Page 33 of Monster
Vincent
Three months ago
“Yeah?”I answer my phone with a grunt, already fucking done with the day. Since I killed Essa’s parents a month ago, everything has felt utterly fucking dull. Leo isn’t giving me any fucking jobs. He’s barely even speaking to me—probably still pissed at me for killing them without talking to him first, but it is what it is. I’m a grown ass man and I don’t need his permission for a goddamn thing, especially when it comes to personal shit. He’ll get over it eventually. Until then, he’ll keep punishing me by keeping me bored out of my fucking mind.
“I fucking found the little brat,” Mike practically shouts in my ear, his enthusiasm clear. My heart ricochets off my ribs and I jump up from my desk chair, the papers which were littering my desk scatter around me in my flurry, but I don’t give a fuck. My hand automatically tightens around my phone is my palm, which is pressed against my ear harshly.
“Fucking finally! Where is she?! Now, Mike!” I shout into the phone, probably blowing his eardrum out—but again, I don’t give a fuck.
“Calm down, I’m sending everything I found right now.” Two seconds later, my computer pings with an email from him and I don’t bother sitting, instead leaning over my desk and clicking on it. The second I open it; a newspaper article pops up.
I mutter a gruff, “Thanks,” to Mike before hanging up and my phone slips from my now sweaty palm. My eyes don’t leave the screen in front of me, but it blurs and distorts, and I can’t read what is says past the headline.
Major Accident on Route 30—Right Outside of Le Grande
One Girl Dead, Other in Critical Condition
I collapse in my chair and blood rushes in my ears, muffling everything except for my heart beat—which seems to be working in overdrive.
Dead.
All I can fucking see is “One Girl Dead.”
Fuck, Essa. I swear to fucking God if Essa is dead, no one will fucking live to see tomorrow. Every single fucking person who gets in my way will find themselves waking up on Hell’s doorstep, I don’t fucking care.
My baby doll.
I try to blink the tears from my eyes, but it’s useless. They burn hot and fast down my cheeks. I grind my palms into my eyes and rub aggressively, trying to get myself together. I need to read this information Mike sent—fuckingprayingI’m wrong—that it’s wrong.
My entire face burns, but I somehow manage to stop the useless fucking tears from falling long enough to be able to see my screen. I take a deep breath and peel my eyes open. I swallow the bile rising in my throat and scroll past the headline of the newspaper.
Major Accident on Route 30—Right Outside of Le Grande
One Girl Dead, Other in Critical Condition
Sources tell us one girl died from the impact of a hit and run driver and the other victim was her sister. She is in the ICU at a Le Grande hospital, but we have no further information at this time.
Below the short paragraph is an image of a car and it causes the bile I was holding back to shoot up my throat and I barely manage to grab my garbage can in time. I heave until there is nothing left—not that there was much to begin with—and I grab a tissue from the corner of my desk to wipe my mouth.
Once I feel more stable, I sit up and hesitantly peer back at my screen.
The car is fucking destroyed. A ball of twisted and mangled metal. How anyone atallsurvived the crash is a fucking miracle. I just fucking hope more than anything my baby doll did.
Her time isn’t up.
Ourtime isn’t up.
I keep scrolling and find another email from Mike.
Here’s everything I found; The Portland Police Department identified Ben and Sierra Monroe’s bodies yesterday. They had dozens of departments from all around looking into it because there were no suspects, and there won’t be now because it was ruled accidental. The Le Grande Police Department managed to get a hit on a girl at a local mental health treatment center as a next of kin.
I don’t know if it’s her, but it can’t be a coincidence.
Here’s the address for the treatment center.
Hope you find her.
Below he lists the address, but I don’t take the time to write it down, or even glance at it. Hope surges through my veins and I jump from my chair, grab my phone I dropped, and run from my office, toward my bedroom. I shove the door open, jarring my injured shoulder, but the pain that radiates across my entire right side is ignored in my rush to get my shit together and out the door. I grab the first bag I find and shove random clothes in it, basically whatever is right in front of me.
