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“Hurt her how? Is she okay? Does she need a doctor?” Rush asked as he glanced up to the ceiling. He was always the mother hen of the group, the one to worry about us all.
“I don’t know, but she’s nothing like the girl I knew. Whoever this fucker is, he has her terrified and traumatized. I don’t think she can be badly hurt, because she was moving okay, but who knows? She said she’s been away from her family for months. That’s not right. Her family are the closest family I know. Her parents and her brothers will be doing everything they can to find her.”
“But she can’t contact them?” Aleks asked, looking confused.
“She said she can’t. She tried and this bastard found out. Cut the brakes on her brother’s car as a warning. She’s terrified now.”
“Did you google her? If she’s been gone that long and her family will miss her, there must be something in the news?” Nick suggested.
“I thought about it, but I didn’t want this fucker tracking her. She sent a text from a library computer through an anonymous text website and he found out. He must be tech savvy,” I pointed out.
“Maybe, but not as tech savvy as me,” Aleks said as he placed his laptop bag down and started pulling everything out onto the counter.
“We need to be cautious. I promised Evie I wouldn’t do anything to put her or her family at risk,” I cautioned.
“Come on Harris, you do know who you’re talking to, right?” Rush chuckled as he looked to Aleks.
“He’s right. I’ll make sure no one can trace the search,” Aleks agreed and I relaxed a little. There was nothing Aleks couldn’t do with a laptop. He had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, his family immigrants from Poland. When his father couldn’t get legitimate work he started working for the Russians, and Aleks had been pulled into it all at an early age. He was hacking government databases and FBI files by the time he was fourteen. When his father was killed, when Aleks was twenty, he decided the life wasn’t for him, and he enlisted. He joined the side of the good guys, but his hacking skills remained with him. Now he did legitimate work for the government and FBI as a freelance computer expert.
“What’s her surname?” Aleks asked.
“Hastings. Evie Hastings.”
We all watched as he opened up his laptop and started tapping away at the keys. I didn’t know what the others were thinking, but I was worried about what the hell he was going to uncover. Evie was traumatized. Something bad had happened to her and I wasn’t sure I was ready to face whatever it was.
“Her family are definitely searching for her,” Aleks said as he glanced up to me, then back to the screen. I rounded the island and placed my hand on the counter so I could lean in to see the screen. The search had images of Evie on ‘missing’ posters and the top three hits were news stories on her disappearance.
“Fuck,” I gasped as a headline caught my eye. “That one.” I pointed to the link I wanted him to click on and the article opened up fully.
“Fuck,” Aleks repeated as he read the headline.
“What is it? What does it say?” Rush asked.
“It’s a news article. The headline is ‘Search continues for Number Killer’s latest victims’ and there’s pictures of three girls below. Evie is one of them,” I hissed as rage filled me.
“The Number Killer? That fucker who takes three girls at a time?” Nick questioned.
“This article is from four months ago. There must be something more recent,” Aleks reasoned, then he started flicking between screens.
“She was taken by a serial killer?” Rush asked. “And what? She escaped?”
“I don’t think so. She said something about rules. She broke the rules when she contacted her family. What if he let her go?”
“Why the fuck would a serial killer let a victim go?” Nick scoffed.
“Because…” A small voice spoke from across the room. I looked up hurriedly and found Evie frozen in the middle of the living room. She was in the t-shirt I had left for her to change into, and she had pulled her leggings back on beneath it. The t-shirt dwarfed her, falling to her knees, but even under all of the fabric I could see how slight and tiny her frame was. I doubted she had eaten properly in weeks. Her hair was still a little wet and hung in a wild mess around her face, and she was visibly shaking, even from across the room. “…because I…I wouldn’t say it. He...he l-let me go because I w-wouldn’t say what he n-needed me to,” she said, the words forced out as she fought not to cry.
“Ev, you should be resting,” I said as I snapped from my thoughts and made myself move towards her. I wanted to know what she meant. What words she didn’t say, but I was also worried if we pushed her, she really would break.
“What words?” Aleks asked. Of course it was him that asked. He couldn’t stand not knowing something. He always needed answers to everything.
“Aleks…” I warned, but Evie cut me off.
“Kill me. Th-that’s what he wanted. He wanted me to beg for him to do it…t-to kill me, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. No matter what he did I couldn’t s-say those words because I….I didn’t want to die. I just wanted to go h-home,” she explained tearfully, those last words breaking my fucking heart. “I didn’t w-want to die,” she whimpered again, and I hurried towards her as she started to wobble on her legs. I just got my arms around her as she started to fold.
“That’s enough, sweetheart. You need to rest. We can talk later, okay? You need to sleep,” I told her as I gathered her up into my arms. I was relieved when she lay her head on my shoulder. I didn’t want to scare her. She had been through so much and I knew I could be a scary looking fucker with my size and scars.
“Can’t,” she mumbled. “He’s in here.” She tapped the side of her head.
