Marcus

I waited for a good minute or two for Sitara to come back. I wasn't cool with the idea of her going off on her own, even if it was just to the bathroom, but I wasn't about to tell her not to. That would have been awkward.

According to Josh's intel, this restaurant had somewhat of a reputation for random mishaps, and general bad shit going down within its proximity. Figured I'd take Sitara here for a date and scope the place out at the same time— kill two birds with one stone sort of thing.

I was starting to get a little concerned now though. How long did it take for someone to wash their hands? Maybe she had to pee or somethin'. Women always took their sweet time in the bathroom, fixing their hair, makeup or whatever. Besides, even if something did happen, Sitara could hold her own. She wasn't to be messed with.

I decided to check on her anyhow, just to be sure.

"Sitara?" I asked, knocking gently on the hardwood door of the women's restroom. "You having some gastrointestinal problems up in there, girl? Those breadsticks were too much for you huh?"

There was no response. Just silence.

"Sitara? You in there?" Still no reply. Weird.

I decided to call her. She always kept her phone handy after all. Her loud, alternative rock ringtone reverberated through the hall. I followed the sound to the end of the corridor, unable to shake this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I found her cell phone lying on the rustic floor, just before the backdoor exit of the restaurant.

My stomach tightened and my muscles tensed. Oh shit… What the fuck was her phone doing here? She never lost her phone before— not even during the countless parties when we've gotten shitfaced together, and she especially wouldn't lose it while sober. Fuck! What could've happened?

I crouched down and recovered Sitara's phone. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, I noticed tiny specks of blood leading to the backdoor exit. There were also smudges of blood coating her phone.

Shit! Please tell me this wasn't happening. This had to be some kind of fucked up dream. Someone hurt her, I just know it. She's probably so terrified and confused right now, o-or worse… Fuck, I need to do something.

Maybe if I hack the security cameras and skim through the live footage, I might find a clue or something. But it was so hard to keep my hands steady enough to even use my phone. I couldn't stop shaking; my mind wouldn't stop racing with worst-case scenarios.

Good Lord, this is my all my fault. I shouldn't had taken her here, I knew it was dangerous. Did someone snatch her? It was a probable, just about everyone was vanishing without a fucking trace around here. The same thing happened to Horatio. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone. I couldn't save him. I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't smart enough.

Flashbacks of holding Horatio's wheezing, quaking body in my arms flooded my mind. I did everything in my power to make him feel like everything was going to be alright— repeatedly told him that he'd live, and everything would be okay, despite all the blood that spilled on my hands and seeped through my fingers. He put up such a fight, but the blade hit an artery. Regardless of his stalwart will, and how badly I wished for him to live, he died. I failed him.

Fuck… And now I was about to fail Sitara too. No, I couldn't. I wouldn't. Standing here brooding about shit I couldn't change wasn't helping anything.

Okay, calm down. Pull yourself together, Marcus.

I took a deep breath, desperately trying to calm my shaking, and attempted to focus on the issue at hand. I could fix this. I'd be smarter this time. I'd be faster. I wasn't gonna let the same shit happen to Sitara. Fuck that.

Instead of toying around with the security feeds, I followed the blood trail out of the restaurant, and into the open night air of a small, shadowy parking lot— all the while keeping a palm on the handle of my stun gun holstered to my hip. The lot was quiet, and empty for the most part. Only a few cars occupied the space. However, there was this one red van parked alongside the curb that captured my attention. It was probably a beater judging by it's old, washed up condition, and the windows were tinted. The engine was still running, yet there was no driver.

Definitely suspicious. I decided to take a closer look.

A sketchy middle-aged dude dressed fully in black stood before the van's trunk, his leather gloved hands gripping the door handles. The guy seemed to had recently finished loading something inside, and was just about to shut the trunk. However, he stopped once he spotted me from the corner of his eye. We stared one another down for a moment, his blue gaze shifting into a scrutinizing glare.

"What do you want?" His grainy voice broke the silence.

"Oh nothin', I was just checkin' out your van," I feigned a smile. "That's one Hell of a fossil you got there. How old is it?"

"Scram kid. I don't got time for conversation."

"Hey, chill out. It was just a question—"

A tight scowl formed on his face. "I'd go about my business if I were you. Haven't you heard? Bad things tend to happen to people around here at this time of night."

"Wait, you're talking about the mysterious disappearances, aren't you? I hear people in this district tend to up and vanish like a fart in a wind, man. Ain't it crazy? If I were you, I would not be in this dark parking lot all by myself. You might get snatched, and then— Bam! You're never seen again, dude. I'm actually doing you a service by sticking around. You're welcome."

He shook his head. "Thanks for the concern, kid. But I can take care of myself. I think you oughta go home now—"

"M-Marcus…" Sitara's voice called out weakly from the van.

