The silence in the rental office’s reception tightens like a noose on a criminal’s neck.Travis looks like the criminal while Marsh seems like the executioner.Marsh paces slowly in front of the reception desk, fists clenched at his sides, jaw clenching and unclenching with held back fury. Travis, the kid behind the counter, glances between him and Halloway like he's deciding which cop looks slightly less ready to blow, and maybe when to dash back to avoid a swinging fist.Halloway, standing just off to Marsh’s right, clears his throat and steps in. “Is there any other way we can identify the person who rented that car?” His tone is calm but firm, the kind that invites cooperation without threat. It’s a good cop move, and one Marsh doesn’t have the patience for today.The classic good cop, bad cop.Travis blinks at him, then nods. “I… uh, I can call my manager. He’ll know more about it sir.”“Good,” Halloway says, stepping back, folding his arms. He throws Marsh a sidelong glance that
After they drive away from the police station, the long ride to Daisy’s house is a bit quiet, unlike the previous night. Not heavy at all like the last time, but quiet enough to let the silence settle between them without awkwardness.Its just sad in there.A woman lost her husband to justice, rightfully, a daughter said bye to her father and family has to watch it all happen while he pays his respects, sort of.And now the date of the hearing is just a few days away… Must be hard.Daisy steps out of the vehicle with Quinn by her side just as Arthur pulls into the driveway. They both help one another when they get off from the car, and Bethany is the first to step out from the front. Quinn breaks into a small whimper and manages a small, hurtful smile towards Bethany.Not because Bethany is the one who hurt her but because Beth has been there all along and now there is no reason to hide emotions from her anymore.“I’m really glad you came with us,” Daisy says softly, walking up beside
POVGood riddance to bad trash.The glass in front of me is already half empty, but I hold it like it’s the only thing anchoring me to the planet. My fingers tremble around the rim, knuckles pale and tight. Whiskey burns my throat as I knock the rest of it back in one go, but I barely flinch.Who flinches at a burn of alcohol after seeing a dead body’s flinching in death? Its nothing compared to one another, simply fleeting and yet stays with you… When you see the eyes of a dead person closing for the last time.Or the last blink? The last sigh? The last finger twitch? Exhilarating to see and alcohol seems to be the closes thing to feeling that lovely twinge in your back again.The bartender’s eyes flick toward me from the end of the counter.He's used to me now. I’ve been coming here every other night, ordering the same thing, pretty expensive whiskey, no ice, no chaser, the perfect feeling it gives me gives me no other choice but to drink it raw.I don’t need comfort.I need focus an
Contented sigh.The morning sun peeks softly through the curtains, its light spilling gently over the cream sheets of the master bedroom where our couple have been staying and where the stay would soon come to an end since it's all over anyway. Arthur stirs first, slipping out of bed quietly so as not to wake Bethany. A few minutes later, he returns with two steaming mugs in hand. He knows what his wife needs anyway, and he'll give it to her, knowing what time she wakes up on her and even if it's not near, the coffee will damn near wake her up with it's 'rejuvenating' scent as she calls it.Bethany blinks awake just in time to see him walk in, dressed in his robe and soft slippers on his leg. He hands her one of the mugs and sits on the edge of the bed, watching her with amusement.She accepts it gratefully, taking a sip. “Mmm. You make a mean cup of coffee,” she says sleepily, sitting up straighter as the warmth spreads through her hands, waking her fully.Arthur raises a brow. “Goo
Many weeks before...Charles stands on the front steps of the hospital, the early afternoon sun beaming down on him like a spotlight exposing every ugly thought in his mind, shining brightly on every single evil thing he has ever done and said... The conversation with Arthur that he had just some minutes earlier before Arthur had gone up to possibly smack John had ensued, plays on loop in his headaccusations, disgust, disappointment. And the worst part? Arthur did have a point no matter how much he has tried to deny it and say it's a lie.No matter how much he had tried to say he isn't like his father... Deep down, he knew he was like him.And control of himself was slipping right through his fingers.He drags a hand through his hair, chest heaving as he pulls out his phone. His fingers hover for a second before he finally dials the number.The same number he had dialed just before and Arthur had overheard the whole conversation.Sienna picks up on the second ring, her voice light a
The bottle is empty. Charles drops it onto the passenger seat, the final drop of tequila long gone down his throat. His vision swims a little, but his mind is sharp, sharper than it’s been in days.Rage does that.It slices through fog, even the kind caused by alcohol.Simpler to call it a drunken sober state.He adjusts the black cap over his head and slides the dark cloth mask up over his face. It’s not paranoia. It’s protection. He isn’t supposed to be seen. Not today.Not when he’s decided how this ends.The Falcon Rental lot is dim, even in daylight. He parks his actual car on the next street over, then walks across the sidewalk like any other customer. The ID he hands over is fake, the accent he puts on convincing enough. “Reeds Whitby,” he says with a light chuckle. “Just in town for a few days. Business and... pleasure.”The clerk barely looks at him. All that matters is the money.And he gives the guy a lot of it.Keys change hands.Minutes later, Charles is behind the wheel o
