Locations of drop sites.
The list was growing.
Every day, I added something new.
Every night, I hunted someone who knew someone who knew something.
The wall was my memory.
The wall was my mind.
The wall was the only thing that didn't lie.
I added a new photo today.
A man I'd killed last night—a dispatcher for Mercy Logistics, middle management, the kind of man who thought he was untouchable because he never got his hands dirty. I'd found him in a bar on the south side, drinking alone, his wedding ring glinting under the fluorescent lights.
"Do you know where Gabriel Mire is?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do."
"You're crazy."
"Maybe. But I'm also holding a knife against your kidney, and if you don't tell me what I want to know, I'm going to use it."
He'd talked.
They always talked.
Not about Gabriel—he didn't know where Gabriel was, didn't know anyone who did—but about Mercy. About the shipments. About the network of buyers and sellers and handlers who'd turned human beings into inventory.
I'd killed him anyway.
Clean. Efficient.
The way Gabriel had taught me.
Or maybe the way I'd always known.
I couldn't remember.
I never could.
His photo was pinned to the wall now, next to the other faces, the other names, the other bodies I'd left behind. Red string connected him to Mercy Logistics, to the warehouse, to the office where I'd killed the guard who'd watched Gabriel work.
The web was growing.
Every thread led somewhere.
Every somewhere led closer to the truth.
The knock on the door was soft.
I knew it was Matt before I looked. He was the only one who visited, the only one who knew where I lived, the only one who cared whether I ate or slept or remembered to drink water.
"Bunny? You in there?"
