Page 51 of Fight
“Down the hall, third door on the left,” I tell him and then follow after them as they all head in the direction that I’ve told them.
I automatically pass the folder to Rome since this is the sort of thing that he’d like to verify to make sure that we’ve covered everything. His lips twitch as he takes it off me and starts to flick through it while Ace and Cecil take seats in front of the security monitors and start to talk in technical jargon that I don’t understand and that I didn’t even realise was necessary for this situation.
While they’re doing that, and because I have nothing to do, my mind begins to wander. You know I really thought that I’d find it more difficult being back here; if I’m being completely honest with myself, I was dreading it. I really thought that something would trigger me, and that’s not been the case. I’ve been able to detach myself from this place entirely, which is weird in itself.
Walking around, I can remember everything but it’s long enough ago, and I’m in such a different place in my life now that it’s not affecting me how I thought it would. Of course, I haven’t seen the box yet, the place where my ‘training’ took place and where I was buried underground and had to escape while terrifying things happened around me and above me. It’s probably not even used anymore, I mean there’s no need for it to be used for training like it was with me, because there have been no more kids born to the families and that is something that we know for certain.
We’ve checked in on the town regularly enough to ensure that there were no more children, and if we ever found out that there were, we would’ve come back for them. There was no way that we were going to leave them to the same fate that we went through. Ace also had several searches running on databases to make sure that no new births were registered as well; again, I have no idea how that fucking works but it does and we haven’t had to rescue any kids.
Chapter Eighteen
Rip
“We’ve got it,” Cecil says grimly.
Rome and I brace ourselves and move closer to the screens so that we can see as well as Rome glances down at the folder in his hands, even though I know he’s memorised it by now, and says, “There are twelve employees, none of them seem to have kids apart from Fiona who has a son called Harry, and it says that the father isn’t in the picture and is actually unknown. She looked into it and couldn’t find him herself. She wanted to make sure that he wasn’t going to cause any issues.”
“Okay, so we’re looking for twelve employees?” Ace clarifies.
Rome nods, “Yeah, there aren’t any more listed, and I’ve flicked back. She’s meticulous about listing current employees, ones that didn’t work out and why they were terminated, all of that.”
“That sounds like her. She was obsessively controlling,” I tell them. “To her detriment most of the time, she couldn’t control it.”
“I got that much from the folder. It’s crazily detailed,” Rome replies, and then shuts the folder and looks at the other two, his face cold, “let’s get this over with. We know for definite that at least two of them are dead, and in there, the psychopath and the woman who we’re assuming is Harry’s mom.”
Cecil nods, “We’ve gone back to the day after your mother was killed. We watched that day just to make sure that he didn’t go off the rails then and so that you didn’t have to see it. I know that you didn’t have a relationship with your mother, understandably so after what she put you through, but she was still your mother, and no one should have to watch their parents die.”
I nod, not really sure how I feel about that, but also aware that I’m glad I don’t have to find out how I feel about it.
“So, he just stayed hidden the first day, and this is the day after,” Ace explains, thankfully realising that I don’t know how to reply and focusing everyone on something else.
“Alright, play it then,” Rome replies.
The first few days after she died are filled with the staff, mostly the psychopath making arrangements for the funeral, there’s quite a lot of shouting from him, and they all seem incredibly fearful of him, so he was clearly unstable before. That theory is given even more traction when he orders them to make a massive feast for the day after the funeral, which was held two days after she died. He wanted them to make it for all the mourners who would come. Even I know there wouldn’t have been anyone here to mourn her; no one dared to question him. Every now and then, I’d get glances of Harry, but he stayed as hidden and as quiet as he possibly could.
Which makes me fucking angry; he never should’ve had to have learned how to be that quiet at such a young age.
After no one turned up for the wake, and the staff eventually managed to clear the food away, that’s when the killing started. Many of them fled outside where there weren’t any cameras for some reason, and I have no idea why because there used to be. Ace and Cecil then skip feeds so that we’re looking at the incinerator. We only really needed to know the time frame for when we should start watching the footage so that we don’t miss anyone and go needlessly searching for them.
It's not easy to watch, and I’ve seen some pretty fucked up things in my life so far. He talks to himself the entire time, talks to them, and gets angry with them. He even asks questions like he’s expecting them to answer back and then shakes them when he realises that they aren’t going to answer him. Then we watch as he puts them in the incinerator and watches them burn for a few minutes before nodding, turning back around, and seeming to hunt for the next victim.
One by one, we watch as he pulls in their lifeless forms, goes through the same routine of screaming at them, and then burns them, all until we come into the incinerator room. Ace pauses it then since we know what happened next.
“I counted all twelve, including the woman on the floor and the psycho,” Rome says into the tense silence of the room.
“I’ve seen some men lose their minds in horrific ways, and that has to be up there with some of the worst scenarios,” Cecil surprises us all by saying.
“You’ve seen things more fucked up than that, Grandad?” Ace asks gently.
Cecil nods, “Yes, but that’s a story for another time. Let's go and fill the others in on what we’ve found.”
That was a very obvious way to end the conversation, and we all get the message as Rome replies, “Good idea. Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to Harry?”
“Yeah, I think Jynx is really worrying about where he’ll end up,” Ace adds with a concerned frown.
Cecil smiles, “I know exactly where he’ll end up. As Deme said earlier, we’ll make sure he’s safe.” He glances over to me as we walk the corridor, “I’m assuming you don’t know much of your actual family history? That none of you do?”
I shake my head, “No, we know what we were told by our parents and the small snippets that we remember about you guys before you disappeared, or at least before we were told you disappeared.”