VENDETTA
CHAPTER 1
It was times like these when Mike questioned Ryan's ability to comprehend the concept of sleep and the reasonable hours in which to call someone. If his frustration wasn't clear in his groan upon answering the phone, it certainly manifested in his tone. "What, Ryan?"
"Turn on the TV." The older man gravely instructed, "And don't wake Max. She shouldn't see this." At the mention of his wife's name, Mike was suddenly alert.
He was mindful not to shift the mattress as he got up, trying not to wake her. "Why? What's going on?" He inquired, the vexation in his voice replaced by concern.
"Just turn the damn TV on, Mike!"
Once Mike had closed the door to the bedroom, he searched for the remote in the dimly lit lounge and promptly switched on the television. What greeted him upon start-up felt like a knife had wretched its way into his gut.
He watches on in dread as a news broadcaster delivers a breaking story: "Recent events have concluded that a serial killer has been stalking the streets of New York City in a vicious pursuit of pregnant women in their mid to late twenties. Further information has not yet been released from the authorities; however reports have discovered the would-be mothers share similar physical characteristics."
Mike doesn't have a chance to process the information before the man on the screen presses a hand to his ear and continues. "We are now receiving information on a missing persons report filed early this afternoon. – a young woman of twenty-eight in her seventh month of pregnancy who fits the profile of the killer's previous victims." A photograph flies onto the screen and Mike's heart plummets toward his stomach as he notices the uncanny resemblance the missing woman bears to his wife.
If the news anchor had said anything further, Mike wouldn't have heard it for his mind had drifted off elsewhere; stunned by the account and unable to ignore it's reality.
Ryan was still on the line, waiting for Mike to speak when he heard another voice in the distance of the call. "Mike?"
Sensing the movement behind him, Mike's thoughts came rushing back to the present and he was able to switch the TV off before she saw anything on its screen.
"Hey." Mike greeted and successfully managed to keep his voice from breaking. He looked up to find Max in her pyjamas, peering down at him through weary eyes. "Couldn't you sleep?" She asks, her speech laced with lethargy.
Mike cursed his carelessness in having the volume so loud on the TV that it had woken her. "I'm sorry, Max," he atones, taking her left hand in his and kissing her knuckles. It was something he often did to calm himself while toying with the wedding band he had placed on her ring finger one year prior.
Max shakes her head. "Don't be. It was your child who woke me." And her free hand comes to rest on the growing globe at her middle. She is six months along and the baby had only recently begun to kick. However, the tiny feet were generally directed inward towards his mother's organs, leaving his father often disappointment, unable to share in the movement of their unborn child. Still, he revelled in the sight of his wife's body changing to accommodate a little human; the conspicuous glow to her skin that only impending motherhood could bring.
And for all Mike anticipated and cherished the rare moments in which he was able to feel a kick, when Max takes the hand he was using to hold hers and places it on her belly, he feels far from elated, rather overwhelmed with a sense of terror and trepidation. He disguises it with a smile, of course and if she weren't so exhausted, she'd have seen right through it.
"Go back to bed; I'll join you in a minute." He kisses her and tells her he loves her once she reaches the door, receiving a mumbled endearment in reply.
As opposed to his word, Mike doesn't return to bed – as if he'd be able to sleep now. Instead, he calls Ryan back and they try their best not to freak out. What was happening? What were they going to do? Who was doing this?
Mike had an inkling and he hoped beyond the hope they've never had that its wrong.
…
A shrill scream pierced the air, echoing onto the high walls of the abandoned warehouse.
The calmer, yet eerie voice of a man spoke then. "Hush now, they'll be here soon." He told his prisoner – perhaps reassuringly - wiping splatters of her blood from his face. Had her eyes not been blindfolded, she'd have surrendered to the peaceful oblivion of unconsciousness at the sight of her body drenched in blood. However, as it was, her captive had other plans and his intention was to keep her awake and alert – aware of just that which he was doing to her, if only for her to feel it.
"What do you want from me?" She had asked at one point, or perhaps a few; the events of the past hour were hazing and growing gradually so as she lost more blood.
"I want you to send a message." He told her, shuffling around quicker now, knowing the authorities would arrive at any moment.
"You're not going to kill me?" The young woman asked, more a faint whisper than anything else. It was all she could manage; her remaining strength accommodative to only her continued breathing.
She didn't know who he was but she knew what he had done to women in the very same condition. Unlike his previous victims however, he hadn't given them the chance to survive and endure the reality of his attack. And she could only weep hysterically at the knowledge that she would be the one to face it.
Suddenly, sirens sounded in the distance. As if on cue, the man finally approached her, his breath on her ear and even without her sight, she knew his face adorned a crooked grimace as he spoke his next words. "Tell Max Hardy… this is all for her."