Rene’s heart was racing, his leg bouncing up and down as the female officer calmly spoke to him. 

“Hey, you’re doing great.” She said, reaching out to pat him on the shoulder. “Any details you can give us will go a long way in finding your friend.”

Rene realized that he recognized her. She’d been there the night that Misha died. One of several police who had arrived on the scene. He recalled how calm she had been, how soothing her voice had come across. It was strange to be meeting her again so soon under such dire circumstances. 

“He has to be on the cameras around here.” Rene pointed out. “I didn’t get a license plate, but there’s no way a big black van like that could just vanish. Can you follow where he went with the traffic cameras? Or the CCTV on businesses?” 

The officer scribbled some things down in her little notepad. 

“I promise you that we’re going to do everything we can. Is there anything else you can recall?”

Rene closed his eyes to relive that surreal moment over again. The van speeding around the corner. The look of shock and horror on Khal’s face as the large man grabbed him and dragged him into the vehicle. Panic began to well up inside Rene, and he shook his head.

“I can’t…I can’t think of anything else. He has to be on the cameras. If you move now, move fast, you might be able to get him before anything happens. Before he’s like the others.”

“We don’t know that this is related to the bodies we’ve found.” The officer pointed out. 

“How could it not be?!” Rene snapped. “A man was grabbed right there in public. This guy, whoever he is, had no qualms about just snatching someone off the street. And Frank thinks he saw the black van driving down this road several times this evening, but he thought it might be making deliveries. The guy clearly had his sights on Khal. He wasn’t going to stop until he grabbed my friend, and now he’s doing who knows what to him, and I didn’t stop him!”

“Mr. Bloom,” the officer held up a hand to placate him, “please understand that none of this was your fault. You did everything you could. Officers are out there right now looking for the van. You moved quickly, and you called us, and that’s all you could have done.”

Rene wanted to snap at her, to tell her that they weren’t doing enough, but he knew it was no use. Emory was waiting for him outside the room. Julie and Frank had been sitting with her while Rene spoke to the officer. He knew he needed to go be with his daughter. To take her home and keep her safe. This was all in the hands of law enforcement now, a thought which gave him little comfort. 

“Thank you.” Rene muttered. 

The officer dug into her pocket and pulled out a card. 

“If you think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

He took her card and absently shoved it into his pocket. She stood up, gave him a kind smile, then left the room. The door was open, and Rene could see Emory peeking in, trying to gauge how he was doing and whether or not she could come in. He motioned for her to come in, and she hurried into the room and jumped into his arms. 

“Daddy, what happened?” Emory asked. 

“I don’t know.” Rene said, and he was being honest. He didn’t know why the man grabbed Khal, who the man was, or what was going to happen. All he knew was that life felt like one waking nightmare after another, and he was desperate for the nightmare to end. 

*****

That night, Emory woke up screaming from a nightmare. Rene jumped out of bed and rushed to her room, pulling her into a hug as she sobbed into his shoulder. 

“What is it, darling?” Rene asked. What he meant was which one of the myriad of horrible events in your life is giving you trouble this time. 

“There was a woman, a magic woman was talking to me. She was happy to meet me. She wanted my name, but I wouldn’t give it to her, and she started to get angry. She said she would hurt you if I didn’t do something for her. She said she’d take you away from me forever. I screamed at her to go away, and I woke up.”

“Oh, Sweetie, I’m so sorry.” Rene held her close. “You’re okay. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

“You don’t know that.” Emory whimpered. 

She had a point. 

“Darling, look at me.” Rene gently took her head in his hands and held her so that she was looking up at him. Then he put all of his heart into a lie that even he wasn’t sure he believed. “Nothing is going to happen to me. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise?” Emory asked.

Rene smiled, “I promise.”  He kissed her on the top of the head. 

“Daddy?”

“Yes darling?”

“Can I sleep in your bed?”

