Arsen stared at The Blade’s symbol some more. It definitely looked like it was drawn by a man, at the very least, although to be fair, most serial killers were men anyway, especially those that specifically targeted young girls. He put the piece of paper down, accepting that there was no magical hidden message that he was going to understand from the murderer’s insignia. Arsen picked up the photograph of Roxie again, absorbing all the details of her face. She had a heart-shaped face with a pronounced widow’s peak at the top of her forehead. Just like Elizabeth did… Arsen thought.
He jumped out of his seat and turned to the window behind his desk, staring hard at the flaming sun that rose above the horizon. It was hard to think about Elizabeth, even the good, happy memories of her. His little sister was forever crystallized in his mind as a twelve-year-old girl—peppy, sassy, and fun to annoy. But sometimes, at night right before he’d fall asleep, the images would come, images of little Lizzie tied up, crying, and desperate for someone to come save her. But nobody ever did.
“I shouldn’t have taken this case,” he whispered to himself as he stared out of the window, down on the city below. He was trying to get his life together, after all, maybe cut back on the cigarettes and the booze and stop hanging around bars just to pick up cheap women. But he knew, without even thinking about it, that none of that was going to happen as long as he was working on this case. It would consume him, the way Lizzie’s had when he was a teenager. He’d be obsessed with finding the fucker that was taking little girls off of the streets, cutting open their bodies before cutting out their hearts to send in the mail to their families. So far, there had been no real leads, no fingerprints, no DNA, no microfibers to match with the killer’s clothing—nothing, absolutely nothing. Arsen knew he would fight this to the end, but for that to happen, he needed to find something, anything, to go off of. Maybe the girl’s diary would have some clues, but he already knew that it wasn’t going to be enough.
I need to know what he is before I can figure out who he is, Arsen thought to himself as he stepped back from the window, walking over to the corner where he kept his laptop computer under lock and key. You never knew whether or not to expect a break-in in this city, at least in the neighborhood that Arsen worked in. He unlocked his case and pried open his computer, typing in his password and opening up a web browser. He didn’t exactly know what he was doing; his fingers moved over the keyboard of their own accord, acting without letting his brain in on the plan. But in his mind, the same sentences repeated over and over again in an endless loop. I have to understand him if I’m going to find him. I have to get into his brain. I have to understand him. I have to get into his brain.
He opened up his email account to send a new e-mail. He hesitated with his cursor hovering above the address line. Arsen had to think about it for a few seconds, but the e-mail address still lingered in the back of his mind like persistent, sticky moss. “Fee-fi-fo-fum,” Arsen said out loud as he typed it out in the designated location on the screen. That was Maya’s username, assuming that she hadn’t changed her e-mail address since they last saw each other; she used it for everything. Maya had ended things between them over a year ago now.
Arsen typed out the text of his message quickly, allowing his fingers to fly over the keyboard, free from a filter. He was never very good at figuring out what Maya wanted him to say. Why bother trying to do that now?
“Hi, Maya, been a long time. I need to talk to you about something. You’re the only one who will understand. Please get back to me. Yours, Arsen.”
It was only when he hit “Send” that a great big, hard lump formed in his throat, intense anxiety hitting him all at once. What have I done? Fuck. Goddammit, I’m an idiot, Arsen thought, tossing his head back and groaning out loud. She’s not going to answer me, he thought to himself, getting to his feet again to pace around his office aimlessly. She’s never going to speak to me again.
But somehow, he knew that wasn’t true. Maybe that was why he felt sick to his stomach all of a sudden, because he knew she would say yes. She would help him. Arsen would drag her back into this mess, like Hades carrying Persephone off into the underworld. She probably fought so hard to get away from all of this, he thought, the sick sensation of guilt weighing heavily in his chest. She probably just wants to forget. She probably just wants to heal. I should let her do that.
