Jesus. She's just a kid.’

Ella nodded, a lump inher throat. This girl had her whole life ahead of her. Hopes, dreams,possibilities. All snuffed out by a psycho with a vendetta against somethingthis girl played no part in.

---