With the cat finally out of the bag and nothing else to hide, the man slowly reached for his back pocket.

"Don't," I demanded as I quickly drew my stun gun on him.

He hesitantly took a step back, and raised his hands above his head. "D-don't do anything drastic kid. I only get paid to transport, okay? No one needs to get hurt."

"Any sudden movements, and I'll shoot. Got it?" He replied with a stiff nod. I didn't want to risk lowering my gun and grabbing Sitara myself, considering this guy was most likely armed. I had the advantage here, and I intended on keeping it. "Sitara, you in there? Baby, come here. It's safe now."

It took a moment or so, but she eventually found her way out of the trunk. I let a sigh of relief. Thank the Lord she was okay.

Sitara staggered toward me, palm clenching her forehead, seemingly disorientated, and confused. There was a bloody gash on her arm. It was oozing, and looked pretty damn deep. She literally collapsed in my arms the moment she reached me. I had to hold her tightly against me to keep her from falling.

"Take me home," she murmured, her voice choked with tears.

"Your arm is bleeding," I retorted. "It looks deep. We gotta find someone to take a look at it."

"No, it's not bad. It's just a scratch."

"Nah, you need medical attention girl. How do you know it's not infected or—"

"Marcus, I'm begging you not to fight me on this. Please, will you just take me home?"

I gazed into her glassy, wet eyes. She was undoubtedly distraught, shaken up and a little woozy, considering her inability to stand. I couldn't tell if it was because of the blood loss, or due to the traumatizing experience she endured itself. Maybe a bit of both? There was also a possibly that her wound wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was. The parking lot was pretty fucking dark. I could take a much better look once we were in the safety of my car.

I reluctantly took my eyes off her for a second to glance at the kidnapper— only to realize he wasn't there anymore. Motherfucker must had slipped away while I was distracted with Sitara. The van was still here though. I made sure to memorize the license plate numbers before gently sweeping Sitara's slender frame into my arms. They might come in handy later.

The walk to my car was drearily silent, and the long drive back to San Francisco was borderline depressing. She kept to herself, staring blankly through the passenger window the whole time without muttering a single word. I didn't say anything either, because honestly, I wasn't able to find the right words. I had no idea how it felt to be kidnapped, I couldn't relate to how mortifying an experience like that could be. Regardless, I wanted to at least try to comfort her, but judging by her withdrawn nature, and defensive body language, she wasn't about to let that happen.

I wondered what she was thinking. There must had been a lot running through her mind. I've never seen her this quiet before. The poor thing had no idea this was all my fault. I put her in a compromising position by taking her to that damn restaurant in the first place. What was I thinking? Our date was going so well too. I just had to go and fuck everything up.

Things could always be worse though. She's alive and well at least, and the cut on her arm actually was just a scratch. A nasty, bloody one for sure, but not nearly as deep as I thought. It didn't need stitches, just some antiseptic and sterile dressing would be enough.

Sitara's apartment was a few blocks from the hackerspace, on the second floor of old, nine-story building. It had more than its fair share of vibrant, colorful pictures and tags graffitied onto the red brick exterior. Some of the pigments were so vivid and absolutely striking, they had to be Sitara's handiwork. Hopefully the city didn't remove them anytime soon, it gave the building's aged bricks a bit of a face lift, and some much needed character.

The building's elevator was broken so I had no choice but to carry her up two flights of concrete stairs. Not that I minded, she was pretty light anyhow. Would had been nice if the narrow stairwell wasn't occupied with people though. It was annoying trying to navigate around the various idle frames who were chatting and hanging about, carelessly taking up space. It was nothing out of the ordinary however— just the kind of shit you had to deal with living in the big city.

The gray second floor hallway was quiet and vacant thankfully. Her apartment entrance was the first metal door on the right.

"I can take it from here," Sitara stated as I set her down gently to her feet.

"You sure?" I asked. "I can help you clean and wrap that cut—"

"I said I can take it from here," she snapped, her voice echoing throughout the empty hall.

I responded with a small nod. There was no use arguing with her when she got like this. I couldn't blame her for being in a shitty mood, she had every right to be cranky after what she had been through. "Oh, this belongs to you…" I scoured through my hoodie pocket for her phone and handed it to her.

"Thanks," Sitara mumbled, turning away from me and unlocking her apartment door. "Night Marcus." She slipped inside and quickly shut the door behind her.

I didn't sleep that night. I immediately left Sitara's building and returned to the hackerspace. I spent hours upon hours brainstorming a means for tracking down those responsible for her abduction. I had a gut feeling that whatever was going on, it was much bigger than that one asshole who snatched her. He wasn't working alone. I knew there had to be others working behind the scenes and pulling strings.