Charles doesn’t remember when the rage began, only that it grew over time, like a parasite feeding off everything he had left of humanity.He stares blankly at the GPS mounted in the Falcon Rental’s Audi R8, sleek, black, expensive, and utterly soulless. Just like him tonight. The false name he gave at the rental office, Reeds Whitby, echoes in his mind as he swerves through the streets.He doesn’t want to think too hard. The bottle of tequila he downed earlier made sure of that. He still has more of it in the deep pocket just if he needs some more liquid courage to protect his family.He punches a code into an app he’d installed on his family’s phones during the Quinn scare, a parental tracking tool he’d masked as a ‘security protocol.’ Now it pulses on the screen, blinking with one word.John.His father’s signal is floating dangerously close to the outskirts of the state. There is no other place she could be staying that is not where the blue dot is currently tapping.“She really ha
Morning arrives fast...That is how it happens on days you expect so much.The bright morning skies are a soft blue and the air, surprisingly cool for an April morning. The Campbell residence is unusually quiet, except for the muffled sound of footsteps and the occasional whirr of bag wheels being drawn.Arthur stands by the foot of the stairs, dressed casually in a light linen shirt and sleek black pants, overseeing the last of the suitcases being carried out. The driver, uniformed and slightly drawn in the face, loads their luggage into the trunk of the sleek black SUV parked outside.Bethany emerges from the top of the stairs in a matching light outfit, her white blouse tucked into wide legged beige pants, a pair of sunglasses perched on her head and a genuine smile lighting up her face as soon as she sights Arthur waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.Martha and Mason wait for them in the living room, both sipping coffee, the morning sun pouring in behind them.“Someone’s glow
He steps out of the car and closes the door behind him, Bethany is at home now and he just needs to stop by somewhere to make his point known, now that he knows who it is and his wife now does too, there is nothing to hide but to tell her to own up to her crimes and mistakes and just leave them be.Arthur Worth steps out of the sleek black elevator on the top floor and into hell, the dim lighting down the hall, the glass doors that do not reflect anything, looks like a child’s imagination of the opposite of heaven.The top floor of the glass building is colder than a morgue, the air conditioning in strategic positions not exactly helping either. Polished concrete floors. Steel framed windows. Air that smells faintly metallic, Ew.The place seems a little bit deserted and a little bit too silent for this mid afternoon period where staffs are supposed to be wandering around, talking and gossiping over cups of coffee and snacks, waiting for the time they can head for home.Ahead, the gla
It takes about an hour.One long, slow, silent hour between the couple.Bethany stubbornly keeps her back turned toward Arthur, stewing in her own complicated swirl of already fake anger and her pride not wanting to speak first.Bethany tries.God, she tries to stay mad at him but...For a full hour, she gives Arthur the full on, patented silent treatment, staring stubbornly at the wall on the other side of thr bed, answering in one word grunts if he so much as breathes too loudly so he’ll catch himself from disturbing her ‘sleep’.But she’s very terrible at it.She’s always been terrible at it when it came to people she loved.She cracks before the sixty minute mark, because when she finally turns her head, awkwardly and carefully because of the neck brace, she sees him sitting at the very edge of her hospital bed.Not looking at her.Not doing anything visible to her.Just… sitting there by the bedside.Palms flat on the mattress. Head bowed.Like he’s waiting to be sentenced. He do
The hallway is dim and seemingly never ending. Just like is her job to do this once in a while, she is going to do it once again before clocking out of work for the day.Ana Yang walks briskly down the sterile, silver lit corridor of Unique Auditing’s private floor. Her heels click sharply against the marble tile, echoing between the glass walls and chrome doors, ignoring everyone she meets on her way since she has one single focus in mind, do this and get the hell out of here.She clutches a thick folder to her chest, filled with updates, invoices, coded communications. The usual weapons of their currently losing war, she’ll be dropping off the file with the ceo before leaving.Ahead of her, the double doors to the CEO's office loom like the gates of some modern day hell.She swipes her keycard.The lock clicks and the doors swing open.Inside, the room is dim, only thin shafts of light cutting across the floor from narrow windows.And, as always, the swivel chair behind the vast mah
