“Kay, Dr. Hughes called me because he couldn’t get ahold of you. He received a torso today, and I think it belongs to Yala. I think it is Yala.”
Yala’s name and the word torso in the same sentence stopped him in his tracks. His shoes scraped the gravelly ground. His body froze, like he was zapped by a steady flow of electricity. His heaving breaths rushed past his lips, and he couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs. He kept the phone to his ear with one hand and used the other to prop himself against the side of a dirty brick wall.
There was something Kevin knew with all certainty, Sori was rarely wrong. If she’d concluded that it was Yala in that death box, it probably was.
His hand trembled so badly, he could hardly keep the phone to his ear. His voice cracked.
“What makes you think it’s her?”
Sori’s voice came across steady and calm, like she should be named one-who-remains-calm-in-the-face-of-doom.
“Kay. I have worked with her a number of times. One of the two times she wasn’t in disguise, I got a glimpse of the line of tattoos she has up her side.”
Kevin had been dropped twelve stories and had landed on his head. That was how bad Sori’s words wounded him. The tattoos were the only markings he’d found on Yala’s body. There was no trace of any scars and gone was any trace of the wound he’d stitched on her back the night they’d met in the alley. Her ability was the only logical explanation for her wounds healing so cleanly. Heck, she could shift; she could have been unconsciously covering up her scars.
When he first noticed the tattoos, they appeared as one long, cursively written sentence along her side. It started under her right arm and stopped at her right pelvic bone. She’d had the words ‘Life Death Rebirth Love’ etched up her side. The tattoos may have been simple words to people that didn’t know her story, but the words represented different stages in her life.
The word ‘Life’ was proceeded by a tiny heart, standing for her first heartbeat into this world, and a two-digit date, corresponding to her birth.
The word ‘Death’ was followed by a flat line that represented a non-beating heart and the two-digit date of her death, fourteen years later. Death represented the night she believed a large part of her had died at the hands of rapists.
The word ‘Rebirth’ was listed before a pulse point symbol, like you see on a heart monitor, and a two-digit date. Kevin assumed it was the date she’d officially become an agent at twenty-one.
The word ‘Love’ had a strike-through line, probably signifying she’d never be loved or she’d never give love.
She never explained the tattoos to him, but she’d shared enough that he understood the markings.
The dirty alley became Kevin’s private room as he huddled near a dumpster. He may as well have been a drunk regurgitating his lunch. He was sure that’s what he looked like. He used the dirty brick wall as a prop. As his arm slid, he scraped skin from his forearm on the way down. His chin pressed into his chest, as he crumpled to his knees.
He heard Sori shouting repeatedly, the phone now sounding like a walkie-talkie. His mind returned, urging him to put the phone back to his ear.
“I’m here.”
“Dr. Hughes tells me the key to this case is not to open the box, wait until all the parts are here, and there may be a good chance.”
Kevin yelled into the phone, “Yes! Please. Sori, whatever you do, please don’t let anyone open that box. The first two victims didn’t make it. Both times, the boxes were opened, or broken, before all the parts arrived.”
He removed the phone from his ear, slipping back into a trance. He closed his eyes.
“Oh. My. God. Yala! Not you. God, please don’t let it be true.”
His chest rose and fell with quick burst from his erratic breathing. His splintering heart threatened to pound its way from his chest. The devastating news had him losing his grip on reality. As his gaze frantically scanned his surroundings for nothing in particular, he talked through the cracks in his voice.
“Sori, please promise me you won’t let anyone open that box. Please, Sori. Please.”
He was sure she paused for his benefit. The quiet coming through the phone seemed to reiterate the seriousness of the situation.
Sori’s voice finally broke the tensed silence.
“Kay, you have my word. The box stays closed, no matter what—or who. I’ll fuck somebody up before I let them open this box. I promise.”
Kevin hung up after her promise.
The only thing that kept him from falling apart further was a promise from the one person he knew would keep it.
