Page 97 of Seth
Gustavo closed his laptop,propped his elbows against the desk, and rested his chin on his interlinked fingers. He had never seen Seth’s eyes widen in fear before, and he hated the reason for it.
Gustavo didn’t see what had happened in the ensuite, but when Seth emerged in the bedroom with a bleeding body in his arms, sharp realization pierced his mind. While Seth’s mind burned with thoughts about the boy, there would be no place for anyone else. A pang of sobering frost cooled his enthusiasm.
The initial thought to call Diego and ask if anyone had been following the boy today perished as he realized he didn’t care. Unlike Seth, he understood that it was only a matter of time before Ignaz did it again. Less than anything, the boy needed the pressure of Seth’s overbearing feelings as they only added to his guilt. What he needed was a therapist and time.
And just like that, Gustavo realized that if he’d ever had any chances of grabbing Seth’s attention, they were now void. He couldn’t offer anything to occupy Seth’s mind more than a group rape and slashed veins.
He turned to the empty place on the wall he refused to fill—the place that reminded him of Seth and how entertaining the game felt at first. Somehow, it wasn’t fun anymore. He had been living in the game for too long that now it became his reality, and he should start treating it like one, or he would never get what he wanted. It was time to stop denying it.
* * *
After Gustavo had shownupin the glass factory, Seth didn’t doubt that every road leading from the hill was monitored. He suspected that he could use the front door with an equal chance of attracting Gustavo’s attention. When evening fell, and Ignaz took another dose of sleeping pills, he sneaked out of his villa through the underground passage and used a spare car to drive to the fifth district. If Ignaz hadn’t told him the exact address, he never would have found the tiny bar hiding behind a plain wooden door.
For a moment, he stared at the simple lock before opening the door. His gaze traveled around the dim Irish pub. Dark wood boxed the space; flat screens on the walls transmitted a football match and provided scarce sources of illumination. Seven tables stood around the perimeter with the bar on the opposite wall to the entrance door.
He ordered a glass of non-alcoholic beer and, for the rest of the evening, did his best to look around while pretending to be into the game. Two cameras observed the room, both from the bar side. Whoever entered the bar yesterday should have left their faces on the footage. Seth left around ten p.m., waited in the car until two a.m., then broke in using a simple snap gun1.
In the backroom, which served as a storage room and an office, he found a single laptop connected to a storage drive. The laptop didn’t have a password, suggesting the bar’s owner had never been robbed and didn’t consider it a possibility.
Seth clicked through the timeline. Ignaz and two of his friends occupied a corner table. Seth pressed play. Sipping his beer, Ignaz nodded far more than he spoke. It took him two glasses to relax, but once he started speaking, a small, shy smile overtook his face. It was an expression of happiness, and he wore it as if he couldn’t believe he deserved it. At that moment, Seth swore that he would not only kill, but also eradicate the soul of the one who dared to erase it from Ignaz’s face.
When alcohol colored Ignaz’s cheeks a pretty pink, he got up and strolled to the bathroom. When he exited, a gnarled man whose scalp reflected light caught Ignaz’s hand with his heavily tattooed one. The man’s eyes widened with recognition. He laughed, said something, laughed again. His unbuttoned black shirt under the light-gray suit revealed another tattoo covering his chest.
Ignaz paled, stumbled back, but failed to free his wrist from the handcuff of the man’s grip. The stranger spoke again, and Ignaz’s chin trembled. Seth replayed to lipread.
“Is that you, Little Whore? Wow, I can’t believe you are alive. I thought you crawled into some hole and died long ago, but look at you, all bright and shiny.By the way, I always wanted to ask you, how does it feel to know that your lover died trying to save you, and you didn’t lift a finger to avenge his death?”Seth’s jaw hardened. “Or, maybe you already got yourself someone else? Should I come and play? It was fun last time, wasn’t it?”
Ignaz stumbled away, tried to free his hand.
“Tears again. How cute. Your guy died screaming your name, and all you did was cry. You didn’t even come to his funeral. I was there, by the way. Such a touching event.”
The man shook with laughter, then added,“Do at least one decent thing in your life—go and die.”
Seth closed the file and copied it to the memory card before formatting the disk. With a soft cloth, he wiped every object he’d touched, then entered the common area and wiped the table he’d used a few hours ago, plus the doorknob and door.
When he left, the yellow eye of the full moon reflected in the windshield of his car.
He didn’t need to hire a detective to find this man. He’d already seen this face before, among the contacts of Walter Fischer.
* * *
It’d beentwo dayssince he started sedating Ignaz and became Ernst Sommer’s shadow—a man who seemingly felt at home wherever he went. Constantly surrounded by a group of skinheads, he was a person of motion and energy, as if a mere thought of idleness terrified him. Realizing that kidnapping such a person would be harder than he’d imagined, Seth snatched another barrel of sulfuric acid from the glass factory and drove to an abandoned cement factory. It took him hours of work to prepare a trap.
When Seth arrived home,the night melted into a radiant morning. He took a shower, descended into the basement, turned the furnace on, and grabbed Walter Fischer’s phone. While the glass heated, he scrolled through the chat history, picking up the mannerism and word usage.
He typed a message, erased it, then typed again when a thought invaded his mind. He went upstairs, took a picture of Ignaz’s sleeping face from Fischer’s phone, and attached it to a message to Ernst Sommer.
“Look who I found? JIT2as I was feeling nostalgic. Care to do a rerun?”
He thumbed the send icon, hoping that in the worst-case scenario, he would end up with a rejection.
“Thought you quit?”
The prompt reply made Seth smirk. He typed:
“Wife drives me crazy. Need to let some steam out, or I’ll kill the bitch.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
