Page 20 of Haunted Prey

It’s enough to make me wanna kill someone.

In a way, she is here. Yet, in the back of my skull I know she isn’t, just like my sister.

Eve is starting to appear more than her, starting to overtake my mind until nothing else can. No other thoughts, no other dreams. Just her.

Just her.

Where are you, Eve?

I tried to stay silent as they kept me boxed in the little room underneath a church. That’s where they’ve brought me. The irony isn’t lost to me. Micheal bought it when it lay abandoned. Now we can all atone for our sins.

I tried to be calm, to bide my time. Andrea brought me clothes—black pants and a black T-shirt; food; dressed my wounds, examining them to make sure they were healing right. I complied with most of what she asked, or at least tried. She gaveme something to read, offered something to help me sleep which I wouldn’t take. As nice and helpful as she was, I was indifferent at best and cold at worst to her, having to steady myself from snapping into a bad episode whenever she touched me. Because she was still the nurse from the warehouse no matter how she tried to make up for it.

Most of the time she stayed away and I was stuck in the bed so there was nothing much I could do anyway. Eventually, when they decided I wouldn’t go losing it again, they unchained me. Cassidy kept an eye on me and I knew the others were armed just in case.

I knew I needed to take the time to recover. The faster I did, the quicker I could get to Eve. But after several days of lying in bed, I thought I’d somehow go more insane. I took to pacing, restless like a goddamn tiger. I could feel the tension in the others as I stalked the halls and corridors of this place they deemed a sanctuary. They didn’t try to stop me because they knew it would only make things worse. Andrea tried to make me rest, to be patient, but I wouldn’t.

I didn’t speak much. Sometimes I listened. If I wasn’t pacing, I was watching Dom work at his computer station. The several monitors showed the Martel building along with other places I didn’t recognize, watching those who came and went. There were maps and records of people they were following. Those who might have had a hand in what had been done to us.

Cassidy went on patrol while she investigated these people, mostly doctors and staff named by Andrea. A police scanner and radio monitored her whereabouts. Leslie disappeared most of the day. I found him looking after an armory of weapons they had stashed. He let me stay and sometimes help clean guns as long as I didn’t talk to my hallucinations.

He and Dom knew people involved in certain gangs and in black market trade. Leslie kept his eyes and ears out for thosewho worked with unsavory clients, trafficking specific people, waiting to see if any of the buyers matched those they were monitoring.

They’d reached a dead end there but I knew they had their sights on specific clients involved with Martel. They wouldn’t tell me who yet, not till Micheal said it was time.

I didn’t want to wait any longer, I couldn't stay silent. I needed to know.

Problem was Dom wouldn’t speak. And Micheal had been gone a lot. He came sparingly after they’d found me. He’d check on us, talk to a few in private, then head out again.

Now I was chomping at the bit for his return. Because I was done being kept in the dark.

They don’t trust you, smiling Nina whispered.

They think you’re a loose cannon.

They think you're too dangerous.

Too unstable.

Too pathetic.

You are. You should've stayed on that beach. Your story was done there.

My head throbbed as she talked to me. I ignored her, though the urge to take a knife and jam it into the wall where her shadow lingered was hard to suppress.

The tension was palpable as I sat with Dom and Leslie at a table in what they called the meeting room playing a few rounds of poker while we waited. Cassidy was still out on patrol, and Andrea wouldn’t be back from her shift at the city hospital for a while. Micheal was supposed to join us soon, and then we’d have our talk. He was going to tell me everything I needed to know, and we’d finally start making plans.

And he would tell me where Eve was whether he wanted to or not.

After two games and a clear win by Dom (not that I had any money to give him anyway in exchange for the chips), Cassidy waltzed inside.

She gave me a fiery look, and I returned with an icy one of my own. Her hand settled on her holster as she circled around the table.

Andrea came in a minute later with a bag of groceries. She gave me a look too. One of disappointment. She had begged me to stay in bed but I refused. I’d played nice after she’d redressed my wounds. I’d gotten maybe a few hours of sleep, I attempted to stay in bed, but by the fourth day, I was done. My wounds still hurt like hell since I refused to take pain meds but it was nothing new.

“Micheal not shown up yet?” Cassidy asked.

“Nope,” Leslie answered, shuffling the deck.

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