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According to the Intel I received, Barnaby lived on this side of the compound. He liked to play in a basement directly below his room. The rumor I heard was that he enjoyed tormenting his victims and recording their screams and cries for help. He installed a vent that led to a row of cells they regularly used underneath, ensuring a clear connection. It was a direct link so he could hear everything that happened. Cameras were installed around the basement. Above, back in his room, he installed televisions. Recordings were made of all the suffering he inflicted, and he watched those tapes for entertainment.
Barnaby was a sick motherfucker.
“I want to know if there are tapes of Stefanie.”
Some of the shadows disappeared. I could feel their departure more than see it, and that was fucking weird. A door that led to the basement was located a few yards away. I didn’t have to ask the shadows to unlock it for me. As soon as I strode toward it, they departed in order to make it happen.
A woman was whimpering as I opened the door. Her voice cried out once, and I thought I recognized Stefanie. Rage exploded across my skin, and I ran down the concrete steps, stumbling into a scene right out of my nightmares.
The girl who whimpered was tied to a cross, and she’d been beaten. Fluids covered her naked, bruised body, and it wasn’t hard to guess it was semen. Angry red handprints stood out on her pale flesh as she moaned, held up only by the thin rope at her neck, wrists, and ankles.
Another girl was face down on a table, staring into a void with lifeless eyes. Her throat had been slashed, and the blood still trickled from the cut as a man pumped his hips into her lower body. The scarlet fluid had pooled to the edges of the table and dripped onto the floor, traveling in thin rivulets until it reached the drain in the center.
There was nothing I could do for the blonde who was already dead. The other girl, a brunette who didn’t look much older than my beloved Stefanie, appeared too traumatized to speak.
My sweetheart wasn’t in this room. I’d never been more thankful for anything in my life.
I recognized Barnaby from the photo texted to my phone. In my hand, a blade appeared, and I wasn’t sure if I had reached for it or if the shadows pulled it from my pocket. The rapist didn’t notice he was no longer alone. He was grunting, getting off on the dead girl and his brutality.
The shadows swarmed around me as we merged as one. A silent cry of rage lifted my lip in a snarl as I sprang forward, practically flying across the room. The knife plunged into the top of his head as I pierced his brain and skull, going straight down until it broke through the bottom of his jaw. I felt the jolt of power I’d used, and it was shocking but invigorating.
Barnaby jolted as his mouth opened in a silent scream. His dick must have shriveled because he backed away from the girl and then stumbled, turning my way as I smiled at the shock on his face. He should already be dead, but maybe the shadows were dragging this out just a bit longer so I could say what I wanted.
“Stefanie Holloway,” I growled, noting that his eyebrows lifted and his face paled. “An eye for an eye.”
His reaction was probably blood loss and trauma, but I liked to think he knew what I meant before he died.
His body hit the floor with a thud, and the blood drained from the head wound, spreading out as it mixed with the girl’s blood from the table and began dripping into the drain.
“Take care of her,” I whispered, ticking my head toward the body.
Shadows converged, gathering her up as she was surrounded, and then the dead girl disappeared. I knew her remains would be delivered anonymously to the police station because that was what I saw as a vision stole my sight and then returned it only a few seconds later. The shadows could communicate now. Slightly dizzy, I had to stand for a minute before moving closer to the cross.
Avoiding the blood on the ground, I approached her and noticed she was unconscious. That was probably merciful.
I hated the thought that she’d been treated so cruelly. Both of those young women deserved justice, just like my Stefanie. At least I could grant it.
I left the girl from the cross wrapped in a sheet at the entrance to the emergency room, propped against the wall next to the doors. The lot was nearly abandoned, and the shadows kept me hidden from any cameras. Phoning in a tip to the operator, I used a burner phone and called it in. There was nothing else I could do to help her since she needed medical attention.
I only lingered long enough to ensure they took her inside.
An hour later, I parked my bike at the cemetery, hanging my helmet on the handlebars before trudging across the grounds until I reached the spot that became a second home in the last four months.
Moonlight fell on my beloved’s name with heavenly beams of thin silvery light. My head lowered as I stood there, unable to stop the emotion that churned and roiled within. It took everything I had not to break down and weep above her lifeless body, buried too far underground to ever escape her fate.
Long minutes came and went as I stood there, wishing I could have had just one more day with her, one more kiss, one more chance at a goodbye we never got to say.
Nothing hurt more than wishing for chances you could never have.
“Justice for the first,” I finally whispered, bending down closer to Stefanie’s grave. My fingers lifted to my lips, and I kissed them before lowering my hand to the surface where I placed my love on the cold exterior of her headstone.
In life or death, she would always be my precious star.