But his computer made a high, chirping noise, a notification that he just received an email. He knew it was from her before he even looked. She was always prompt like that, answering things right away. It almost made him smile to think about. Maybe she hasn’t changed. Maybe she’s still just Maya. My Maya. He sat down again to look at the email, his heart pounding in his throat as he opened it, sweat starting to appear in the creases of his arms and legs. By the time he opened the message, he was practically palpitating, but there was only one sentence in her response. “What do you want?”
# # #
Maya chewed furiously on her fingernails, gnawing so hard that one of them broke right in between her teeth. Disgusted, she quickly picked it out of her mouth and threw it in the trashcan under her desk. She’d just opened up her computer five minutes earlier to check and see if there were any emails on her current cases. She certainly wasn’t prepared to see a message from Arsen waiting for her like an innocent-looking bomb.
She didn’t even know why she opened it. As soon as she saw who the sender was, she should’ve placed it straight in the virtual recycling bin. But her finger just moved and clicked and the deed was done, just like that. The subject line was just an infuriatingly casual, “Hello.” Maya groaned and placed her head in her hands before banging it down lightly against the wooden surface of her desk. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she berated herself before looking back up at her screen. She quickly read the text of the message, huffing out a bitter, humorless laugh in the process. This fucker just got bored and has decided to poke at me for his own amusement, Maya thought to herself, clicking the “Reply” button and typing out a response without even thinking about it. Only after she sent it did she actually consider the consequences of what she had done. She’d acknowledged his message, which basically meant she’d validated whatever stupid urge he had that made him bother her. She’d just invited him back into her life, and he didn’t even have to work at it. Goddammit!
Maya could do nothing but wait now, tapping her feet impatiently while she felt herself grow physically hotter as her anxiety mounted. “Hurry the fuck up,” she murmured under her breath. She couldn’t exactly wait all day for him to respond, after all. She had cases to work on, families that needed her help. Sure, it was slow-going, most days—there wasn’t a whole lot of violence in the small town where she’d chosen to live after breaking up with Arsen—but that was what Maya needed right now. She’d chosen peace. She’d chosen quiet. That was the life that she needed, the life that she wanted. Why the hell had she done anything to disturb that? She could only blame old habits. Old Maya had been addicted to fighting with Arsen. It just came so naturally. But New Maya? New Maya had a responsibility to other things. To other people. She couldn’t let Arsen get in the way.
She was just about to close her laptop and head back into her bedroom, where Chuck was waiting for her, when she saw another new e-mail, again from Arsen. This time, she had a moment to think about it, to consider her options. I should just toss it in the trash. I should change my e-mail address. I should pretend that he never fucking existed, she thought. But…then I’ll always be wondering.
And that was the problem, wasn’t it? The wondering. It was the biggest issue in Maya’s life right now, which was going pretty fantastically otherwise. As a victims’ advocate, she got do to real, genuinely good work, work that connected her to people rather than keeping her isolated. That was a change of pace for her, but she was adapting to it as well as possible. She was proving that she was flexible, that she was kind, that she was compassionate. She was whole. She was a total, complete person, not a broken shell like she’d always feared she’d be. She had a relationship, too, a good one. A healthy, average relationship, not one forged by passion, torn asunder by every burst of bad wind that got in the way. It was the kind of relationship that normal, functioning people had. That was what Maya wanted. But…she couldn’t help but wonder, now and again, if that was only because she didn’t have anything to tempt her here. Maybe she hadn’t really fixed her problems. Maybe she was still-fucked up but nobody could see it because she lived in such a nice, stable place. Maybe, if faced with the darkness again, she would fall into it headfirst. Maybe her shiny, new, fancy life was untested, unchallenged. Maybe she only thought she’d beaten all her demons because she’d just run away from them. Maybe they were still waiting for her. Maybe after everything she was still…addicted.
How would she ever know if she didn’t test it out to see?
So Maya clicked on the message, scanning it as rapidly as her eyes would allow. “Maya, hi,” she read out loud, repeating the message to herself so it would sink in. “Sorry to bother you like this, but I need your help. It’s happening again. What happened to Elizabeth. What happened to you. It’s here in the city. I need your help to find him. Please reply to me as soon as you get the chance.”