He called his cousin, Devin, to inform him of his departure. He sensed danger tugging at his cousin’s safety net, so he wasn’t going to drop the ball on their situation. Although he was concerned for his cousin’s safety, he had confidence that Devin could handle himself, if something jumped off.
Kevin played doctor to his nerves during the plane ride to DC. When he arrived at the medical examiner’s office, Dr. Pendergast met and ushered him into the exam room.
Sori stood next to the box, like an armed sentinel. A shoulder holster displayed a weapon on one side and extra ammo on the other.
Kevin knew her well enough to know she had a backup gun hidden elsewhere on her body.
Five-five and small framed, Sori had a reputation and presence that gave many, twice her size, pause.
For those that underestimated her physical strength, her incredibly beautiful features and charm lured them into her web. She reminded Kevin of one of those female comic book heroes, the ones that always had weapons in their hands. She maintained a poker face, like only she could, but she couldn’t hide what Kevin sensed—her grief.
Kevin's ability to detect intangible elements in people helped him tremendously in his field of work. He spotted lies in criminals and found evidence that was usually overlooked. The extra spark his senses ignited was a gift he appreciated and used to his advantage, but not this time. He feared his anguish over Yala would likely kill him.
Although she hid her intentions well, Kevin sensed that Sori cared for Yala as much as he did. Nothing he knew of scared Sori. She didn’t seem to realize it, but she’d become a pillar of strength to many, especially in the agent community. He’d seen her stare Death in the face and kick him in the teeth; so for this situation to spark a certain level of fear within her, it set his nerves oozing over the edge of his sanity.
Dr. Hughes reached out and placed a calming hand on Kevin’s shoulder, likely just realizing that Yala was much more to him than a fellow agent.
Kevin forced himself to look in the box. He needed confirmation that it was Yala. His mind hadn’t fully accepted what he’d been told. Quicksand legs carried him towards the box. His eyes zoomed in on the line of tattoos along her side. The tattoos jumped at him, as his eyes magnified the words.
Her arm rested atop her stomach, covering part of the tattoo, but Kevin recognized the words ‘Rebirth’ and ‘Love’.
He knew the tattoo well. His lips had been intimate with that area of her body. In a trance, he stared, unblinkingly, at the glass box. Yala’s torso was on display, no head or lower body. She wore a bra, and he was thankful the monster had enough respectability to put her into the box with some decency.
The first two victims hadn’t made it out of their boxes alive. Touching the box chilled him down to the bones.
“I can’t live again, until you make it out of this box in one piece.”
With haunted eyes, he glanced at Sori.
“I will not rest, until we have the monster that did this.”
She grasped his shoulder.
“I know and neither will I. We can take turns keeping watch and investigating. We can work however you want. Top and the doctors filled me in on the first two victims. I have questions, but I can work with what I have so far. I think you guys were on to something with this Dr. Nolan. He seems to always be conveniently away.
“Ms. Paul is being held at
a Top facility, thanks to a call Yala put into Top. Ms. Paul’s high-priced lawyer was close to getting her out on bail. It was unfortunate that Top pulled you off the case before you solved it. I’ll check out all avenues; but you know as well as I do, the murderer has the only leverage that can stop us in our tracks. We have to be careful how—and who—we talk to, and how we pursue this monster. Until we have all of Yala’s parts, we’ll be walking on eggshells.”
Kevin had a lump in his throat the size of a watermelon, but he managed to squeeze a few more words pass the obstruction.
“Okay. I’ll do anything I have to.”
The overwhelming blow to his emotions made rational thinking an impossibility at the moment.
Sori must have noticed.
“There will be someone here, at all times; so whenever you want to leave, or need to work, let me know. I called for extra eyes around the hospital, too.”
She glared at him, to ensure he understood her words.
“Expert eyes that won’t get caught. Dr. Hughes will be back, later. He’s giving me the evil eye right now, because I asked him to go home and rest so he can return fresh. He and Dr. Pendergast will be on overlapping watch.”
