Chapter Nineteen
“Derek, I need some information,” Asa cut to the chase as soon as he walked into his friend’s office.
Derek glared at him as he got up from his desk and closed the door for privacy. “You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve coming in here and asking me to help you with something I’ve told you, I’m not doing anymore. Do you have any idea what could happen if someone was to find out what you’ve done?”
“Considering what I’ve done has saved other people, I might be awarded a medal.”
“Don’t be so fucking glib. Don’t you understand the position you’re putting me in. What you’re doing can lead back to me and I’m not going down for this bullshit anymore.”
Asa took a seat in front of Derek’s desk and waited for his excitable friend to calm down. The truth was, even if there was another service that could handle what he wanted with Derek’s discretion, they simply wouldn’t do. No one understood like he and Derek. Asa had seen that look of utter defeat in Derek’s eyes the night that pig had essentially gotten off for murdering his own child. Derek understood more than anyone else the need to rid the world of monsters. And now more than ever, Asa needed to remind him that now wasn’t the time to start developing a conscious because what they did was necessary. What they did kept people safe.
“Are you finished with your rant?”
“You haven’t listened to a goddamn word I’ve said, have you?”
Asa reached into his leather carrying case and pulled out a folder before tossing it on Derek’s desk. His friend eyed it warily. “What is that?”
“Open it and find out.”
Derek gave him a hard stare before letting out a sigh of apparent frustration. “I don’t know why I bother with you sometimes.” He took the seat behind his desk but not before opening up his drawer and pulling out a bottle of aspirin. He poured a handful in his hand, popped them into his mouth and chased them down with the glass of water sitting on his desk. “I have to take these because I have a feeling I’m going to have a headache by the time you leave.”
Asa didn’t respond to Derek’s histrionics, instead he waited for the other man to glance through the folder.
Derek sighed, opened it up and frowned. “What’s all this?”
“I need you to glance through every single article to understand what we’re dealing with.”
Asa waited while his friend read through the clippings he’d complied.
Derek frowned as confusion clouded his face. “I believe I remember this story years ago. That poor kid. I often wonder what happened to her when they took her out of that house of horrors.”
“You’ve met her.”
“What? No, I haven’t.”
“You must be getting forgetful in your old age because I even remember you asked her if she thought I was dangerous.”
“No.” Derek shook his head in disbelief. “That wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been.”
“Why are you surprised that she’s a survivor? I survived what happened to me.”
“Yeah but she seemed so…normal.”
Asa raised a brow. “We all wear masks in the light. But yes, she’s normal according to the standards of society. There are, however, scars she still bears. Every now and then, she suffers the occasional nightmare. When I met her, she was afraid of her own shadow. Since I’ve known her, however, she’s come into her own.”
Derek squinted his eyes. “Is that why you’re with her? You have this sick rescue fantasy in your mind about her? I know you like to call yourself some type of monster hunter but are you with this girl just because of what she’s gone through?”
“I’m with her because she’s mine. The second I laid eyes on her, I saw a kindred spirit and as I came to know her, I realized that I wasn’t wrong. So in a way, it is a rescue, as you put it. She’s rescued me. It’s because of her I can breathe and be me.”
Derek snorted. “But, she doesn’t know the real you. What you do to those people.”
“They aren’t people.”
“Fine. What you do to those monsters. Just promise me that you won’t do any of this to her. She seems like a very nice woman.”
“She is.”
Derek eyed the contents of the folder again. “So, what exactly do you want me to do with all this stuff?”
“I just needed to give you a reminder of why you helped me in the first place. Do you see those articles, what happened to her? When I make love to Jamie, I still see the scars on her body, cigarette burns and a deep scar cause by a belt buckle. She’s ashamed of those marks as if they were her fault. When I take her out to eat, she holds the plate so close to her body and eats fast, as if that’s her last meal. She knows the food is plentiful and she’ll never go hungry again, but that’s one of her little idiosyncrasies. It’s because that monster starved her.
“Jamie doesn’t think I notice but I do. I notice everything. Do you know when the authorities found her, she was mistaken for a very small child instead of a teenage girl? She was so underweight and her growth was stunted from malnutrition, while every single member of that household was obese. I remember reading that story of the overabundance of food in the cabinet. There was even an article about how the stepmother was a super coupon collector and had created a storage room of excess food. Yet, Jamie was on the verge of death. If she hadn’t been found when she was, her organs would have literally shut down. They kept her hidden away from society with no other human contact or education. It’s a surprise she wasn’t completely feral at the time of her rescue. That’s what those monsters did to her. And now, the biggest perpetrator of that abuse is being released because of a technicality. Monsters like that don’t deserve to live. And, I thought you understood that.”
“I do but—”
“But, remember the Martin boy? Several fractured bones, and clear fist prints all over that little body that probably would have taken down an adult three times his size. He’d been hit so hard that his lungs collapsed. Do you remember what you said to me that night?”
“Don’t fucking throw my words back in my face!”
“What did you say, Derek?”
The other man ran his hair through his hair. “I said, ‘Some people don’t deserve to live.’”
“You weren’t wrong.”