I believed him when he admitted to only being responsible for transporting victims. Growing up in the hard streets of Oakland, I've crossed paths with killers a couple of times. From my experience, they all had a certain look in their eyes— cold, emotionless. Rarely did they ever show fear, even at gunpoint.

That dude was just a pawn on the chessboard. He wasn't a murderer, nor the mastermind behind the whole operation. The hard part was finding some credible evidence to prove it.

I mapped out every possible remote location in the Elmhurst district the kidnapper could had taken Sitara to; under the premise that those responsible for the large scale of mysterious disappearances, and the murder video were all connected. Serial killers, just like normal people, were creatures of habit. They preferred to abduct and kill their victims in an area they felt comfortable and familiar with.

Granted, over time they'd get brave and start venturing out of their comfort zone. Although, in this case, it was much too risky to transport their victims' long distances. ctOS had Elmhurst profiled as a high risk area, which made since, it was riddled with gang activity. So police were constantly patrolling the vicinity. Kidnapping people off the city streets without any witnesses had to be a bitch to pull off, even in the dead of night. And getting past the police patrols without drawing any attention had to be difficult too. Somehow, the motherfuckers managed to carry it out time and time again. They were good.

I figured, if I were a murderer and I intended on abducting people in the Elmhurst district to torture and kill, I'd need a very secluded location. Somewhere close to the general area, but far enough where I wouldn't have to worry about nosy civilians or police patrols. The walls would have to be soundproof too— most people had a tendency to scream pretty fucking loud when scared for their life.

By that logic, only six locations fit the bill. Damn, I really had my work cut out for me.

I did my homework on each spot— got ahold of their blueprints and memorized their vulnerabilities to the best of my ability. On top of that, I made sure to switch out my stun gun for a pistol, and spent some time manufacturing a new RC Jumper and quadcopter. I also needed to restock on explosive and electro-shock devices.

I've infiltrated a fuck-ton of structures before, from bureaus and businesses to crazy shit like underground bunkers. But potentially infiltrating the lair of a murderer? That wasn't some shit to take lightly. If my suspicions turned out to be true, I needed to be prepared for every contingency. If things went south, I wasn't gonna be able to charm my way out of it.

The hackerspace was quiet. Wrench was hard at work at his bench, tinkering with depleted electro-shock devices and scrapping them for parts. Josh was at his computer doing his own thing as usual. I took one last look at my phone before beginning to pack my messenger bag with my printed equipment and other various gadgets needed for the job.

It was three in the afternoon and I still hadn't heard a word from Sitara. I texted her a few times, and even called, but she had yet to respond. It was real weird not having her around. She was always here, or at least, more often than the rest of us were. The hackerspace just didn't feel the same without her. I missed her so damn much. I knew she needed space, but she didn't have to punish me and everyone else by dropping off the grid without warning. Was it too much trouble to text me back a few words, just to let me know she was alright?

I hadn't told Wrench or Josh anything about last night. The idea of telling them how badly I fucked up didn't seem too appealing honestly. Thankfully, neither of them asked about Sitara's whereabouts yet, but it was only a matter of time. Damn, I felt so shitty about the whole ordeal. I didn't even wanna think about it.

"I'll be back later guys," I announced, securing my messenger bag over my shoulder and heading for the stairs.

"Hold up a sec' M," Wrench turned away from his bench and trailed behind me. "Where are you going?"

"I'm following up on the missing person cases. There's some places I need to scope out."

He swerved in front of me the moment I reached the top of the steps, his narrow frame blocking the metal, reinforced exit. "Need an extra pair of eyes? Or someone to watch your back? Or maybe just some company on the road? Oh, you wouldn't happen to need any driving music, would you? I'm pretty good at beatboxing—"

"Nah man, I'm good." I punched the access key code into the door's metallic panel and slipped past him. "Thanks though."

He clenched my sleeve, holding me in place. "Dude, are you and I cool? You've been unnaturally quiet today. I mean, you literally spent all night and day to yourself— assembling new tech and gearing up for war. And now you're running your own ops without briefing or logistics? Why the secrecy? What's been going on dude? I thought we were a team."

"We are a team man. But I have to do this alone. It's too dangerous."

Explanation marks appeared on his mask. "Danger, you say? M, I live for danger. You have to take me with you so I can blow up some shit. Pretty please? I haven't been able to bask in the beauty of fiery smoke and debris since I made Blume's backup servers go kaboom! And that was like weeks ago. I need my fix dude."

"Wrench man, these people are coldblooded murderers, and way smarter than average thugs. They're organized and methodical. You need to take this seriously."

"I am. I know how dangerous these guys are. They make people disappear without a fucking trace dude. And we both watched the video, didn't we? I tried to convince you to let this go, but you're too damn stubborn to listen—"

"Hell nah I ain't letting this go!" I blurted out. "They took Sitara man!"