“Of course.” Rene said. He stood and picked up Emory, along with her pillow and her favorite stuffy, Bob the dog. He carried Emory to his bed and laid her down on Misha’s side. For a moment, he considered moving Misha’s pillow, which he still cuddled every night as he fell asleep, but he didn’t want to upset Emory. He laid her down, got into bed on his side, and turned to face her. She immediately wrapped her tiny arms around him and pulled him close. Rene breathed in her hair, his precious daughter’s hair, and held her until they both fell asleep. 

His dreams came on quickly. 

He was on a ship. A crowded, filthy, rickety ship. He was shackled to a hard bed. The rot of the hold around him was cloying and made him want to vomit, but he was somewhat used to the smell. He’d been here for months, after all. One of the guards had just come down. McConnell, the fucking bastard who always took his time messing with the prisoners. He walked up and down the soiled room, hunting for his next victim. 

Rene watched him. 

No, not Rene. 

Cody. 

He was Cody, an orphan who had been raised on the streets of London by some not so kind men who had used his striking features to con many a rich lady’s purse from her. Regrettably, the last time he’d performed this action as a man just reaching the threshold of thirty years old, he’d been caught red handed and locked up immediately. Now, he was on his way to Australia, to start a new life that he had no say in. And that’s if he managed to make it there alive. The prospect was bleak. Even now, the smell of death lingered in the room as many of the bodies on this particular journey hadn’t been removed very quickly. 

McConnell’s boots thumped menacingly upon the wooden floor as he prowled. Cody glared down at the bed, not daring to make eye contact and suffer the man’s wrath, as much as the prospect of squeezing the life out of McConnell’s throat appealed to him. 

“The fuck you looking at?” McConnell spat, and Cody chanced a glance up to see that he had settled on a skinny boy who couldn’t be more than 12-years-old and was shivering where he sat. 

“N-nothing, sir.” The child stammered. 

“Stand up, boy!” McConnell shouted.

Fuck, Cody thought. That boy was about to die. McConnell was squeezing the cat’o’nine in his hand, aching to use it on someone, and his poor victim was right there, unable to stand up to him. Unable to run away. 

Cody watched in horror as the boy slowly stood, his body trembling so hard that it looked like he might collapse at any moment. No one else made a sound. No one else wanted to take the brunt of this psycho’s wrath. 

“Why were you looking at me funny, boy?” McConnell hissed.

The boy shook his head, “I swear I wasn’t, sir.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” McConnell growled. 

“N-no sir.” The boy whimpered. 

“You know what the punishment is for insulting me, boy?” McConnell growled. 

The boy started to cry as McConnell laughed. Cody’s heart hammered as he watched McConnell twirl his finger, indicating the boy should turn around to receive his lashes. 

Without thinking, Cody blurted out, “Sir! Are we close to land, sir?!”

McConnell looked over at him in surprise. Everyone nearby turned to look at Cody, eyes wide in shock that he would dare to speak up. McConnell shoved the boy back on his bed and stomped over to Cody, who forced himself not to react with anything but an innocent smile. 

“What did you just say?” McConnell snapped. 

“Sir, I just noticed you’re a great sailor is all. And I knew if anyone would know a thing or two about the journey it would be you. I had hoped you might tell me if we’re close to land, sir. Only it’s been months and all, and you know the conditions down here is worse than a coffin. The bravery you show every day in coming down here sir, it’s incredible sir.”

He felt he might throw up, but he kept talking up McConnell, watching those gray eyes flash in confusion as he spoke to him. 

“When we’re near land, you’ll know, won’t you?” McConnell growled. 

“Of course, sir.” Cody said. Shit.

“What’s your name?” McConnell hissed. 

Cody thought about lying, but it didn’t really matter. He probably wasn’t going to be alive for much longer anyway. 

“Cody, sir.”

“Cody. What’s your family name.”

“I hadn’t got a family, sir. Fraid I was raised on the streets. I’m an orphan, sir.”

“Fucking urchins.” McConnell grumbled. “A disease on the streets. Now you can taint a whole new land, can’t you?”

