Arsen struggled to control his breathing as he walked faster and faster away from Chuck’s hotel. He knew that if he hesitated for a single second, he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to turn around and catch a final glimpse of Maya before he lost her forever. He needed to keep going, to push himself as hard as possible until he was far away from Maya. It was the only right thing to do, the only way to protect Maya from the danger he’d gotten her into.
He finally made it to the subway station, getting on the first car that would take him back in the general direction of his house, clenching his fists hard the whole ride over to focus his attention on anything other than Maya. But it didn’t work. No matter how he tried to shake them off, her eyes, angry and sad, lingered in his mind like two burning spotlights. He knew he had to let her go eventually, but as the subway rolled to a stop in front of his house, he decided to stop trying to fight it. He would hold Maya’s image in his mind like a candle, letting it light his way until he got the killer. Afterwards, he would consider moving on.
For now, he had to get supplies. Other than the fact that the killer’s phone call originated within the Inked Hunters’ clubhouse, he didn’t have any solid leads to go off of. So instead he decided to camp around the clubhouse to look for the killer, observing the clubhouse’s surroundings rather than tearing it up from the inside out. Once inside his apartment, Arsen quickly grabbed a couple of outfits, some water bottles, and plenty of dry food to tide him over for a few days while he camped out in the woods behind the compound. Based on what Roxie had told them in the hospital, the killer had to have the ability to come and go easily during the day. That meant he was keeping his captives somewhere close to the clubhouse, so he could sneak in and out during the day without arousing any suspicion. Besides, Roxie’s house, which was also near the compound, was close enough to the killer’s hideout that she was able to run home after breaking out. It had to be in the woods. That was the only way the killer would be able to torture the girls without attracting unwanted attention from neighboring houses.
Still, Arsen was aware it was a long shot. There was no way of knowing that the killer hadn’t already disposed of his last captive, successfully finishing whatever perverted religious ritual he was performing. Arsen’s only hope was that Roxie’s disappearance might have knocked off the rhythm of the ritual. He got the sense, especially from Maya’s analysis, that the killer was someone who followed strict rules, conducting himself according to stringent standards in order to please his deity. It was likely that he chose a specific number of girls to kill, and one of them had already gotten away, which meant that the killer would probably try to kidnap at least one other girl to complete the ritual, giving Arsen some time to work with.
For about an hour and a half, Arsen crept quietly through the woods behind the compound, searching for any sign of a multi-story building that the killer could be using. But so far, he had no luck. There was no sign of anyone in the area at all, actually. In fact, there weren’t even any animals that he could see. It was an incredibly lonely place, with tall, bare trees that provided very minimal cover for Arsen as he walked from one area to the next, attempting to find a path without attracting any attention. He thought about the girls, trapped in the basement of the killer’s hideout. I bet they couldn’t even hear the sounds of any birds during the day or crickets at night over the sound of the highway behind the woods, Arsen thought. He wondered if that was what it was like for Lizzie, if she even forgot that wild animals existed during her captivity. She used to love animals, preferring their company to being around other people. In the end, she had neither. She just had darkness. Just like Maya.
Sometimes, he wondered if that was why he loved Maya so much—because she was the only one who could understand what happened to Lizzie. But it was deeper than that, he knew. Some part of him, no matter how irrational, believed that Maya was the only one who could heal him, the only one who could fix all his broken parts and put him back together again. It was absurd, Arsen knew. Maya was broken enough herself. She couldn’t even put herself back together, let alone another person. We were doomed from the start, Arsen thought. Two damaged people acting like it was okay to be who we were. It was never going to work.
Crunch. The sound of a heavy foot pressing down on a pile of leaves tore Arsen away from his inner monologue. His entire body stiffened with anxiety and anticipation as he quickly moved behind a thick, tall tree that was wide enough to hide his form from anybody walking from the other side of the woods. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Whoever was coming had accelerated their pace, coming straight towards him. Beads of sweat began to course down Arsen’s neck, disappearing under the neckline of his shirt.
“You’re never going to get away with this, you know,” a low, feminine voice hissed.
“Shut the fuck up,” a male voice said. “Shut. Up.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me faster?” the woman whispered before laughing loudly, the sound of her bitter cackle ringing out in the empty spaces between the trees.
That sound was so familiar… Arsen knew that noise. He’d had that laugh directed at him a thousand times before. It always felt like it was cutting him in two every time he heard it. It always meant that Maya was mad at him…
Maya!
Arsen peeked around the edge of the tree to see Maya being dragged across the woods in a man’s arms, a blindfold wrapped around her head and a large sharp knife pressed against her neck. The man’s face was turned away from Arsen, but the shape of the man’s body was familiar, too. But it wasn’t until the man spoke again that it clicked.
“You’re going to taste so good. Bitches always taste the best,” the man growled into Maya’s neck.
That’s when it hit him.
Zane Havens was the killer.