I Caught Fire || Book 1 of 'I Caught Fire Series'

Chapter 8 - Goodbye Stranger

*Warning: This chapter may have some triggering scenes about sexual assault. Please read with caution and self care.

I straighten out my pencil skirt and blazer, feeling really out of place. I'm dressed up in what the boys referred to as their FBI garb. They both actually look really handsome, especially Sam. I very rarely see him in anything other than flannel, so it's a big turn on at the moment. But I love him no matter what he wears.

We are on a case investigating the multiple dead bodies showing up over the Midwest region last week. Each victim had severe burns around their eyes, hands and feet, puncture wounds through the backs of their hands, their eyes and internal organs liquified. They were all random victims, no obvious correlation between them.

So we hit the road to investigate and have found ourselves in the home of the most recent victim. Her husband stands before the three of us, look of grief stricken. I give him a kind smile, "We just have a few routine follow up questions about your wife, sir. Did she have an enemies?"

"Ann?" He asks, giving a shake of his head, "Honestly, I can't think of a soul who'd want to hurt her. Even after everything that happened."

"Everything that happened?" Dean asks, his interest peaked.

Mr Morton nods his head, "About a week ago, something changed in Ann. She was out of sorts, not herself at all."

"Out of sorts how?" Sam questions and he looks between the three of us, "It'll be better if I show you."

He turns and we follow after him, going towards a door that leads to the basement. As we descend the stairs, he informs us of what Ann was up too in her last days, "She stopped sleeping, she stopped eating. She went out in the middle of the night going God knows where. I tried to talk to her, but she would just mutter to herself."

He switches a light on and leads us towards a table centred in the space, a model of what seems to be of the town on it. Above are little bags of dirt tied up, which causes me to raise an eyebrow.

"About what?" I ask, dragging my eyes away from the dirt back to man before me.

"Something about an orchard." He says with a frown on his face, "Finally I just followed her one night, and she went to the playground. Over here, the elementary school."

He gestures on the map, where a small playground is, "And she started digging. She would leave with these little bags full of dirt. Hung them here. All these bags represent holes that she dug in the ground."

"Were these holes, I don't know, six feet deep?" Dean guesses and the man shakes his head, "No. She dug for hours. She never broke a sweat. Straight down, ten, maybe fifteen feet."

We all exchange a confused look and Sam turns back to the husband, "Did you notice anything else?"

"I didn't say anything to the cops because I didn't want them to think I was crazy. After Ann came home, I came down here to confront her and she was on the phone." He states and Dean asks, "Any idea who she was talking to?"

"No. But I know what I saw. And it wasn't my Annie." He says, sounding shaken, "After I called her out, her eyes, they turned black."

The horrifying image of black eyes come to my head and I shut my own, being thrown back in an unwanted memory. I'm pressed into the asphalt of the road, the gravel digging into my exposed skin. I'm sobbing, my head pounding as I try to fight the hold over me but I'm too weak. The weight of the man above me crushes me, making it hard to breath. He leans down and places his lips against my ear, breathing his hot wet breath on my neck, 'Hold still, bitch.' He reaches down and begins to pull my underwear away.