“This man has paid his debt to society.”
“No, he got out of prison on a technical issue. That’s hardly justice. Do you think he feels remorse for what he’s done?”
“Okay, say you went after him. Then what? Will you go after the stepmother? From my understanding, she didn’t get as long a sentence. She’s probably free somewhere living her life. Are you going to go after her, too? And what about the sisters? Will you stalk them as well?”
“I won’t because he was the main one. But for your information, I did some digging and found out she died in a car accident a few years back. One of her daughters was in the car with her. The other one is living on the other side of the country and has since changed her name. My understanding is that she’s had ongoing health issues and lives alone.”
“You were thorough, weren’t you?”
“I have to be. People don’t get caught because of great detective work. They get caught because of sloppiness.”
“I wish I could argue that point but with most of the cases I’ve worked, we found most of our clues through sheer dumb luck. Look, Asa, you’re my friend and I’m concerned that you’re taking this vendetta of yours way too far. I’ve never seen you do what you do, but when you talk about those people, there’s this chilling look in your eyes. It’s like you’re not even there. Instead, in your place is a horror movie maniac. You may think you’re on some altruistic quest but the truth is, you like it. You live for the kill. And I have to ask, how do you think Jamie would feel if she ever found out? Do you believe she’d stay with you? Most sane people wouldn’t. In fact, she might even go to the police.”
“She won’t go to the police.”
“But what if she did? I’m trying to be the voice of reason here. Listen, it’s not like you go after people who won’t be missed. They’ve only recently stopped looking for that councilman and he disappeared months ago. And that Sunday School teacher? Women in the area were in a panic when she went missing. There was even speculation that the two disappearances were somehow connected. You know what happens when people start connecting the dots; they start throwing out labels and you know what they’d say about you.”
Serial killer.
Asa shrugged. “We all have our issues.”
“If you’re not going to take this seriously, then you need to leave. I can’t be involved in this anymore.”
Asa rolled his eyes heavenward and sighed. “Okay, look I get it. What I do would make most people uncomfortable, present company included. Do I get a kick out of it when I wipe these monsters off the face of the Earth? You’re damn right, I do. I get a rush, I can’t explain. I can keep doing it over and over just to watch them all die again. I just need this one more, for Jamie. I promised I’d protect her and slay all of her monsters.”
“You sound insane.”
“Maybe I am but for Jamie, there’s nothing I won’t do.”
“Stop trying to justify this shit. You were doing this shit long before you met her.”
“Maybe so, but I intend to stop because of her.”
Derek snorted in obvious disbelief. “You’re so full of shit. You can’t stop any more than an addict can quite drugs.”
“My salvation is through Jamie but this monster in particular, needs to be taken care of.”
“And who’s to say you won’t do this again when you come across someone else you deem worthy of execution.”
“I suppose I’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But for now, that’s my intention. I want to build my life with Jamie. No more hunting.”
“You know you sound insane, right?”
“Maybe I am, but aren’t we all?”
“You’re asking me to cross another and…I don’t know if I can do this again. Look, I agree that the people you’ve taken out were scums of the Earth but you can’t keep doing this. This…this quest you’ve set yourself on only leads down a path of self-destruction. You can lie to yourself and say that it’s because of Jamie you’re doing this, but you’re doing this for yourself.”
Asa tilted his head back and exhaled. There was so much more to it that Derek didn’t know. Derek knew a little about Asa’s past and what had set him off in the first place. But, his friend could never comprehend what it was like to live with a pain so great that it turned you into something so vile that sometimes you couldn’t stand to look at yourself in the mirror. And the only way to relieve that pain, was kill the monsters you were afraid of becoming.
No, Derek would never understand. He needed this. Needed it to move on and settle down with his Jamie to live the life he’d been robbed of.
“You remember the Martin kid. He’s the one that started it for you but not me. There was one before him. A little girl. I was still in med school and it was my first week of shadowing one of the doctors. This girl was rushed to the hospital covered from head to toe with bruises. Her parents were junkies who sold her to some degenerate who used her like some crack whore. She was 9 years old. Her face was so swollen that she couldn’t open her eyes. And, I was the one who sat beside her and held her hand as she took her last breath because her parents were somewhere OD’ing. Before she died, she asked me if there ponies in heaven. Ponies! Through all the abuse, all she wanted to be was a little girl and those monsters robbed her of that. It’s my greatest regret that her parents robbed me of the chance to take them out myself. But, it reawakened the beast within in. I snuff out monsters. That’s what I do. And, I’ll never apologize for it. I’d rather you help me than to go to someone else. Because I know you understand what it’s like to see these dregs of society go unscathed while innocents suffer.”
Derek lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. He let out a deep sigh. “Fine. But after this time, we’re done. I can’t do this anymore, Asa.”
Asa nodded. “I understand.”
“Just tell me what you need and I’ll get it for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t fucking thank me.”
Asa couldn’t concern himself with Derek’s feelings because he was a man on a mission. “I need an additional person investigated as well. Not for what you’re thinking, though.”
“Who?” Derek asked sounding frustrated.
“A Dr. Maria Nguyen.”