“I hope to work off my debts to society, sir.” Cody said. “Through the grace of strong men like you, I’ve truly seen the error of my ways.”

“The world would be better off without your kind in it.” McConnell said, he was softly swishing the whip through the air as it hung from his hand. Cody tried not to look at it. He knew that the nails upon it must be caked in blood from its other victims. He certainly wasn’t looking forward to adding his own. 

“I believe you’re right, sir. I wish that my mother had never birthed me in the first place.”

“Bet that bitch wishes the same.” McConnell said. 

“Yes sir.” Cody nodded, swallowing against his dry throat. 

“Stand up.” McConnell ordered. 

Cody shuddered internally. He scooted off the bed and stood up, the chain pulling painfully on his ankle. 

“Turn around. Let’s show you what we do to street urchins on this ship.”

Fuck.

Cody briefly considered lunging at McConnell, at not going down without a fight. He wondered if he might be able to strangle him before McConnell bled him dry. He wondered if others would join in to help. Of course, he would immediately be killed if he fought and lost. And there was definitely a larger chance of surviving with a whipping. 

He didn’t even get a chance to decide whether to fight or not as he heard a distant voice shout from above. Footsteps thundered down the stairs, and another member of the crew peaked around, saw McConnell, and excitedly told him to come back up to the deck. They’d spotted land and needed all hands on deck. 

“Looks like it’s your lucky day.” McConnell said. “What a happy little urchin you must be.”

McConnell turned and headed quickly upstairs, and Cody collapsed back onto his bed, his whole body shaking. 

“Thank you.” 

Cody looked up to see the boy looking at him, smiling appreciatively. He nodded back, not trusting himself to speak, for fear he’d open his mouth and vomit. He couldn’t believe it. They were so close to being off of this godforsaken ship.

The hideous smell of the ship dissipated, and Rene woke up with a gasp. Emory was lying further away on the bed, facing away from him. Rene grabbed his journal and wrote down every detail he could remember from the dream. He’d definitely dreamed about Cody before. Cody as a young man, growing up in London, being taken advantage of by older ruthless men. The same men that couldn’t have cared less when he was finally caught by doing the very grift they had taught him. 

He also remembered something that had happened later. Cody had made it to land. He had worked off his debt, and one night, a few years down the road, he’d found McConnell and killed him. He’d had help from a friend. From the faceless man that Misha teased him about. Tonight, as he read through his dreambook and remembered the faceless man, he pictured him as Misha. 

He pictured Misha helping him get McConnell so drunk he could barely walk. Pictured the both of them tying McConnell’s arms and feet together and dropping him with several bricks into the harbor. He recalled how strange it had made him feel to watch McConnell’s body slowly bubble away under the water. It was a mixture of relief and disappointment. The monster was dead. Now what?

Rene closed his dream journal and set it back in the drawer of the nightstand. He turned to look at Emory, who was sleeping peacefully. He wondered if she was dreaming about Misha, or if she was still trapped in nightmares. Placing a hand on her shoulder, he laid back down and closed his eyes, falling back into a fitful sleep. 

*****

After getting Emory onto the bus, where Greg was still being incredibly nice, Rene took his car and began to drive all over town, looking for the black van. He’d go all the way down one street, then turn and go all the way back down another. When he spotted dark vans, he’d cruise by to get a good look, but it was never the right one. Either the wrong shape, shade, or size. 

Eventually, he made his way in to work, his mind a million miles away. On his lunch break, he once again drove around as far as he could, eyes peeled for that damn vehicle, hoping that he’d have a chance to save his friend. 

The rest of the work day was uneventful, as no one seemed sure of what to even say to him anymore, so most avoided all but topical conversation. When his shift was over, he continued to drive around, now with the disadvantage of it being nighttime and therefore harder to see anything. He eventually gave up when Ari texted him, asking him when he was going to pick up Emory. 

He’d look again tomorrow. 

Chapter 13 https://storiesfrommontana.com/2023/04/16/writing-challenge-2023-part-13/