Kevin had enough of his mind left to understand Sori’s words, but only half were getting past the horror of seeing Yala in that box.
Sori's words were firm and matter of fact.
“Together, we’ll get Yala back, and we’re going to kill…catch this murderer. Top can kiss my ass, if they try to pull the plug on this case again.”
It only took Kevin an hour to decide he couldn’t sit there and stare at Yala’s torso. His gaze traveled towards Sori. She sat in the corner of the room, pouring over surveillance footage. Yala’s box had been left in the same manner as the first box, in the entrance way of the office.
Kevin and Sori teetered on a shaky tightrope. Unable to lay a hand on the killer until they secured all of Yala’s parts could mean the killer’s escape. It presented a jagged angle to the case that they didn’t have any choice but to accept.
Chapter 26
Swimming in a Sea of Agony
A wall of cascading despair surrounded Yala, threatening to close in on her; but she fought the wrathful beast. Her determination urged her to fight the looming emotion, intent on devouring her.
Yala talked to herself, in an attempt to find her voice within the blackness she waddled through. Each time pain engulfed her body, she became a slave to despair. She couldn’t move, couldn’t hear her own voice, even when she called out and yelled. Even when she opened her eyes, all she saw was darkness.
Was she stuck in a nightmare?
No, there was too much pain for sleep. She screamed inside her head because her outside voice had been silenced. The relentless pain was sobering, yet so forceful it prevented her from thinking too far beyond it. It was a continuous fight to purge the pain enough to ease her suffering.
Memories of Kevin helped her find focus, until pain fought its ugly way to the surface and won the battle. All she wanted was to be put out of her misery as extreme bouts of stabbing aches shot through her system and punctured her senses. Although paralyzed in a cocoon of intense pain, Yala forced herself to think.
Where am I? Remember!
She screamed and yelled, like a woman gone mad, but none of it registered. Her cries neither mattered, nor were they heard inside the endless abyss she’d been sucked into. She was apparently the only one that knew of this hell she’d been dragged into. For the second time in her life, she was ignored, tossed aside, and forgotten.
How had she arrived at this point?
Dr. Hughes. DC.
He’d gotten another note he’d wanted her to observe. Then…
The pain. Someone had soaked her brain in gasoline and sat it inside an incinerator, leaving her mind to slowly melt from the heat.
It hurts so bad!
She’d been the unlucky victim of a devastating rape as a teen. The pain had been so long and lasting, she’d found a way to separate her mind and body. She’d somehow found a way to cheat the pain.
How had she done it? At what point had she been broken so severely, she’d reached beyond the pain and embraced Death?
That’s it!
Only when she’d reached for Death had the pain stopped.
She’d courted pain by embracing Death. That day, she’d sensed Death. He’d lingered over her like a deadly protector, but Death hadn’t been there to rape her or take her soul, at least not that day. He’d been there to collect a piece of her. He’d taken the part that should have stopped her from retaliating and brutally killing the four men who’d raped her.
Although she’d been ready to die, Death didn't want her. It wasn’t until she’d become an agent that she truly understood Death’s trade-off. She’d become one of his best laborers, delivering people to Death’s door like the mailman delivered packages. Death had given her a pinch of his madness, allowing her to kill with no regrets.
Since she’d become an agent two years ago, she’d killed twenty people. Some she killed in self-defense, and some she’d been given orders to kill.
Where was Death, now that she needed him to take the pain again?
She realized this time was different. She didn’t have anyone she could kill in exchange for Death’s help.
The Pain!
Blackness and a silent stillness provided her a blanket of endless suffering. She screamed, her inner voice thundering inside her head. She was turning over a pit of burning hot pain as it seared her body.
Why can’t I see, or move, or yell?
She was trapped in an endless purgatory of pain and darkness?
Is this my hell? Am I dead? Has Death returned to retrieve me?
