Twenty-eight-year-old Quinn Culveny has lived in A small town named Tindesly all her life; along with her childhood best friends Buffy and Murphey. With a significantly low crime rate, Tinsely's never experienced the horrors of murders and fear. It...
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Chapter 5-Phase One
My eyes had been peeled open all night, the faintest of sounds making my head turn three-sixty. The shadows cast by my window didn't help ease my paranoia, nor did the heap of blankets that usually brought me comfort, which was now was scattered all over the floor beside my queen-size mattress.
My body was overheated from the relentless tossing and turning, the thought of the note and what it said on constant replay, haunting my reality.
It seems I wasn't the only one that didn't sleep a wink last night, Buffy and Murphey had video chatted with me at three o'clock, traumatized. I did the best I could to calm both of them not daring to tell them about the message that now sits on my vanity, taunting me.
Yet after everything, I still groggily attempted to go to work. I couldn't afford to lose the one thing stable in my life currently, I didn't have my parents to fall back on and there was enough stress on my two mortified friends if everything fell through in my life.
I avoided all eye contact especially with my boss who seemed more like a headmistress at the moment. Instead, my brain focused on the crinkled piece of paper that I shoved in the pocket of my scrubs before I left my house. It felt wrong to take it to work, yet it didn't feel right leaving it on my vanity.
I was determined to figure who "The Red Circle" was no matter the cost.
Last night, I would've grabbed my laptop and sat up all night looking for answers, but I was so out of it last night, it didn't even occur to me.
So now I made the executive decision to do it at work.
Attempting to not get caught, I bring up the private incognito browser on the hospital computer. I swivel my head around to see if anyone was around, a few nurses roamed around, nobody near me though. Attempting to be subtle, I go back to the computer and casually type in, The Red Circle, in the search bar. Very few results pop up, but the ones that do are newspaper clippings about another town I've never heard of.
I click the tab, it loads revealing a head title.
Marian County And Cult Related Murders?
This piques my interest immediately.
The reporter poses the question as if the concept of a cult in Marian County was ludicrous. Scrolling, I continue to scan the article shocked to see that over thirteen murders had taken place by this so-called "cult" and they claim to call themselves The Red Circle. As I read on nothing besides the victims and their families are disclosed, claiming their gruesome murders. Fear ripples through me, at the descriptions of their deaths. a list of victims and their pictures pop up beside them.
As I continue scrolling down a name and picture gages my attention. My eyes are immediately drawn to the captivating but intense blues eyes. A photo of a crime scene and multiple authorities surrounding body bags occupy my screen, Malachi stands in front of the media trying to block the view but is doing so unsuccessfully. My eyes automatically flutter down to the caption.
