“Hello? Who is this?” a feminine voice asks from the other side, and I huff out a breath of relief. After spending about half an hour rummaging through my room to find the contact, I’d gotten from Nurse Clara all those times ago, I had been worried that maybe I had been given the wrong number, or maybe after all this time she had changed her phone number. Or maybe she would see a strange number incoming and decide not to answer it. But to my utter relief, she does.“Hello, Nurse Clara,” I answer, “you might not remember me now, but a few months ago you gave me this number and told me that I can call you whenever I need your help, but I’ve found myself needing your specific skillset for something very important.”“My skillset? Look, my guy, I don't know what's going on here, and this sounds seedy as hell, but I don’t remember saying anything like that,” the woman replies in a confused tone, and I can imagine her scratching at her head on the other end, “I don’t normally promise people

We all get into a Mercedes Van that is capable of transporting us all as well as Coraline if necessary, armed with all our supplies. Mal comes along with us this time because he doesn’t have to be the guy in the chair anymore. Nurse Clara still looks spooked but she’s not looking as if she’s ready to run at any given notice anymore which is a plus because I feel so utterly guilty for bringing her into this considering how dangerous it is. We are, after all, going to confront a crazy person.I just hope that he won’t have something as insane as a defensive force waiting at where he’s keeping Coraline.Because it’s nighttime the traffic is less so we get from Clandestine City to Empire City pretty quickly. The night is nearly pitch black when we come out of the highway, and I feel like we’re marching into a crappy B-movie. The aspect of horror is there with the anticipation in all of us, and the tension inside the van could be cut with a knife.As we get closer to the Empire City Lake a

The force of the man's body sends the gun that had been in my hand flying away, and I hit the ground with a thud. Before I could even gain an understanding of what was happening to me, the man starts to attack me. He gets me in my face as he straddled my chest, pinning me down with his thighs, and I distantly hear a lock being engaged. Pain blossoms on my face as I get fist after fist on it, and then as soon as it started, it ends. "Get the hell off him!" Mal hauls the man off him with one hand and sends him stumbling away from me. Then, he turns instantly and kicks the man in his face. I can't see who the man is exactly because he's covered from head to toe in black, with a full faces black mask, and black clothes. He's built like a mountain, and I do not know how Mal, scrawny, lithe Mal managed to take him off of me. "Jace, get up!" Lemon calls and I turn my head to see that he is trapped on the other side of the facility with some iron bars, and he's fighting another man like Ma

A man makes his way toward Coraline on the other side of the bars, and I feel like I’ve been hit with a baseball bat made of metal when I see who it is.“Talon!” it seemed like today was the day of unexpected, extremely unpleasant surprises. I thought he had been helped by Aiden’s father. I didn’t even think about him after the event near that convenience store because of everything else that happened. But now here he is appearing from the shadows, looking as blank as a slab of rock! He walks mechanically, faces expressionless, and even when Aiden slaps him on the shoulder, he doesn’t do so much as look at him. Instead, he walks straight toward Coraline and stares down at her for a moment before turning to me.I’m taken aback by what I see. His eyes look like they’re entirely dead inside! There’s nothing there, no emotions, no brightness, not even a single movement. And I know that is impossible for a living being because no matter what we do the eyes have to move in order to filter l

When the victim of a kidnapping gets killed, it becomes a homicide. And that means that the police of the area in which the homicide happened, the police were bound to get called.During the aftermath of the slashing, everyone including myself was so focused on Coraline that none of us notice the men who Mal and Lemon fought had escaped the house. It’s truly bizarre because none of the people present even noticed it happening. But after the paramedics leave for the hospital, we look for them everywhere, but they are just not present.However, we do not get enough time to do a thorough search in the underbelly of the building because not a moment later, the police officers arrived, and Gerald and Erikkson, who seems to be the only clearheaded ones out here, call us up.Outside is a flurry of police officers. A whole bunch of them floods into the abandoned house and descends upon us, asking question after question until we’re overwhelmed. Erikkson comes to our rescue and drags us outsid