Peyton didn’t come back for the rest of the night. There was no knocking at the door, so I figured that Zed didn’t, either. The only window in the apartment looked out at the parking lot, and it was so close to the ceiling that I had to hop up and stand on the plastic nightstand to see.
From what I could tell, everything was just as deserted as it had been when Zed and I pulled up. I was angry at him for leaving me in this hellhole, but at least it was quiet. Unlike being at home, I never heard gunshots or sirens. Peyton didn’t even seem to have an excess of weapons lying around.
After he’d left, I’d searched the apartment with care; I hadn’t wanted to go digging. But there was no kitchen and no food, and I was starting to wonder how we were going to eat. After I found five or six empty Chinese food containers, I knew with a sinking feeling that my only nourishment was going to come from that dirty little MSG-ridden shack.
Surprisingly, there wasn’t actually a lot. I found a handgun—which I left in its place under the sink—and this weird knife thing with an animal carved into the handle. I was too afraid to pick that up, too.
I sat down with my laptop and started searching for things about Zed’s sister, Rose. I typed Rose McIntyre into Google and hit enter. At this point, I had no idea whether or not Zed had even been telling the truth about that. For all I knew, he didn’t even have a sister. He’d never mentioned his family before, and I wondered if he’d been lying to manipulate me.
The first search results that I saw were chilling. There was a headline: Local Teen Slain, Neighbors Cower in Fright. I clicked on it and began to read.
The body of Rose McIntyre, a 17-year-old formerly of Detroit, was found by a family member yesterday evening. Her older brother, Zed, 19, was not in the residence at the time. Neighbors recalled seeing a black SUV parked in the driveway and odd music coming from inside of the house but didn’t say that they felt it was anything suspicious. Rose was all set to graduate as salutatorian from Detroit River North High School in May, and she had obtained an academic scholarship to Michigan State University. Her brother could not be reached for comment.
A shiver of fear ran down my spine as I looked at Rose’s picture, in black and white, accompanying the text. She was beautiful: pale skin, long curly blonde hair, the same piercing green eyes that Zed had. In the photo, she was laughing and saying something to the cameraman. In her eyes, I saw an innocence much like my own had been at that point. That was before I’d started college, before I’d started singing, and definitely before I met Zed.
With a start, I realized the newspaper offered very little detail regarding how she died. I leaned back on the mattress and stared at Rose’s photograph until the picture was blurry. Tears came to my eyes as I imagined how frightened she must have been in her final moments alive.
I shuddered and went back to the search results. There were some tribute pages created by her friends—Rose was more popular than I’d ever been, clearly—and some op-eds about how the violence in Detroit was getting out of hand, but nothing too damning. So far, it looked like Zed had been telling me the truth.
Then I found another article that made my blood run cold. It was on one of those local, small paper sites—the kind that usually makes outrageous claims about local celebrities. I half expected it to be a joke, but when I clicked on the headline Brutal Gang Tied To Death of Local Girl, there was the same picture of Rose, right at the top. The article read:
Rose McIntyre, 17, was slain last month by an unknown assailant. Today, police have released more information pertaining to her murder in hopes that new leads will be generated. McIntyre’s body was found nude, with a single diagonal slash mark from her left shoulder down to her right pelvis. She had been disemboweled and died from loss of blood.
I felt myself gagging, but I kept reading.
While initially it was suspected to be a copycat murder, authorities now think the Iron Angels have something to do with it. For the unaware, the Iron Angels are the most notorious gang in Detroit, with branches in Chicago and St. Louis. They’re known for money laundering, dealing heroin, and now, murder. Furthermore, the trademark of the Iron Angels is to kill with a single slash. They’re a fearsome gang without traditional reliance on guns, and authorities have long believed they enjoy the attention that killing brings them.
Was Ms. McIntyre simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, or are we dealing with someone who wasn’t as innocent as she looked?
Anger rose through me; I couldn’t believe how horribly the press had treated Zed’s sister after her murder. She was an innocent seventeen-year-old girl. She hadn’t even graduated from high school yet! My blood boiled as I read the rest of the paragraph, accusing Rose of abusing illegal drugs and hanging out with the wrong crowd.
