Free Web NovelChapter 78: Chapter 78: The Girl
"Anything yet?"
"No," Percy answered.
They sat across from the shoe store at a nearby café, watching the entrance. Percy sipped his tea while Craig scanned the area with slow, methodical attention.
"So you can distinguish Haunted from Anchor by sensation," Craig said, "but you couldn’t feel the Echo at all."
Percy nodded.
Craig took a sip of his own drink. "I see."
A while passed in silence. Then Craig stood.
"No time to keep pondering. Let’s get to it."
He crossed the street toward the shop with Percy following close behind. The bell above the door rang as they entered.
"Welcome, customers."
Percy recognised the girl behind the counter immediately. He glanced toward Craig, who was already moving past her toward the back of the shop.
"Customers aren’t allowed past that point , that’s staff only..."
Craig didn’t slow down. One kick and the door splintered open.
Percy ran after him. The moment he crossed the threshold a foul stench hit him hard enough to make his eyes water. He covered his nose with his sleeve. So did Craig, gun already drawn. Percy followed suit, pulling the revolver free.
The interior was clean , too clean, the kind of clean that came from constant maintenance , but it carried the unmistakable feeling that no one had actually used this space in a very long time.
They found a door standing open at the far end. Craig went hazy at the edges and descended the stairs beyond it without hesitation. Percy followed.
A few steps down his stomach turned violently. Craig moved ahead, keeping his distance, examining something near the wall.
A cage.
Inside lay three corpses, rotted, naked, curled together , young women, their hands joined together where decay had fused the flesh at some point during the process. The one in the middle Percy recognised immediately using his Oath. The girl who had greeted them at the door.
Craig’s brows stayed furrowed the entire time, his gaze shifting to a fourth body nearby. A man. More recently dead, judging by the smell, more intact than the girls. He wore a shirt and nothing else, a chain still held loosely in his left hand, the other end connected to all three of the women in the cage.
The rest of the room came into focus slowly. Restraints. Implements. Tools clearly built for inflicting pain rather than killing outright , not war, not torture in the traditional sense, but something built to satisfy appetites that had nothing to do with either. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Percy understood roughly what had happened here. His eyes narrowed in disgust toward the man’s body.
Craig moved through the room methodically and kicked a metal box off a nearby shelf. He crouched and opened it.
The moment the lid came up Percy felt it.
A sensation.
"An Anchor."
He crossed to where Craig knelt and looked down into the box.
A worn, dirty teddy bear sat inside, stained dark.
Craig lifted the teddy bear and turned it over slowly in his hands. Percy felt something pulling at him, faint but persistent, the same way the Anchor had reached for him moments before.
Craig knelt and inspected it further for several minutes, then stood. "Let’s report this to the Syndicate."
Percy nodded.
Craig set the bear down in the corner and headed back upstairs. He moved through the shop and flipped the sign to closed.
Percy looked around for the girl who had greeted them at the door.
She wasn’t there.
A presence settled over him, faint and pulling. His feet started moving on their own, back toward the basement stairs before he registered the decision to walk.
Behind him Craig was already covering the front windows with screens. He glanced up.
"Valemont?"
His legs carried him back down. His hand hovered over the teddy bear, then closed around it.
His body dissolved into nothing.
---
A young girl hopped up the path toward the store, a cup held carefully in both hands, pride shining in her eyes.
"Happy Father’s Day" was painted across the side in careful, slightly uneven letters.
"I wonder how father will react when I surprise him."
She pushed open the door. The shop was empty. She crept toward the back, toward the basement stairs, giggling quietly to herself.
"I’ll surprise him."
She descended slowly, listening for movement, and found it.
"Happy Father’s Day!" she called out brightly, holding up the cup.
What greeted her was not the warm smile she had pictured.
A man stood with no clothing below his shoulders, his hands at the neck of another person, his hips moving against theirs.
She didn’t understand what she was looking at.
The man turned, startled.
"Rebecca!"
His face twisted with a fury she had never seen on him before.
"Why did you come here? I told you this place was off limits."
She stepped back. "I-I’m sorry.." Her eyes drifted to the man fully, recognition surfacing slow and wrong. "F-Father. What are you doing to Becky?"
Her voice shook.
The man turned fully toward her, exposed, his expression cracking apart.
"Nothing is right. Everything is against me." He moved toward her.
Rebecca stumbled back. The cup slipped and shattered against the floor.
He grabbed her wrist.
"So you’re against me too, huh? Is that so. "Tell me." His voice rose into something unrecognizable.
Rebecca sobbed, eyes red. "Father, what .. you’re hurting me..."
He took her by the neck and dragged her toward a cage in the corner, throwing her inside hard enough that the impact stole the air from her lungs.
He laughed, the sound cracking somewhere between human and something else entirely.
"Now you’ll be with them too."
He returned to the other girl and continued what Rebecca couldn’t process, couldn’t look away from, couldn’t understand.
A presence shifted beside her in the cage. She turned.
A girl crouched there, knees pulled to her chest.
"Maya?!"
She turned back toward her father. "What’s happening? What is father doing to Becky?"
Maya looked at her, then down, shaking her head slowly, unable to answer.
An hour or so passed before the man finally stopped.
He turned toward the cage, his smile stretching unnaturally wide.
"Come to father," he called out, voice gentle in a way that made it worse.
Rebecca couldn’t move. Her whole body refused her.
"You too," he shouted, and reached in to grab her hair, dragging her out by force. He tore at her clothes as she struggled against him.
She didn’t struggle for long.
---
Days passed.
The light went out of her eyes somewhere in the dark of that room. She waited with the other two, all of them bruised, all of them quiet and lifeless.
Maya shook constantly. Rebecca pulled her close.
"It’s okay. Don’t worry. It’s okay."
Becky said nothing for the entire stretch. She sat there appearing almost lifeless, though Rebecca could still catch the faint rise and fall of her breathing if she watched closely enough.
She drew them both in and they slept.
A teddy bear sat in the corner of the cell where their father had thrown it the night she was first taken.
Rebecca reached for it. Her mother had given it to her before she died. It was the only thing in this room that had ever belonged to someone who loved her.
"Mr. Teddy," she whispered, the faintest trace of a smile crossing her face. "You must be cold too."
She tucked it into the space between them and held on.
---
Percy jolted back into his body.
Craig had a hand on his shoulder, shaking him, the teddy bear already pulled from his grip and set aside.
"Valemont?"
Craig studied his face. Tears had tracked down both cheeks without Percy noticing.
Percy looked at him. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
"I’m fine,"
