Page 45 of Catching Fire

If she didn't eat, she'd pass out. As the driver, that was dangerous. But those were all critical, logical thoughts. The real problem wasn't her blood sugar. It was theblood.

They'd opened the door to the last bedroom in the little house and seen it.Everywhere. A harsh wooden chair sat in the center of the room. It had belts, buckled and hanging loose at both of the front legs of the chair. Another pair hung waiting in the back, ready to hold someone where they didn’t want to stay.

The blood around the floor—the spatters on the wall—meant that Seline and her friends didn't really have to imaginewhat had happened. The evidence was everywhere.

Pulling her focus back to the present, Seline looked around the road as she hit the bottom of the exit. She’d seen the signs for restaurants here, but now there were only gas stations. Luckily, she caught a sign for fast food less than half a mile down the road. Making a beeline for the nearest one, she pulled into the drive thru lane with a sigh of relief.

Food was near. Food was normal.

She looked at her two passengers with a question of what they wanted to eat. As though this were any normal highway stop. Quietly, they all ordered burgers, fries, and sodas. And once she had the bag in hand, Seline pulled into one of the parking spaces. She didn't want to go inside or interact with anyone any more than she already had.

“We can eat in the car, okay?”

After a moment, Maggie said, “It will make it easier for the FBI to find us.”

Seline couldn't give two shits about being found by the FBI right now. The three of them had stood in that little house, looking at the empty room where presumably their friend had once been. Whether it was Marina Balero who’d been there or not, someone had been. And whoever had been there likely hadn't survived the visit.

It was Seline who had broken the horrified silence and yelled out. Maybe she had thought there might be a room under the floorboards or another building somewhere nearby. So she called,“Marina! Marina!” over and over, hoping to hear any response in return.

Instead of hearing her friend cry for help, she’d been brushed aside as the FBI flooded in.

Now she took the first bite of her hamburger because she needed the fuel. Though it had smelled wonderful, she couldn’t muster up an appetite. She chewed and swallowed mechanically, just to change her blood sugar. But her thoughts turned back to what she’d seen.

The three of them stayed long enough to watch as the FBI swarmed the place. Rossi and Verner were the first in, but close behind them were techs already in paper suits and face shields. It felt as though Watson and Decker were the last to show, as others pushed by Seline and her friends, telling them to move out of the way, and then move again, and again, until they were back in the empty living area wondering what in the hell they’d just seen.

Seline heard them say ‘crime scene’ more than once. From where she stood, she could see through the open door as one leaned down with a swab and dipped it into the blood at the foot of the chair. It still wasn’t fully dry. He placed the swab into a small plastic test tube with clear liquid, shook it once and looked at the others. He only said, “Human.”

Seline had felt her stomach roll but managed not to actually vomit then. Right now, forcing herself to eat a hamburger and fries, she wasn't so sure she could hold it back any longer.

She took a sip of the cola and with a deep breath, attempted to center herself.

Surely the FBI agents that had been escorting them home would notice them missing by now. Surely her phone would ring any minute asking where they were and if they were okay. In the rearview mirror, she didn’t see the FBI pulling up, but she saw Kalan polishing off the last of the burger that had been dwarfed by his hand.

“Alright guys,” he said, taking control of the conversation since the two women were still attempting to eat. “What do we know?”

Seline thought about that for a moment. It was a good question, and pooling their observations would help. “We know we found a room where a killer worked.”

Though Kalan's voice had been forceful opening the discussion, it grew softer with his second question. “Was that enough blood to declare someone dead?”

It was a straightforward, logical question and completely ignored the fact that they believed the blood was from the very woman who was trying to protect Seline. In the end, the three just looked at each other. No one here was in any kind of field to be able to answer a question like that.

But Seline had other things to throw into the ring. She’d been putting pieces together for a while. With about a third of her burger left, she quit. As she set it down into her lap, the waxed paper wrapper crinkled loudly in the silence of the car. “We know that Sanders took Marina. We know that he passed the fourteen-hour mark at which point pretty much all of his victims were dead—”

“All the ones that we know of.” Maggie inserted.

“Good point,” Kalan added from the back, but Seline kept going.

“We know I was slipped a note with my initials on it, in the same odd print as the first one, indicating that it would be carved into a human body. A body that he would leave for the police or for us.”

“And no one's found it ...” Kalan offered, his tone lingering somewhere between a question and a statement.

“As far as I know, they haven’t. At least, none of the agents have told me.”

“Would they?” Maggie asked.

“I don't know. You might know as well as I do.” After all, Maggie had worked with Watson and Decker before Seline had ever met them. But her friend only shrugged. There was no telling what the FBI agents would share or hold back.

Seline took a sip of her soda again. Her mouth going dry, not from speaking, but from what she was thinking. Still, it was better to speak it out loud, as awful as it was.

---