I swallowed a hard lump. Zed would never let his sister do those things; chances were he tried harder than ever to protect her. I did the math in my head. Zed was nineteen when Rose was killed, and he went to prison when he was twenty-three. That meant he’d had four years after she died to really spiral off the deep end. But even before she died, he’d still been dealing heroin for that gang.
Iron Angels.
The words jumped out at me off the screen, and I blinked twice, rubbing my eyes. There was no mistaking it; the gang that was linked to Rose’s killing was the same gang that Zed had been dealing for. Suddenly, everything made a little bit more sense.
I had a horrible knotted feeling in my stomach, but I still wanted to read more. Closing out of the newspaper tab, I searched for the Iron Angels and their activity in Detroit. There were tons and tons of articles, but I kept seeing one name, The Manticore, jump out at me. Frowning, I clicked on the first one, titled Manticore Gone Missing.
The Manticore, one of the Iron Angels’ most ruthless and vile members, has seemingly disappeared from Detroit. How do we know he’s gone? For one thing, there haven’t been as many murders reported lately. For another, those murders have been tame compared to The Manticore. For those of you who were lucky enough not to be in Detroit last summer, The Manticore is thought to have killed over fifty men and women over the span of two months. Detroit clung to fear as The Manticore ruthlessly slayed citizens of all walks of life. Unlike most serial killers, The Manticore would attack anyone. Women, children, and men of all ages were slaughtered mercilessly in the most brutal fashion possible.
The Manticore often worked with other gang members, but authorities have reason to believe that he did a large amount of killing on his own. In addition to the gruesome hacking and slashing of last summer, The Manticore has branched out and committed many other senseless acts of violence. A gas station owner, Laurie Peters, was reached for comment when his store was robbed last year. Peters was quoted as saying, “This big guy came in with a gun, and just as he was about to rob me, an even bigger guy with a big knife slashed him right across the torso. I’ve never seen anything like it; it was absolutely horrific.” Well, we’ll have to take your word on that, Peters.
As for those of you who don’t know what a manticore is, it’s a mythological creature from ancient Persia. Manticores are creatures with the body of a lion, the face of a man, and the tail of a scorpion. While it sounds like a fearsome beast for sure, don’t forget how much more fearsome the real Manticore is.
Police are now actively seeking information on The Manticore and his hideouts. If you can help, please call 1-800-MAN-CORE. If you or anyone else you know has information leading to his whereabouts (or the whereabouts of the Iron Angels), know there is a $5,000 cash reward.
I closed my laptop and flopped onto the bed with disgust. Through the tiny, dirty window, I could see that the sun was setting. I yawned; I was really tired from not having slept very well the night before. Every time I’d heard a noise, I’d woken up, expecting to be in my own room. Every time it had taken me a few minutes to realize that the sounds were coming from the outside and that I was miles away from home.
The bed smelled mildewy and old, and I wrinkled my nose, trying to find a comfortable position. My allergy irritation hadn’t gone away either; it was so bad that I felt like there was still a dog in the room with me. I didn’t really want Peyton to come back, but being left alone there had made me so incredibly nervous. Through the wall, I could hear the cooks at the Chinese restaurant screaming at each other in bastardized English.
Closing my eyes, I thought about being back at home. I decided that as soon as Zed brought me back, I would take a long bath, then make some popcorn and watch movies all night. Or invite Jackie over for pizza and wine. Anything. I had to do something to cheer myself up; the silence was agonizing and depressing.
Suddenly, there was a rapid banging on the door. My eyes shot open, and I shrank myself down into the smallest possible lump on the bed that I could. The pounding increased, and I pulled a musty blanket over my head, screwing my eyes shut and hoping for the best. It occurred to me too late that I could have easily reached the weird knife or the gun in the bathroom.
I heard the slam of the door banging against the wall and realized that my safe place had been breached. Slowly, I counted to five and pulled the blanket away from my head.
Zed was standing on the other side of the room. “Lily?” He narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing under the covers?”
It was all too much. I burst into tears.