A tall figure stood inside a doorway, bathed in moonlight, his shadow casting darkness across the room and onto his barely visible desk. He walked into the room, closing the door, and fixed his attention on the contents of the tiny area. Hastily scrawled notes were written in blue ink on top of a world map, papers and red string sprawled across it. Drawings of necklaces and armor were pinned on a cork board above the desk, and post-it notes were attached to seemingly random drawings, with no way to make any connection between, well, anything. A passport-sized photo of a girl, around the age of sixteen or seventeen, was pinned onto a corner of the corkboard, barely visible unless you leaned in close and squinted your eyes.
The man, as he was identified once he took off his hoodie, was bent over the desk, tanned skin peeking out underneath a gray turtleneck. "They can't be in San Francisco, I've already looked," he croaked, slipping into another language as he continued to whisper mad ramblings to himself. He reached over and picked up a blue pen writing frantically on the map again, scratching through the upper-half of California.
"Come on, come on," he hissed, hands flying as he wrote on the map, occasionally pulling out a strange-looking box, punching in coordinates and staring at it for a minute before groaning in annoyance and dropping the box on the desk in anger. "You had to have left some sort of clue, some way I can find it…" his voice trailed off, and the man stood up, letting out a shaking breath as icy blue eyes gave a look over his small apartment, the busy lights of Nashville visible outside of his window, the dark night sky barely noticeable.
He took in a deep breath, hands shaking as he ran them through his mess of brown hair, shivering and falling to his knees with eyes screwed shut. It had been years, decades even since the Incident had occurred, but he wasn't willing to let it go. She had died during the Incident, and he wasn't going to sit back and pretend nothing had happened- no, he needed revenge.
Letting out another, cautious breath, he opened his eyes once more, his hands not shaking nearly as much, but his motions still cautious, guarded, as though he expected someone to walk in on him at any moment. "I'll- I'll avenge you, Katie," he breathed, the words sounding like it was more a promise to himself than to her. "I just need to find out how."
A silent tear dripped down his face, and he allowed his guards to crumble, granting himself that brief moment of vulnerability, one that he would pay so, so much for later.
"Is that what you seek, child; revenge?"
The man jumped up, forcing his tears to stop falling as he tensed his muscles, waiting for an attack. His eyes searched the room once more, this time looking for anything to use as a weapon, but as the lights were never turned on he couldn't even see who was talking to him. Silently cursing his stupidity, the man licked his lips in anticipation of a fight, only to hear the same booming voice call out once more, though this time from behind him.
"I know what you are searching for; the dark desire of your heart, and I am willing to give it to you… for a price."