Kevin. Think of Kevin.
Handsome, sweet, and sexy Kevin. The first man who’d shed a tear for her. She’d relived the nightmare of her rape for nearly a decade, and he’d yanked her from her life of ignorant solitude.
He made her happy, and for the first time in her life, she looked forward to seeing someone—him. She needed him now, needed him to pull her from this deep dark hole she’d fallen into.
All of a sudden, the pain overtook her, like a tidal wave, and folded her deeply into its stabbing currents. When pain finished with her, he handed her off to his cousins—torment and agony.
Chapter 27
Rock Bottom
Sori and Kevin drove to Elizabeth Paul’s apartment. Top had sent a crew to check out the place, but they wanted to check again, for themselves.
A three-hour search hadn’t turned up anything but proof that they weren't in the birthplace of the Body Box.
Their next stop was to the impound yard to check out Elizabeth’s SUV.
Kevin took a quick sniff and then a deep inhale that raised his chest. He'd picked up a scent inside the vehicle.
“I think it’s some type of cologne. I smelled it on the first two boxes. This vehicle carried one, or both, of the first two victims. This scent came from the killer because Yala’s box hasn't been in this vehicle and this scent is all over her box.”
Sori had worked with Kevin enough times that she’d voiced to him that she trusted his nose over scientific equipment. He didn’t reveal his special ability to her, but he didn’t hide it either. She knew he had the ability to smell, see, and hear things that no one else did. Sori had never called him on his ability, just like he’d never called her on some of the unexplained things he’d seen her do. They maintained an unspoken mutual understanding.
Although Top’s forensic crew had thoroughly checked out the vehicle, Kevin found dark hairs embedded inside the seat cushion that obviously didn’t match Elizabeth’s long blonde strands.
“Would you recognize this scent again, if you smelled it on a person?”
Kevin inclined his head at her question.
He suggested, “We have to find Dr. Nolan.”
Before they started the search for Dr. Nolan, Dr. Hughes called with an alert. They’d r
eceived the second part of Yala—the box that contained her lower body.
Kevin decided he would continue the search, while Sori went to the medical examiner’s office. The idea of Yala in pieces took his mind, weakened his body, and squeezed the life right out of his soul. His heart was invested; so much so, staying busy was likely his only savior.
***
Dr. Hughes sat the second box atop the table next to Yala’s boxed torso. Sori stood, helpless, as she took in the sight of Yala’s detached legs, sitting in a box, next to the box that contained her torso. Helpless was an emotion she didn’t like to acknowledge and was often able to shrug off. In this case, helplessness kept her company, as she stared at her detached friend.
She hit the record button on the camera before the doctors slid Yala’s boxes together. Like magic, her parts reconnected; the spontaneous reaction was too fast for their eyes to witness.
Never having seen anything like it, Sori was caught, like a moth drawn to a flame. Her mind formulated a hundred different scenarios; but none explained the miraculous reconnection of the box, or more importantly, Yala’s body.
How can a human be alive in three different boxes and, at a certain point, in three different locations?
The doctors checked Yala’s vital signs and confirmed that although sedated, her headless body was fully functional. Like Yala’s first box, the murderer had the decency to leave her underwear on.
Hours later, Kevin entered the room. His usual handsome face drooped. His bloodshot eyes allowed you a glimpse into his tortured soul. He stood, slumped in swaying silence, while observing the doctors run their tests. He reciprocated between standing in silence and pacing as his teeth tore off what was left of his nails.
He sat and stared, only to stand and paced some more. Space in the room with tight with four people, therefore Kevin’s pacing was a distraction.
If he got his hands on the killer, Sori was sure she’d have to find a way to keep him from ripping the man apart.
“I’ll be outside,” he announced to no one in particular.
Body Box: Adult Paranormal Romance (Supernatural Thriller) (Dark Suspense) (The Smoke & Fire Series Book 2) Page 17