Maya scoffed a little at the last sentence, resenting the demanding tone. Arsen would always do that, sneak in little commands when she wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t even notice that he was doing it. Maya used to think that was the way that all men were, but after being with Chuck for the past several months, she was now beginning to realize that it was a biker thing. Arsen’s MC, the Inked Hunters, had shaped him as much as “the incident,” as Maya referred to it in her brain, had shaped her. It had molded her to the exact configuration she was today. If she hadn’t been kidnapped and tortured as a teenager, she probably never would have become a victims’ advocate. She definitely wouldn’t have been a criminal profiler, although those days were behind her now that she had left the city.
In any case, maybe it was “the incident’s” fault that she started typing out a reply almost immediately, even though she was keenly aware that she was running late for her first appointment of the day. Some things take precedence, like dealing with stupid assholes, she thought, justifying her decision to herself as she typed out the following message: “What do you mean, it’s happening again? They caught The Hammer years ago. I was there, remember?” She sent the message before digging her phone out of her pocket and calling her first client, leaving a message to say that she was running late. She’d take notes on the woman’s abuse later. For now, she had to deal with this nagging feeling that kept tugging at her thoughts, making her sway back and forth nervously in her seat. Less than a minute after she’d sent the previous message, Arsen got back to her.
“Not him. A copycat. Or maybe just another person with the same fucked-up hobby. Twelve girls dead. Two missing. Help me find them.”
She stared at the message for what felt like an eternity, letting each word sink in, one after another after another, until it clicked in her brain. She’d heard about this, a string of vaguely connected killings in the city. The cops kept arguing whether or not they were all conducted by the same person. That was the last thing that Maya had heard about it, anyway. She tried not to pay much attention to what was going on in the city. It was more peaceful out here, where you could actually see the stars and smell the fresh grass, untouched by human hands. It was safe here. When she first moved, she felt like she had somehow climbed back into her mother’s womb, shielded from the outside world.
But here was Arsen, bursting back in, breaking the protective bubble around her with just a few words. Maya swallowed hard, straightening up in her seat to type out a reply. “Why don’t you just leave it to the cops?” she wrote.
As soon as she sent it, she leaned back in her chair, letting her neck bend backward as she tried to fight off the images that were attempting to flood her brain at the moment. Chains. Blood. The flash of a smile so sharp that it looked like a knife cutting through the gentle darkness. These were the things that made up her nightmares for over ten years now. These were the things that followed her, that haunted her, that made her remember that she wasn’t a normal girl. She was broken open. She was ruined. Even all those years as a criminal profiler, she never stopped blaming herself for it. She never got over it. At some point, Maya started to think that was a myth: “getting over it.” She didn’t think that really happened, maybe not for anyone.
She rocked back and forth in the chair, breathing deeply to calm down as she saw another message from Arsen. “You know what they’re like. Useless in a case like this. I need your mind, Maya. I need to understand him. You know what I’m talking about.”
Understand him. The unspoken compliment was there, hidden between those two words, but it felt like an insult. The implication was that Maya could understand the murderer. Of course, she could. She’d known one so well, after all, spending all those months making his acquaintance all those years ago. Maya was practically panting for air now, fighting off the anxiety attack that she knew wanted to hit her in this moment. “Stop it,” she grunted at herself as she bent over, sticking her head in between her knees to fight the onslaught of nausea that was attacking her stomach. She could not afford to be weak. She couldn’t fall apart just thinking about what happened to her as a kid, even if this entire situation was triggering her like crazy. She was stronger now, right?
She finally straightened back up, her body now calm except for her increasingly labored breathing. Maya slowly typed out another reply. “Why should I help you?” She knew it was overly harsh. Arsen might have deserved a lot of things, but she wasn’t sure her rudeness was one of them. Even so, it was a shield, one last barrier between her and Arsen, something to make sure that she wasn’t…tempted.
