What's Said in Silence

Vessel-XXXXXVII

The car hadn't come to a complete stop before I was already out of it and sprinting towards the front door, which had been nearly split in half. I stepped through, careful not to disturb the haphazard door, and made my way down the hall with softened footfalls. If the odds were in my favor and- miraculously- they were still here, I didn't want to put her life at risk by barging in mindlessly. 

I turned the corner into the living room to find it surprisingly neat, no signs of a robbery or even that anyone was here besides what was left of the front door. They'd come for one thing only and had left the house empty, save for the smashed pieces of Sera's cell on the floor. She was definitely gone. 

"Fuck!" My voice echoed across the empty room. I paced across the room as my chest filled with granite, furious that I was too damn late. My mind raced with different possibilities of where they'd taken her and what they could be doing to her. Heat coated my neck and my vision blurred with red as I made internal promises that whoever was involved wouldn't taste their next meal.

She was never destined to be yours.

I ignored the feminine whisper, continuing my restless pacing. Sera was destined to be mine. It was I who failed. I'd taken it upon myself to keep her safe, and I had failed. With today's particular set of events, I did not have the mental capacity to indulge the supernatural with corrections and arguments. 

I continued pacing, growing more restless by the minute. Every notion I came up with fell just short of actually finding her. My skin began to crawl like a thousand insects were underneath it and I looked down to find my arms streaked with my own claw marks. 

"Dammit!" I growled, coming up blank once more. A hand grabbed my arm, halting my pacing. I turned, fist raised only to find II standing next to me. I snarled and lowered my hand, feeling the intensity of my anger rising and taking up most of the oxygen in the room. Like fire, every small gust of wind fed it and helped it grow beyond my capabilities to control it.

"You need to calm down." He said, his voice stern yet empathetic. He had always done well with empathizing with others, even in the most outlandish of experiences. Though this was farther from outlandish. Never once had I thought that I'd fall for a woman, let alone have that same woman taken from me the second I turned my back. I vowed that if- no, when- I found her, I would never make the mistake of letting her out of my sight again.  

"Do you truly expect me to be calm?" My voice thundered through the house. II didn't flinch. Rather, he executed a sturdiness that I couldn't have mustered even on my best of days. Right now, he was doing his best to tether me to the earth before my anger carried me too far.

"You won't find her by pacing the room and flinging curses at everything in your path." He said giving my shoulders a shake, forcing me to snap out of it. He was right. I forced myself to take a few deep breaths, clearing the red haze from behind my eyes. My heart still pounded in my ears, but, for the most part, I wasn't in hysterics anymore. 

I should have brought her with me, the only reason I hadn't was because it was an issue that could potentially lead to an identity reveal if the conversation turned south. Had that meeting been about anything else I would have kept her by my side. As careful as I'd been this whole time, as much security as I'd had, they found the one blind spot. All because of my complacency. 

A faint pinging noise pulled me from my downward spiral. I looked to II to make sure he'd heard it and it wasn't my imagination. He turned, looking around for where the sound had come from as did the rest of us. After a few minutes of complete silence in the house, the ping echoed again. 

Carefully, we all started searching through the house. None of us knew what that noise could be so everyone kept quiet as we each went into a different part of the house. I had just made it to the entrance of her bedroom- where my fury reignited upon seeing the claw marks peaking out from underneath her bed- when another ping sounded, much fainter this time. It had been loudest when I was standing in the living room so I turned and made my way back in there. 

I stalked to the center of the room and picked up the broken phone. After examining it, there was no way it could possibly be responsible for the incessant noise. I tossed the remnants of the device onto the coffee table next to her laptop and turned my back to it, just as another ping went off, louder than before. 

I froze in place as scrutiny took over my mind. I turned back towards the devices, waiting intently. Another ping told me exactly what I'd suspected. I snatched the laptop up and flipped it open. She didn't have a password lock on it and for that I could have sang to the heavens, hopefully this was my link to her. Once the home screen opened up, I pressed on the notifications tab and found several alerts of a photo transfer. 

I clicked on one of the pictures and it was nothing but darkness. I examined every pixel of the picture looking for some type of answer and coming up with nothing. What was this, some kind of hack? My eyes flickered to the timestamp. Right beside the time of five minutes ago, was a little red pin. I clicked on it and, with more luck than I'd ever had the privilege of being blessed with before, a map pulled up with a pin of where the picture was taken. 

Clever little fox. 

I couldn't stop the grin that took over my face as another ping came through. I clicked on it and found the same pin. The same thing pulled up but the only difference was the pinned location was on another street a few kilometers away. She's leading me right to her and this was far better than breadcrumbs. I had never been so thankful for a gift I'd given someone than I was at that moment.  

"Find anything?" Jessie's voice rang through the house as he stepped into the living room, his usually neat hair tousled in different directions. He looked around the living room, possibly looking for any signs of struggle or a fight or anything that might have left behind trace evidence, which was important in situations like this. 

"You got here quick." I noted, turning my attention back to the screen as another ping went off.

"After a phone call like that did you really expect me to take my time?" He closed the distance between us and I turned the computer towards him. He examined it with scrunched brows before realization dawned on him and he looked back up at me.

"Get in the car."