The kind of quiet that lets everything else creep in if I let it, if I stop moving, if I stop thinking about what needs to happen next and let my head go anywhere else.
I look down at the phone still in my hand, at the paused frame of her lying there, at the hand still caught in her hair, and something in my chest tightens again, not sharp this time, but steady, building, the panic sitting just under the surface now, closer than it was before.
Because now I’ve seen her.
Now I know where she is, not physically, not in any way that helps, but enough to make it real in a way it wasn’t before.
Enough to make every hour that’s passed feel heavier. Enough to make the next one feel worse.
I drag the video back to the beginning and press play again, slower this time, forcing my focus into something I can control, something I can take apart, because letting that panic take hold doesn’t get her back.
This does.
Somewhere in this, in the angle, in the lighting, in the sound, in something he didn’t think mattered, there’s a mistake.
There has to be.
He wanted us to see this.
He wanted to prove something.
Which means he left something behind.
My focus narrows completely as I start pulling it apart frame by frame, my breathing still not quite steady, my grip still too tight around the phone, but my attention locking into the only thing that makes sense right now.
Because I will find it.
I don’t care how long it takes, how many times I have to watch it, how deep I have to go into it to get there.
He wanted us to see this. And that means he gave me something to work with.
And when I find it, I’m not letting anyone else get to him first.
seven
Elijah
The warehouse comes into view without me really registering the drive that got us there, the city bleeding out behind us in a blur of lights and empty streets that never once settle into anything I can hold onto, because the only thing that stays clear is the video looping behind my eyes in a way that refuses to dull.
Her on the ground.
The angle of her body.
The stillness.
And then the hand.
Not rushed, not careless, but slow in a way that suggests time, control, intention, fingers moving through her hair like he could take as long as he wanted, like there was no risk in it, like he knew exactly what that image would do once it reached me.
He wanted me to see it.
Not just that he has her.
But that he can touch her.
That he already has.
The thought doesn’t spike into anger the way it should.