Maya just stared at the screen until Arsen’s reply popped up on the screen. “It’s not about me,” Maya whispered out loud as she read along. “It’s about the girls. We can save them. Together.”
Maya felt her heart stutter in her chest, that last word scaring her so much she might’ve actually stopped breathing entirely for a minute there. She knew she was a hysterical mess, a bundle of nerves masquerading as a person, but that realization didn’t help her calm down very much. Still, she inhaled deeply and leaned forward in her chair, putting her face as close to the computer as possible so that Chuck wouldn’t see the messages if he snuck up behind her.
“We can’t save anything. We couldn’t even save our relationship. I don’t want to go to the city just to see two girls die,” Maya typed back.
Arsen’s response came back in what felt like mere seconds, even if in reality it was longer. Either way, Maya knew he was doing exactly what she was, hovering over his computer, anxiously awaiting her responses. He was always as tightly-wound as she was. Chuck was different. He was so relaxed all the time, so chill. He was the opposite of intense, in all situations. It was comforting, most of the time. But some of the time… Well, Maya didn’t want to think about that right now, not when she was talking to Arsen, at least.
“I know. But don’t you want to come see two girls survive? Just once?” Arsen wrote.
Maya sat back in her chair, focusing on the way her muscles ached, her body immediately feeling exhausted even when her brain was just considering going back into the murder business. When she first started victims’ advocate work, it was in the city, living with Arsen. She’d meet up with murder victims’ families, tell them it wasn’t their fault, and help them hold up in court when they had to testify. And then she’d leave them behind as new cases emerged, new murders that just piled up and up and up as the months went by. No matter what, she couldn’t heal those families. She couldn’t restore them, not really, not ever. It was grueling, soul-destroying work, if Maya was being honest. It was much easier for her to deal with the small-town troubles, the domestic abuse survivors. Instead of having to console people, she was able to take action here to prevent murders from happening by removing women from dangerous environments. This was the work that made her feel good, that made her feel whole.
The murders…they were all already done. What good could she really accomplish? What good was there in telling people that life was still worth living when their reason for being was snatched away?
Arsen’s message just sat there, the screen glowing on Maya’s face. She didn’t know what to say. Yes, it would be nice, just once, for there to be a survivor other than Maya. It would be wonderful, just once, if someone else got away. If it wasn’t just her that got to live—while all the other nameless, faceless, anonymous young women had to lay down their lives in punishment for the crime of being born a girl—that would have been great. But Maya didn’t live in that world.
Could she say all that to Arsen? Would he understand, or would he hate her for refusing to help him when he most needed it? Why do I care if he hates me? It’s none of my business anymore, she reminded herself
Before she could type out a response to his last message, another one from Arsen appeared on her screen. “Don’t you want to feel good, for once?”
She was tempted to reply back, “I do feel good. I feel good all the time. Here, with Chuck, in my new life, I feel plenty good,” but somehow, that answer felt hollow to her. Sending it would have felt like a lie, something else to punish herself for. Instead, she let her fingers do the talking, typing out, “Yes” and hitting “Send” before she had a chance to overthink it.
“Oh, Jesus,” she murmured out loud to herself, finally getting up from her chair and walking back to the bedroom to get her jacket before leaving the apartment. Chuck was still in bed, cuddling up to Maya’s pillow, still half-asleep. Maya walked over to the side of the bed to drop a kiss on his head, and he immediately awoke, mumbling something incoherent before wrapping his arms around her.
“I gotta go!” Maya said as she pulled away, laughing. “Listen, I have to talk to you later, okay?” She would procrastinate the fateful conversation to this evening, partly because she really had to go see her client but more importantly because she didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with it right now.
For now, Maya would pretend that none of this had happened. For one last day, she would enjoy pretending to be a normal person before diving back into reality. That was what Arsen represented to her: the truth that she could never run from. She’d turn back and face it one last time, face all the dark truths of her life, and then she’d be free of them forever.