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I turn to Timmy and feel desperation flooding my expression. It’s reflected in his eyes, he feels it too, and I’m probably a big cause of that. I need to reel myself in. I’m not supposed to be losing control here.
“Sorry, I…” I step backwards away from the man with my hands raised hard. “Yes, you capture him…”
“You need to go and search for Veronica, don’t you? That’s why you’re here, so maybe you should look.”
I gasp, letting his words flow through my body. Of course, he’s right, I know that. I don’t even know what I’m doing here fucking around with this asshole, exacting my revenge. That can come later.
“Yes. Okay, I’ll go. You… will you be okay here? Dealing with him?”
Timmy nods and indicates for me to go. I stagger away from him trying not to let angry and frustrated tears stream down my face as I do. I cannot believe how badly I lost control then. I need to keep on going. I suck in a couple of deep ragged breaths and I continue on down the hallway trying to find something, someone, her.
“Veronica,” I call out, forgetting about the side effect of danger as I yell. “Veronica, where are you?”
If she isn’t here, she’s dead, my brain unhelpfully reminds me. She’s somewhere else, gone.
Eventually, I fall into a room with a video camera set up in the corner. A sickness floods me as I realize this might be the room where the murders are committed for the world to see. The threatening, blackmailing videos, followed by the decapitations. There’s a rusty, practically blunt knife covered in blood on the floor which might well mean the worst has already happened. Someone has been killed here, someone could be Veronica…
“Fuck!” I scream out in shock. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
There’s no evidence of a recent murder, aside from the knife, but it might have happened. I could be in the middle of this camp while the woman that I love is on the Internet being killed. Maybe this is just another situation where the rest of the world knows something that I don’t. No, I will definitely lose my shit.
“Veronica!” I scream again. “Veronica, where the fuck are you? Are you alive? Veronica?”
I attract the attention of another guy who races into the room. I shoot a bullet through his brain without even looking to see who it might be. I’m not getting into another fight, it isn’t happening. It’ll endanger other people. Others will capture more men if they’ve got any sense and we’ve already gotten a couple anyway. I can’t stand this I just need to keep on hunting. I need to get the answer to my endless questions, even if I don’t like them.
My heart thunders against my rib cage, I fear it must burst free from my chest as I take off again. That torture chamber room just stinks of death, it’s pouring through the walls. The thought of Veronica on her hands and knees, reading out the words given to her by these pigs is almost too much to bear. I need to leave that behind.
The yells get louder, I can hear them echoing through the place which causes me to pick up the pace. The longer that we’re here, the more likely one of our side will end up dead and I’m keener than ever to avoid that.
“Veronica!” I scream out, the desperation starting to get the better of me. “Veronica, where are you?”
“Miller.” I hear Jones’s sharp tone which grabs me. I turn the corner to see him there with a rag doll body in his arms. My heart lifts and skips. Immediately, I feel relief washing over me. “Is this her?”
It’s hard to tell at first, even as I race forward, I can barely see under the dirt and grime, but after a while, I have to shake my head in sheer sadness. “No,” I rasp out. “That isn’t her. It’s not Veronica.”
She’s got the wrong color hair, I can see it under the grime, and her face is much too different. I’m glad that this woman has been saved, no one deserves to be trapped in a place like this, but she isn’t Veronica.
The other guys share a glance. I know what this means. They believe that we’ve either come to the wrong place or Veronica is dead. I don’t want to see that look, I don’t want to lose hope.
“There… there could be others. There could be more people here… She can’t be the only one…”
Jones gives me a slow shake of the head. “I don’t know about that. We searched all the cells we found and there doesn’t seem to anywhere else that people are being held. We need to get this woman back, to save her.”
“No!” I yell, much too sharply. “No, I’m not leaving. Not until I’ve searched everywhere.”
“Miller, I understand your desire to stay.” Jones is talking to me in a tone that’s much too calm. It’s as if I’m a child who needs to be treated with kid gloves. It enrages me, it’s hard to keep myself in check. “But she isn’t here and the longer we remain in danger and I can’t risk it. We cannot risk someone else dying.”
“No, no, I know. I understand that. I don’t expect anyone else to stay. You all leave.”
“We cannot leave you behind. That just isn’t happening. You know I cannot do that.”
I appreciate his kindness but if Veronica has already been killed then there’s no point in me remaining alive anyway. I don’t have a life without her, which is why this is so pivotal. If I can’t find Veronica then this is the time where it needs to be over. There’s nothing else to keep me going. She’s always been my everything.
“I’m staying and you need to go,” I shoot back firmly. “I need to be here.”
Timmy’s head peeks around the corner as he overhears the conversation. “I will be here. I’ll stay.”
“No, Timmy, that’s a death warrant. I can’t leave you here. You go with Jones.”
