And hour later, the surrounding area was swarmed with cops and volunteers. Funny enough, after the girl had been found, some of the locals seemed to be willing to help search for that bastard. It didn't make much sense to Darabont and he caught himself thinking about all of this over and over again. Something felt wrong about all of this. Of course, his two esteemed colleagues didn't think so. "Sooner or later we gonna find him. Roads closed, vehicles are searched. He has no food, no water and he doesn't know all about those canyons. We gonna get him." Nodding to himself, Green made some notes on his pad, looking very important. Barrett made himself busy organizing the search. "You guys gonna get around without me, right?" Darabont asked. "Sure, where you wanna go?" Green was distracted. "Check on Regina. Maybe she can tell me more now." "You should leave her alone for tonight. We can talk to her tomorrow again. Maybe even with good news" "I know, Green, I just have a feeling..." Dismissing him with a wave of his hand, Green returned to his work and so Darabont left.
Driving to the house in which Mac lived and now Regina stayed in, he thought about the events of the day. They all but abandoned the search again when Macs red truck stopped infront the cop-station and helped Regina outta the car. Everybody stopped dead for a second until they realized who this was and rushed over. Inside, they got her a drink of water and a chair while Mac leaned against the wall next to her. The story was as unbelievable as it was scary. Devon had kept her prisoner, declaring undying love for her. He killed their friends to have Regina all for himself. Kept her in a cave. She managed to escape and made it to the road. There, Mac had found here and go her here. Unable to remember it all, she talked about all kinds of ugly things that her brother had done to her and that he wasn't right in the head. Unable to tell what exactly happened to her friends and to herself, a quick exam by a paramedic led to the conclusion that she had been beaten, drugged and raped. The drugs explained her memory loss. What Darabont didn't quite understand was why she talked almost gently about Devon. Ok, to be honest, he never gotten around to understand this so called stockholm-syndrome fully but it was proven to be there and ,as it seemed, some sort mechanism to protect the victims. Anyway, it was nothing new to him, he just couldn't understand it and he hoped he never would have to.
He reached Mac's house and decided to park a little out of sight, just as the guard had. Infact, he couldn't even see the cop they had put on watch duty. But when he walked up to the house, a flash of light from the bushes let him know that the cop was there and had identified him. Good. Knocking on the door, he wasn't quite sure what it was that he tried to find out. But sooner or later he'd know.
Mac opened, looking like he actually knew what a shower was. Impressive. "Detective. Whatcha want?" Despite these rough words, he made a gesture for him to come in. "Good evening. Sorry for stopping by unannounced, I just had a feeling I should stop by. No idea why. How's Regina?" "I'm here. I'm ok" she said from a room nearby and Darabont went looking. He found her infront a TV in the mess that was this house on a dirty couch. She looked cleaned up, though it was hard to tell since she had a blanket wrapped around herself. Mac suddenly stood next to him, offering a beer, which Darabont declined. "Told her she'd be better off in a hotel or shit" and shrugged. "I feel safe here" she said, never taking her eyes from the TV.
"May I?" Darabont gestured to the empty space on the couch and Regina nodded, paying attention despite the TV. He sat down while Mac disappeared into the house. "We've found the cave. Found a bloody mattress and what looked like some rope. We have to run some tests but I am sure we'll be able to verify your story." Awkward silence took over. Darabont was about to leave again when she suddenly said "He'll come for me. I know it" A voice from behind them made them both jump "Too fucking late"