The LED lights of his mask went completely blank. "W-What'd you say?"

I rubbed the back of my neck anxiously, my stomach churning. "They uh… they took Sitara last night." I mumbled. "I got her back though so it's all good, I think."

"What do you mean? Is Sitara okay? Where is she?"

"Look, she was really distraught after I saved her man. She demanded that I take her home, so I did. But I haven't heard from her since."

"Fuck dude, you scared the shit out of me." He placed a hand over his heart and sighed heavily. "Okay, work with me here M. Let's do some backtracking. Tell me everything that happened last night, from the very beginning."

"Okay well—"

"Wait, as a matter of fact, you can fill me in on all of it while we're on the road to this secret place you so desperately need to scope out. Give me a sec' to grab my toys and I'll be all ready." He turned and scurried back down the steps toward his bench.

"Dude, I can do this on my own. It's all good, really."

"I have a feeling we're gonna need explosives," he muttered, completely ignoring me. "I have C-4 lying around here somewhere…"

I shook my head. Looks like he wasn't gonna take no for an answer. "Dude, I gotta ask… What the Hell is up with you and blowing shit up?"

Wrench reached under his bench and pulled out a duffle bag. It was crammed with spare batteries, screws, gears, and a shitload 3D printed weapons. "Well, it's really quite simple honestly," he said as he rummaged through the bag. "There's just something about destroying shit that makes me feel alive. It really gets my blood pumping dude."

"It's all good. I figured people called you an anarchist for a reason."

"Meh, society and its fucking labels. Always trying to put people in boxes. It's all bullshit." He shook his head. "People think they know me so well. They think I prefer chaos, and that I hate rules. To a certain extent, they're right. Tell me not to walk on grass— I'll throw down a God damn picnic with a smile. Oh, does that road have a speed limit? Must be time for a speed race. I can go on and on M, but long story short, people think rule breakers— anarchists to be specific, are threats to society. The term itself has so many negative connotations, and it fucking sucks that everyone is so quick to slap the label on me. I'm not some crazy, radical asshole who breaks laws just to break them, and wants the world to burn just for the fuck of it. I'd like to think I'm more complex than that. Better yet, I am more complex than that."

"Oh yeah? Alright man, enlighten me then."

"Because the truth is, I fucking love rules. They serve as a guide as to what boundaries I can push next. There's real charm and allure to anarchy, besides the chaos and destruction part of course. It's a way of life where I can carve my own path, and determine my own rules and morals. I don't have to settle for the bullshit standards society pushes on me. It doesn't mean I'm incapable of compassion, collaboration, love, and all that mushy shit. All it means is our principles aren't the same unless I say so. I think you understand that M, which is why we get along so well. You let me walk my own way and never give me shit about it."

I smiled. "Of course dude. We're all a little rebellious at heart, even the people who are too brainwashed to know it. I actually feel bad for them. They're either too afraid to act on their desires and impulses, or they push them so far down trying to maintain their image of a perfect model citizen, that they lose sight of themselves."

"It's a sad, sad thing. Don't ever lose sight of yourself, M. If it wasn't for the inner rebel inside you, you wouldn't be part of DedSec. Heck, if it wasn't for the inner rebel in all of us, there would be no DedSec."

"Damn straight. It's pretty fucking ironic that people think you're such an anarchist though. I mean, sure, you tend to start trouble from time to time. But for a guy who society labels as such a threat, California would be in much shitter shape without you. You helped take down Blume, HAUM, and so many other corrupt ass tech giants—"

"Couldn't have done it without you though, and the others. There's nothing we can't do when we work together. So let's get Josh in on this too, and let's solve this motherfucking murder mystery as a team— as DedSec. Sitara isn't here right now to back me up on this, but I guarantee this is what she'd want. She wouldn't want you going off to do this on your own man."

I nodded. Deep down, I knew he was right. I didn't want anyone else on the team to get hurt, but we had dealt with plenty of bad situations before, and we've always bounced back. Why would now be any different? "Alright. I'll go fill Josh in on the plan while you're looking for that C-4. Seriously though dude, you're not gonna need it."

"Bet you ten bucks I will."

"Bet." I smirked. Typical Wrench.

Hopefully if all goes according to plan, we wouldn't need to resort to explosives or any artillery for that matter. We needed answers, or at least some kind of clue to solve this mystery. Chances are, we wouldn't find anything at all. I didn't have any real, solid leads to go on, just notions and ideas.

But it was worth a try, because this shit was personal now. Someone had to answer for the suffering Sitara had to go through last night. No one was gonna fuck with us and get away with it. Not on my watch.

Poor Sitara :( Leave a review, let me know what you think! I appreciate feedback!