Page 116 of Reaper Flame

“You needed to rest too,” Zander said from behind me. He was already wide awake and alert. West wasn’t around, so I assumed he was resting or downstairs. Zander nodded at the cell. “Who is it?”

Every muscle in my body ached, but fierce resolve sharpened my senses. We may have only had a few hours of rest, but your body conserved energy in ways you didn’t realize were possible during times of crisis.

I unlocked the screen and saw a message from an unknown number.

“It’s from a burner,” I said. Nausea stirred in my stomach as the circle icon indicated something was loading. “It’s a photo.”

Hiram would have destroyed Mieko’s cell after they made the last call. He wouldn’t want to risk us tracking him.

Zander peered over my shoulder. “Well?”

“It’s still loading,” I hissed back.

A download speed this slow should be made illegal! What was the point in modern technology if you couldn’t open a picture at the speed of light?

We waited. I didn’t take a breath until the pixels unfurled to reveal a horror scene. In the image, Mieko sat on a damp concrete floor with her legs curled underneath her to keep warm. Her wrists and ankles were bound with rope. A gag was tightly wrapped around her mouth, making her cheeks bulge. A newspaper was propped up by her feet with today’s date. Evidence of her being alive... for now, anyway. Hiram’s caption under the photo was an invitation: ‘Your turn’.

“Zoom in,” Zander urged.

Apart from the rope burn on her wrists, a few grazes to her knees and dark bags under her eyes, she had no other visible wounds. But a camera lens couldn’t catch everything. While I scanned for injuries, Rocky’s attention lingered on something else.

“It’s the local paper,” Rocky said. “We need to check that it’s not a fake.”

“They could still be close by,” I murmured.

As I zoned in on Mieko’s eyes, I sensed her terror through the screen. Mental wounds ran deeper than physical ones. I recognized her look of fear because it’s all I used to see whenever I looked at myself in the mirror. The look of a person who isn’t sure whether they would live or die.

“I need you to concentrate,” Zander said. His arm on my shoulder made me blink hard, stopping me from spiraling into my memories. “What would Hiram have taught you to do if this was a job?”

I steadied my breathing, summoning the Kitten to the forefront. She is who I needed to be today. The beautiful woman in the picture was my best friend and someone I adored, but I couldn’t allow my emotions to cloud my judgment. Zander approached business with ruthless precision, and I had to do the same.

Think like Hiram, Kitty.

This is the only lead we’d had since she was taken. A clue to her whereabouts could be sitting in front of us. We needed to find it. I inspected every inch of the background: a gray tiled floor and walls, no clock, no sign of light... they could be in a fucking spaceship!

“It’s definitely not Blackthorne Towers,” I confirmed. I knew every godforsaken inch of that hell hole, but knowing where it wasn’t wouldn’t help us. My hopes sank like a brick in quicksand. Recognizingsomethingwould be better than nothing.

“In that case, if the paper is genuine, that puts them still in the area,” Zander said, echoing my own suspicions. “We need to mobilize.”

Zander radioed down to West over a walkie-talkie to request he join us. The poor guy was currently having the pleasure of babysitting the Blackbird. He was the worst kind of stiffy to wake up to in the morning.

“We need to show Vixen,” I said.

“Do you really think she’s up to seeing this?” Rocky asked, running an aggravated hand through his hair. Unlike Zander, Rocky didn’t hide emotions well. Chewing his lip until it was red raw showed his worry. “She’s been through hell and back. I don’t want this to tip her over the edge…”

“See what?” Vixen emerged in the doorway. Considering she’d been avoiding everyone, she knew how to pull a Bloody Mary at the perfect time. “What is it?”

“Hiram sent a photo,” I replied.

Hiding it from her wouldn’t help.

“Show me,” she demanded.

Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks pink and blotchy, as if she’d rubbed off the top layers of skin. She clenched her teeth to fight tears as she looked at the photo, but didn’t let them fall. She didn’t have any left to spill.

West entered wearing last night’s clothes to see Vixen clutching onto the cell tightly as if it were Mieko’s hand. “He’s been in touch?”

I nodded.

---