by Mitch Goth
Ezra awoke early in the morning, something he got used to in prison. He rolled out of bed and was ready to take on another day of drawing on maps and drawing closer to conclusions. Before he walked out of the small, bland, and sparsely furnished bedroom, he stopped to look into a face-sized mirror on the wall. It was the only mirror in the entire place. His fingers nimbly whisked his hair around to get rid of his bed head. A few tugs and twists later and he had something that resembled a poorly done haircut.
He wandered out of the bedroom and was astounded by the sight before him. Kellen was in the exact spot he had left her several nighttime hours earlier. She was bent over the dining table, staring into three different maps. The only thing that had changed from his perspective since he'd gone to bed was her vocal pattern. Through hard work and utter lack of sleep, Kellen had begun to mutter in a hush. It sounded insane, almost demonic in tone and pitch. In that moment, Ezra felt bad for his new counterpart. If he knew she would have actually stayed up all night with an obsession, he would have at least done the liberty of making her another pot of coffee.
"Morning, Kellen," he spoke restfully.
"What?" She spun around in an instant, bearing down on him with bloodshot eyes and a rabid brain behind them. "Well, good to know that you've gotten your lazy ass outta bed. Now you want to make your stupid fucking furlough worth it? Help me out over here."
"Why the bitterness this morning?"
"Why the bitterness? You did not just ask me that. I'm bitter because the fucking serial killer I'm forced to tote around like a handbag just left me all night to stress and worry about finding some kidnapped, suffering teen by drawing random lines on maps and hoping that something in my mind would click!"
"When you say it like that it doesn't sound particularly nice."
"I'm not trying to be nice!"
"Okay, here's what to do. You're going to lie down on the couch and sleep for a few hours...or days. After that, we'll figure all this out together. Sound good enough to you?"
He watched her mind tick away through her symphony of facial expressions. It started with anger, then confusion, then more anger, then what looked vaguely of melancholy, and lastly an exhausted acceptance. It seemed like quite the emotional roller coaster for her, but Ezra was happy Kellen took his advice and got up out of the dining chair and walked over to the couch. As soon as she was within reach, she toppled down onto it and fell away from consciousness.
"I'll take that as a yes," Ezra said.
After Kellen had fallen asleep, Ezra took a moment to walk over to the couch and looked at her. A lot of thoughts ran through his mind at that moment. She was intriguingly attractive, even through her exhaustion and overall disheveled look. Despite that, he could see that there was much more potential in her physicality than a basic form of beauty. Not like he much cared about looks and things of that sort, but it could have been something worth telling her at some point, once all of her worrisome situations had subsided.
Thinking beyond her looks, another idea took over Ezra's head. It was an amazing opportunity. As he looked down at her, he recalled the kitchen utensils. There were knives of all kinds in that collection. He could plunge one into her neck while she slept and she would be gone in seconds, it probably wouldn't even hurt. After that, he could run off and have some good fun as a fugitive. Maybe even land on America's Most Wanted once or twice before he went down.
Ezra laughed at that thought. For one, it was preposterousness. America's Most Wanted did an entire episode about him after his capture. What reason would he have to want to be on it again? In addition, a fugitive is always running around and Ezra wasn't much for running unless he had someplace special to go. And most importantly, he was not someone who would kill a person who didn't have it coming to them. Kellen was overworked, stressed, annoying, and overbearing, but far from murder worthy.
A few more moments of thought passed, and then Ezra stepped away from the couch. His babysitter needed her beauty sleep. Besides, he had work to do. Walking over to the maps on the table, he noticed Kellen's patterns. She called them random, he figured anything but. By the time he got out of bed, she had gotten far closer to their answer. Now that she had done so much of the work, the least he could do was put all the pieces she had found together. And so as Kellen slept, Ezra sat down and took over the meticulous job of staring at maps.
18