The fourth day in the hospital after the blast seemed just as bleak as the first three days that had come and gone, waiting for Bethany to wake up and open her eyes to absolutely no avail.Arthur hasn’t left her side. Not once, making sure to make sure that she is attended to every single time and cleaning her unconscious body every morning and night.The nurses have stopped trying to convince him to take a break and go home or something. At this point, he’s more permanent than the IV drip standing by her bedside. Martha comes and goes, bringing fresh clothes, home cooked meals that Arthur barely touches, whispered encouragements he barely hears but nods smilingly at anyway, the old woman already has too much on her neck so Arthur always manages to persuade her to go back home as well each time.He sits beside her now, as he has for four days, one hand curled over Bethany’s motionless fingers, holding them as though he is using his body’s warmth to remind her of the way back to him, b
Time slows.Bethany’s fingers brush the handle of the driver’s side door just as the second beep-beep fades into the air. A bird chirps from the lamp post above the lot. The wheels of a nearby shopping cart squeal as someone exits the pharmacy across the road. Arthur opens his mouth to say something…And the world erupts.BOOM.It’s not just a noise., it’s a force. A living, monstrous thing that tears through air, glass, and metal like paper. The car explodes in a big explosion of fire and shrapnel, its roof splitting, hurling into the sky. The windshield vaporizes in a white hot flash and for the person standing right next to the explosion...Bethany is thrown violently backward. Not a stumble. Not a fall. She is launched into the air like a ragdoll and what goes up, always comes down.Her body hits the ground very hard. The sound is sickening, skin on pavement, ribs crunching, skull cracking and the audible sound of all of it.Then stillness.Alarms scream in every direction. The
The man walks in front of the station like he’s trying not to walk into a landmine, slow, tentative steps. He stops at the top of the stairs, takes one deep sigh, rubs his weak looking eyes and takes the few more steps into the building.He does not take big strides and no waving hands. Just quiet, precise steps through the front doors of the Precinct, wearing a weather beaten hoodie and jeans that have seen better years. His eyes are the kind that don’t blink enough, too haunted to remember how.Or at least that is what it looks like to whoever cares to give him a glance.At the front desk, Officer Laney gives him the once over. She’s halfway through sipping her third iced latte when she asks, “Can I help you sir?”The man doesn’t answer at first, first choosing to check if she is a police officer since she is in civilian clothes, then seeing her badge in her hands, he sighs audibly before responding, saying…“I need to talk to someone. Someone in charge of a particular case here.”L
Rumors begin less than three days later.Apparently, grabbing a cup of coffee with a beautiful female Major is grounds for rumors, and even people whom you don’t know who begin to study your every move. The rumors, with truths in them however, rage on the barracks.They spread like heat on dry bush. Fast, wild and pretty much unstoppable. A Major seen sneaking smiles at a Lieutenant during drills, the same Lieutenant caught slipping out of the officer's quarters too early in the morning.Chara doesn’t as much as flinch when she hears then, she’s pretty much used to the weight of judgment.Chara doesn’t pretend to care, not at all.She keeps her chin high, her stride sharp like the boss lady that she is, like no one dares say it to her face, because they really do not dare say it to her face.But Mason hears it.He hears them and unlike Chara with her own steely indifference, he is not indifferent to it.And it gets harder to ignore, mostly because it is not all about him but her.Mason
It is a new day on the barracks, the morning frills are done and so are evening ones, it’s just past the time for everyone to have dinner but someone is not headed to the cafeteria for food.The knock on the door announces his arrival to his caller.Major Chara’s office is dimly lit but bright enough fir the time of the day, considering she is in the male fields, she knows just how to be careful enough to not have too much light on, not too much to help the stalkers peek through the window at her perfectly figured body. She’s currently halfway through dressing, uniform pants already snug around her waist, boots laced to perfection, but her shirt still hanging on the back of a chair.“Come in,” Chara calls, her voice calm.She doesn’t bother rushing. She knows exactly who it is and why she has sent for him.The door opens, and then nothing.No footsteps. No greeting.Just silence from who it is that stands at the door.Private First Lieutenant Mason Campbell.She turns slightly, still
The courtroom is brightly lit, smells like polished wood and paper and different, different smells of perfumes and cologne.It's still early in the morning, the sun barely slanting through the tall and somewhat dusty windows, but the room is already full, a lot of people seem to be quite interested in the case and other than that, there are also students who have come to just witness one and some other purposeful individuals, albeit, the courtroom is filled. The silence is thick, every cough or chair scrape feeling louder than it should because every sound that is not inevitable is not allowed in the court, it should always be bone silent and they all try to keep to the rule, although the silence can feel a bit suffocating but they can’t help it.At the defense table, John Worth stands stiffly, his head cast downwards staring at his feet or at the floor, either, wearing the same annoyingly orange jumper he has worn to every hearing in the past week.His hands rest by his sides, fisted