Out of Darkness

Roses

I walk in on Mr. Taylor holding one of Sean's paper roses in his hand. His back is to me, but I can see the tension in his shoulders. His sensitivity is often overlooked, and he is judged by his playful antics only. It was my mistake to forget the way he sounded on the phone the night that he found Miss Sorensen. I walk up beside him and pick up another of the origami flowers.

"You know, it takes Sean hundreds of tiny folds to make these as beautiful as they are?" He looks over, and the sadness in his eyes weighs on me. "It took him years to be able to make them look like this. I can't tell you how many wasted sheets of paper filled our apartment back when he started." I reach over to a small puzzle box on the corner of the desk and hand it to him. He examines it for a moment before opening it. Inside is a mangled rose that is barely more than a wadded up piece of paper. He questions me with his gaze and I hold it next to the beautiful flower already in his hand.

"Are you telling me to be patient and work hard and eventually I'll have a beautiful rose, Mr. Blackbourne?"

I laugh and he shoots eye daggers at me. "Luke, I was merely trying to calm you so that we could talk. But yes, I suppose that it could work for this situation."

He lets out a deep sigh, and the rigidness eases out of him. He places both flowers back where they belong and turns to me. "I can't believe how badly I messed up, Mr. B! I should have known better...I DID know better, and I made her uncomfortable!" He runs his fingers through his hair and begins to pace, as he is prone to do when agitated. "I want her to be safe, and I want to see her smile, and I want her to not have had the past that she went through! Does that make any sense?"

I still his pacing by grabbing his elbow and directing him to sit. "Mr. Taylor, to borrow from your analogy, all of the folds in Miss Sorensen's past are what will help to shape her into the masterpiece she is destined to become. Do not wish them away, for that belittles her struggle and triumph over it all. Honor the courage she shows as she faces every day without giving in. Sean keeps that ugly disgrace of a flower because it helps to remind him how far he has truly come. Remember when you first broke into the school office to change those unfair grades? You were eight and literally broke the lock to get in. You were young and inexperienced, and had it not been for Mr. Lee's quick thinking, you would have been caught in your sloppy work. But you persevered, Mr. Taylor, and now you are one of the best. That is all anyone can ask of you, is to continue to do the work."

We sit in silence for several minutes. I know that he needs time to find the truth for himself. He finally looks up at me with a hint of wickedness and asks, "Do you think they saved me any ice cream?" I smile and offer a nod. I'm sure that Miss Sorensen put some aside especially for him.

***

After Luke returned to us, Dr. Sean ushers me off to bed, promising more explanations in the morning. He reminds me that I am still recovering and that sleep is the best possible thing for me right now. After a chorus of "goodnights", I find myself back in the room with the soft bed. I mean to write in my new journal before going to sleep, but am fading almost the instant I touch down.

***

The man is entirely uncooperative. I find myself more and more inclined towards violence to get my answers, but Sean steadies me. That is not the Academy way. Although the Toma team is in the middle of their own family crisis, Corey volunteered to run the guy through all of the known databases and had finally found a match for us. There isn't any known legal name for the man who was hired to kill Miss Sorensen, but he has a substantial dossier under the alias of Larva in the States, or Volto through Interpol. He is the primary suspect in over a dozen homicides. We both stare at the hit man on the monitor. He has been sitting in the same position for almost 24 hours without accepting the food or water that has been laid out for him. He occasionally begins to soundlessly mutter to himself, with only the movement of his lips to give him away, but we have been unable to decipher what exactly he has been saying.

The door behind me opens and a petite elderly woman steps between us. She smiles up at me and pinches Sean's cheek.

"Hello, Ms. Rose," I say and sign to her, "thank you for taking a look at this."

"It is no trouble," she signs back. "Is this the man who Phil brought in? The one who was shooting at your young miss?" Sean nods and I zoom the camera in on his face. She pulls on a pair of lime green zebra striped glasses and watches intently. She grabs a pen and notepad and begins to write. We both perk up at the obvious recognition in her body language. She knows what he is saying!

Ms. Rose hands me the notepad and I read it aloud.

"'Eppure ogni uomo uccide la cosa che ama'- it is the Oscar Wilde poem spoken in Italian. 'Each man kills the thing he loves, by each let this be heard, some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word, the coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young, and some when they are old; some strangle with the hands of Lust, some with the hands of Gold: the kindest use a knife, because the dead so soon grow cold. Some love too little, some too long, some sell, and others buy; some do the deed with many tears, and some without a sigh: for each man kills the thing he loves, yet each man does not die.' He repeats it over and over again, as though it's a prayer or chant."

I can't mask the fear I feel at reading these words. He is insane, and he is dangerous.

"Owen, do you think-" he cut off and looked back at the screen. The prisoner was now standing directly in front of the camera. He smiles at us and mouths the words "she's mine", before the feed goes dead.

***

I've been on the phone with Nicia for almost two hours while Jen and Rosie are video chatting. I'm currently running our mystery girl through face-recognition software. On a hunch, we've regressed her age to sixteen and are starting with the cold-case missing persons files. The paper-trail Victor Morgan dug up has David Addams being a long time associate of Karl Thompson, aka Mr. Sorensen, and it is highly likely that this woman comes from the same circumstances as Sang's mother. I don't have anything to back it up, but my gut is telling me I'm right.

Rosie and Jen are getting louder as they argue about the best way to handle this. Jen wants to storm in guns-a-blazing and just take the woman, but Rosie is trying to talk her out of Valkyrie mode. Her red hair matches her fiery convictions.

My computer dings and I have a potential match.

"Ladies," they all quiet, and Jen brings the iPad over so that we are all 'present'. I pull up a picture and show it to my family. It's of a teen-age girl with hazel eyes and curly blonde hair. "I think that this is her."

We all stare at the pretty young girl in the photograph. She's wearing a light blue sundress and hugging her border collie. She's so innocent.

"What's her name, Shannon?" Nicia asks.

"Echo," I respond. "Echo Buckley, and she has been missing for seventeen years."

***