“Motherfucker!”
And it was over as soon as it had begun.
Before she could blink, she was completely alone in the stall, his body gone from behind her, his hands gone from beside hers.
Morana stood there, breathing hard, just watching the place where his hands had been.
The once smooth white wall beside her hands was cracked, fissures appearing in small grooves in it, the clean white space painted crimson.
She swallowed, her eyes latching on to a drop of blood sliding down that wall, leaving a streak on scar behind it, marring the pristine white.
A drop of blood rolling down.
He was bleeding.
She went to bed later that night, after taking care of her wound, lying down silently, trying to understand what had happened, when her phone chimed.
It was a message, from an unknown number, with a multimedia file attached. Morana looked at it, her heart picking up as she sat up in the bed and saw the number.
It was the same number which had sent her the article; the same number she’d been unable to track.
Taking a deep breath, uncertain of what she would find next, Morana tapped on the multimedia icon, to find a folder. Squinting, Morana looked at the small fonts, reading the name of the folder.
Luna Evelyn Caine.
Her breath caught. With shaky hands, Morana clicked on the icon and found out why he was bleeding.
She couldn’t stop trembling.
Something had moved inside her again, shifted, been replaced, been awakened and deadened. Turmoil coiled in her belly like a hungry beast salivating for food.
Morana closed the bedroom door behind her and stepped out into the pale morning light that flooded the living room. Her eyes looking out the tall windows, she took in the sun that was barely out in the sky. The clouds were roiling along the horizon, headed towards the city, giving the skyline a majestic albeit morose backdrop as the wind whipped the sea into currents.
It was barely four in the morning, and she hadn’t slept a wink the entire night. Hadn’t even tried to.
And it wasn’t because of her arm.
It was because of what she’d discovered.
Morana didn’t know who the anonymous man or woman was, or if it was even a single person rather than a group, who had sent her the article a few hours ago, but they were resourceful, finding things she hadn’t even had an inkling of, from sources she hadn’t known existed.
Personal things.
Things that had twisted her stomach into knots and made bile rise in her throat.
According to the information in the folder titled ‘Luna Evelyn Caine’, Morana had found out, to an extent, truths that made a whole lot of sense but she had never known about.
She’d already known about the girls who’d gone missing never to be found again in Tenebrae and nearby areas about twenty years ago. She’d also known that Tristan Caine’s baby sister had been one of the missing girls.
What she hadn’t known were the speculations about the kidnappings. How the authorities had suspected one, or maybe two people working together, with no clue as to what purpose. But the anonymous source had given her enough evidence – which she’d pored over for hours – to make her realize it had been much bigger than one or two men. It had been the work of a group of very strong, very powerful people. What for, she didn’t know. What could young, little girls ever get anyone if not ransom?
There had been enough lewd details to make her want to be sick, but still, it hadn’t been that which had brought her to the edge.
It had been about her.
The fact that she’d been one of the little girls too.
She’d seen her own photograph staring back at her, her chubby cheeks wet with tears as she sat along with two other little girls.