Enter Apathy

The Hunt (4.)

     Back at the Bara Cafe, Lilliana waits, just like the five days before this one. She's taken a week vacation off of work to pursue the cause of her trauma. After her therapy session with Dr. Winston, she decided she would finally find Kroj, the murderer of her family. He will face his karma one way or another. Each day since she's come to the cafe, she's waited and searched, but has only been met by the old lady and her pastries. While she's waited, she researched the owner of the cafe. It had belonged to an Alexej Marousek, a weary man that did everything within his power to bring his family to the states from the Czech Republic. He married Nina Svobodová, turning her into Nina Marousek, mother of his three children and after his death, owner of his cafe. Lilliana also found out the names of their children; all boys. Danek, Kroj, and Tibor, born in that order. She isn't concerned with his brothers. Upon finding out his mother's last name, she also found all the information she needed about Kroj.

Kroj Marousek has been in the big house twice; both times for theft charges. In total, he's spent a year and six months in jail. He deserves so much more. He bore no children and has no spouse. Part of Lilliana is disappointed that he doesn't, she'd love to have something she could rip away from him. Technically she does, but Nina, the old lady, has only ever been kind to her. She doesn't deserve that. Lilliana could take his brothers, but she didn't think it would be enough; according to the way Nina yells at one of the brothers that works in the kitchen, they don't seem to care about each other much. Nina is always yelling at him about how he needs to show more respect to his siblings, and them to him. So that won't be the route Lilliana chooses. She needs something more, she wants to rip his heart out. Kroj resides in apartment 2 at 1515 Wild Oak Road. It's a shoddy little complex, full of druggies and hookers. It's remote, though; the perfect place for him to stew and create his crimes. Also, the perfect place to make it look like he overdosed. She probably won't pursue that idea, but it is an option. Lilliana has thought of at least thirty different ways to dispose of him, but knows that she can have no true involvement; not after her explosion at Dr. Winston's office. He would suspect her first, then alert authorities. She would immediately be taken in for questioning,and she'd be pinned as the prime suspect. That isn't something she can afford. She wants to ruin his life, not her own.

As she ponders of ways to murder, maim, or frame Kroj, a male walks to the server's counter from the back room and kitchen. At first, Lilliana pays no attention; she's researching ways to safely sabotage another's life. She scrolls through an article about how to take someone's prints off of an item after they've touched it. It seems easy enough, but not really the way she wants to go. Letting out a frustrated sigh, she stands up to go to the counter and order another coffee.

She doesn't look at the clerk at the counter until she reaches it, and she realizes then that it isn't little old Nina. It's a tall man with broad shoulders and a sneer on his rugged face. He wears a black tee, showing off toned and muscular arms.

"What will have?" He speaks broken English and she stares at his mouth. Or rather, what's beside his mouth, an inch to the left. A scar that looks as deep as if it happened last year, and as long as one of his fingers, lining the bottom of his jaw up to his cheekbone, stares back at her, as if to mock and say, Remember me?

Thoughts rush into her mind like a tsunami, attacking her brain all at once. She's seen that scar somewhere before. Memories of the night her aunt and uncle died flood into her, deep into her bones and her blood. She hears the echo of two gunshots, sees herself hiding in the hope chest, her aunt's lifeless eyes staring back at her. Why can't she ever get those damn eyes out of her brain? Maybe that's the part of her memory that Dr. Winston should have wiped from her.

Wait. She shuts her eyes, hard. That's it. I repressed that scar, didn't I? Well, I was forced to... Lilliana thinks to herself. And the broken English, she heard a voice like that the night of the incident. It has to be him. Kroj. I repressed the name and the scar. Panic suddenly replaces her shock, what if he can recognize her? No, that's ridiculous, he killed them when she was fifteen, she looks completely different now. Her growth is to her advantage.