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I barely spare the package a second glance before returning to the case report, finishing my read-through of it before signing off that everything was conducted as it should be.
Dropping the report in my outgoing tray, I take a break to go through the mail. Reaching for the stack of smaller envelopes first, I sort through them before moving on to the larger package. The first thing I do is look for the postage stamp to see where it came from, but when I turn the envelope over, there are no postage stamps. No address, either. Simply a name: Kai Benning.
Wariness begins to seep in as I slowly turn it over, pulling back the tab. Nothing official would have been delivered in such a way, meaning the contents have nothing to do with Nocturnal Enterprises, and no one I know would send anything personal to my work.
My foster parents moved to Florida the same year I joined the Marines, and my mom always calls to let me know if she’s sent me something because she’s convinced the US Postal Service will lose it otherwise. She hasn’t called. Besides, she wouldn’t send it to my place of work.
I rent an apartment nearby that I’ve been checking in on every couple of days to grab my mail and ensure there are no issues. I haven’t stayed there since before Hadley asked me to go to Springview to keep an eye on Emilia. And every time I check on the place, it feels less and less like home.
Meanwhile, Hawk and Wilder’s house has become the place I think of when I tell my team I’m heading home at the end of the day. I’m not stupid enough to think that’s not because of a certain black-haired beauty currently residing in the room opposite mine.
Pushing thoughts of Emilia aside before I can fall down that rabbit hole, I focus back on the suspicious envelope in my hands. Careful not to touch the inside, I tip it upside down until a folded note falls onto the desk.
I can tell something larger is stuck inside, but setting the envelope aside for now, I pull out a latex glove from my top drawer and use it to unfold the piece of paper.
The first thing I notice is the handwritten scrawl—thefamiliarhandwriting that confirms my initial suspicions, and it’s with a heavy sense of foreboding that I focus on Mel’s words.
I knowyou’re watching me, Mr. Ex-Marine. That little operation you set up yesterday wasn’t very nice, was it? I was wondering, have you learned anything about me yet? I bet it’s driving you crazy, not being able to figure out who I am… where I’m from… what makes me tick.
I know your type. You fancy yourself the hero—the savior in Emilia’s story. But you and I both know that’s not who you really are, is it? You might be able to safeguard the people you save as part of your job, except when it comes to those you care about most, you’re just not capable of protecting them, are you?
It was such a violent death. You were there, right? How did that feel, knowing you let down the one person who meant everything to you? I read that she knew she was in danger, only no one believed her. Not the police or her parents. Or you.
That poor little girl was all alone when she died.
I’m sure you don’t want to go through that again. I doubt you’d survive it a second time. After all, how many deaths can you have on your conscience before you realize the humane thing to do is eliminate yourself from the equation?
Watch me all you want, Mr. Looking-For-A-Second-Chance, but keep your hands off what’s mine. Unless you want her to meet the same end as the last woman you fell in love with.
My hands are shakingby the time I’m finished reading. Nausea warring with the uncontainable rage coursing through me. Practically throwing the letter onto the desk, I snatch the envelope and rip it in anger as I yank out the folder stuck inside.
The second I open it, I know what it is. That wave of nausea turns into a roiling sea that clogs the back of my throat and has sweat beading along my forehead. Air is robbed from my lungs as I stare at the unsuspecting suburban house that dominates my nightmares.
The picture isn’t from that night, so it doesn’t depict the horrors I know are hidden inside the walls. The fear that’s forever embedded in the foundations and the blood that probably still coats the underside of the floorboards.
Ripping my gaze away, I flick through the pages of the police report from that night. Words jump out at me:stabbed one-hundred-and-fifty-three times; exsanguination; body found by boyfriend; suspect DOA.
An outline of a body has X’s depicting every one of those one-hundred-and-fifty-three stab wounds. Do you know how much strength it takes to stab someone that many times? How much adrenaline has to be coursing through your body to maintain that momentum?
I tried it once on a dead pig. I was breaking a sweat and barely keeping my grasp on the knife by thirty. By fifty, I could hardly raise my arm above my head. I never made it to one hundred.
Next are the photographs. First, the ones taken at the morgue by the medical examiner. I do my best not to look at them too closely—particularly those of her face. I want to remember her smiling and happy. Not the way she looked that night. Not the way she would have looked on that examination table.
Turning the page, the report moves on to detailing the crime scene. Now, these are photos I can’t look away from. Images that attach themselves to long-buried memories and drag them uninvited to the surface.
Photos of the entryway, with a smeared handprint along the wall, as though someone was running and stumbled, putting their hand against it for support. I remember the way the tangy taste of blood singed my nostrils and forced its way into my mouth as soon as I crossed the threshold. I still shiver, remembering the sense of foreboding that washed over me as soon as I stepped foot inside that house. Before I'd even seen a single sign of what had happened, I knew it was something horrific. Something there was no unseeing. No coming back from.
It would change the very fabric of my being. Forever alter who I was. From the moment I stepped through that doorway, whatever path had been laid out for me at birth was changed forevermore. My life was set on a new, darker course.
Another photo shows her white Converse lying discarded on the floor with a blood droplet that had dripped onto the top and smeared a line down the side of the shoe. To this day, I still can’t work out why it was just lying there in the hall. How did it fall off? She always tied them so damn tightly so they wouldn’t slip off her feet.
With photo after photo, I lose myself in the past. To the memories I never let myself revisit but will never forget, until I get to the end of the report, and there's nothing left but the gaping hole in my chest.
They say time heals all wounds, but that’s bullshit. You find a way to stitch them shut and navigate around the pain, but they never truly heal. The tissue doesn’t sew itself back together; the skin never fuses. A sharp knife or pair of scissors is all it takes to pry it open again.
The scissors that Mel hand delivered are razor sharp, and I can still feel them buried deep beneath my skin when, hours later, I numbly gather everything together and stuff it back in the envelope.
Pushing to my feet, I grab the envelope and make my way to Hawk’s office in a daze.
