Chapter 4

An abandoned, half-built concrete shell on the edge of town.

The news sent a jolt of adrenaline through the entire team, Mom included. Everyone scrambled to gear up, ready to head out for forensic processing.

As the chief medical examiner, Mom was vital to the operation.

She put on her tactical gear, her expression dead-serious and sharp, and climbed into the squad car with the other detectives.

When the cruisers slowly pulled up before the rotting concrete skeleton, an overwhelming, sickening stench of iron and rot slammed into the car.

The odor was so thick and pungent it made their stomachs violently heave.

Mom and the others grimaced, took a steadying breath, and stepped inside the derelict structure.

The interior was dim, thick with that vomit-inducing stench.

The concrete walls were splattered with dried, violent arcs of blood; trash and rusty debris littered the floor.

Staring at the horrific scene, my ghostly form couldn't stop shivering.

The day the killer took me, the sky had been an ugly, bruised gray.

Rachel had suddenly called me out of the blue.

Her voice had sounded remarkably sincere through the phone. She claimed that after all these years, she finally realized how wrong she had been to me, and that she wanted to lay flowers at Grandma's grave to show her remorse.

I didn't doubt her for a single second. After all, people could change, couldn't they? So without hesitation, I agreed to meet her.

I followed the address Rachel texted me.

It was an isolated, derelict factory yard, miles away from civilization, with nothing but the bitter wind howling in my ears.

The second I stepped through the door, a crushing force struck the back of my head. Everything went black.

As I drifted between agonizing consciousness and blacking out, I groggily overheard Rachel talking to a man.

Rachel's voice carried a chilling blend of smugness and venom: "I lured her here for you. If you want your revenge, take it. Just don't ever contact me again."

The man grunted, clearly annoyed by her attitude. "Keep your mouth shut. If you blow this, I won't hesitate to come after you next."

Rachel waved him off with total disdain. "Relax. I want her dead more than you do."

After Rachel left, the man realized I was coming to.

He walked over slowly, roughly gripping my chin. His cold, soulless eyes seemed to drill right through my soul.

He stared at me for a long, silent moment before slamming a heavy fist into my face. The sheer pain nearly suffocated me.

Then, he pulled out a small, curved skinning knife. He waved the gleaming blade before my face, and without a shred of hesitation, carved my eye right out of its socket.

The agony was so absolute I felt my soul rip in half. The entire world fell into endless darkness.

As I passed out from the pain, the man didn't stop. He used my phone to place a video call to my mother, wanting her to see the horrific state I was in.

Yet Mom declined the call without a second thought. When he tried calling again, he realized he had been instantly blocked.

Cursing in disgust, he hurled my phone against the concrete wall, smashing it to pieces.

When I woke up again, it was because he dumped a bucket of freezing water over my head.

Soaked and shivering uncontrollably, my teeth chattered violently.

I had no idea who this monster was, or why he was doing this to me.

The pain was so blinding I couldn't even force a scream past my lips; I could only endure it in silence.

I don't know how long I sat in that suffocating darkness before the man's raspy voice cut through the air again. "Because of your cop dad, my son is gone. He just stole some cash—did he really deserve the death penalty?" he sneered slowly. "A father's debt is paid by the child. You're going to pay for it with your life."

With that, he picked up the knife and began slicing into my flesh, strip by agonizing strip.

The torture pushed me past the brink of sanity, but I was completely powerless to fight back.

In the end, I was too broken to make a sound, completely numb to the torment.

All I could do was silently wait for death to swallow me whole.

Back in the present, while Mom was hyper-focused on analyzing every blood splatter on the wall, a piercing ringtone shattered the silence of the scene.

"Chief... the DNA results... they just came back," her assistant's voice shook violently through the speaker, unable to hide the terror and panic.