The Criminal Diaries

      “So, what are you waiting for?” Helene breaks the silence. “Speak out if you started!”       Marcus says nothing again and just smirks quietly, stroking his chin with a thoughtful face and reflecting on whether Helene should know all the truth right now or save this moment for a much better time.       “Honestly, I don’t know if you’ll know the truth before your death,” Marcus confesses, bending one leg under himself. “I can’t say anything to you now. I’m reflecting.”       “Fine, say nothing then!” Helene exclaims. “I’ve already told the guys what one of your accomplices said.”       “What is that? Let me know!”       “About Peter’s mother having to do with this story.”       Tensing a little, Marcus pinches his lips for a second and swallows nervously, while his eyes stop on the small window.       “Alright, I can confirm it,” Marcus says thoughtfully. “Peter’s mother has to do with what’s happening.”       “Did she harm you, making you decide to take it on Peter?” Helene surprises. “You can take nothing from that woman because…”       “Because she is a pathetic long-time alcoholic who preferred alcohol and hangouts with her drinking buddies over her son?”       “Peter doesn’t have to pay for her tricks. If she did something, she must deal with you by herself. Why would she get her son involved in it? Who has known nothing about her for nobody the hell knows how many years. And he wants to know nothing. Because he is still mad at her deep inside.”       “This story is much more interesting and more tangled than you think, Helene. And as I see, you probably have no ability to think bigger. You don’t see any variants except this one.”       “What do you want to say?”       “I shall leave this question with no answer. Sit here and torture yourself!”       “No matter what the fault of that woman is, Peter doesn’t deserve what you’re doing to him anyway.”       “I think I know whether he deserves it better.”       “Please, Mr. Longbottom, stop it all,” Helene begs with pity in her eyes. “It’s never too late to stop and not to make more mistakes.”       “When I want something, I always get it, my darling. And now, I’m especially not going to stop when I’ve taken more than half the way. I’ve completed one of my important missions – I took you hostage. And you will be until the day of your death.”       “No, for God’s sake, don’t do this…”       “And you will never see Peter again. You can only remember all the moments that you’ve spent together. You will have no more moments. Because death will not do you part. It will reunite you. In heaven.”       “I don’t want to die…”       “C’mon, girl, do you think I want? Do you think my guys want? No, my sweetheart! I am pretty young yet – I’m only fifty-seven. And I feel pretty good.”       “Would you feel better if you killed two or three innocent people?”       “There’s some passion about it.”       “So, do you literally admit the fact that you’ve committed hundreds of murders, which you haven’t still paid for to the fullest extent of the law?”       “You are too curious, Helene,” Marcus says quietly with a sly smile. “Too curious…”       “Alright, don’t say anything. The guys and I know everything about you already.”       “If you know, it’s good! Though it doesn’t have to do with Peter and you anyway.”       “Come on!”       “As I’ve said, your sweetheart did a bad thing to me and gave me a lot of pain once. I didn’t want to, I don’t want to, and I shall never forgive him for it.”       “No tricks are worth someone’s death. No matter how terrible they are.”       “Don’t worry, Helene Marshall, you will also pay for your sins. You tried to run away from it so hard and pretended to be innocent for a long time. But one beautiful day, you have to pay for everything. Everything…”       “You mean yourself?”       “You. And I am more than sure that all your victims would be grateful to me if you paid for the pain you gave them.”       “Friends and relatives of all your victims would also be happy to know you are arrested or actually executed. I can’t remember someone who’s committed much more crimes than you.”       “There’s just one thing that I did in my life. The one I still regret a lot. Just one. If I hadn’t agreed to do it, everything would’ve been alright.”       “It’s hard to believe you regret murdering hundreds of innocent people.”       “I don’t care if you believe it or not, to be honest.”       ‘I’m not expecting that you turn good and regret everything for one moment.”       “Good girl,” Marcus smiles innocently. “And I shall admire you much more if you are as quiet as a mouse all the time you will have to spend here.”       “I don’t wanna be here for a second. It’s dark, it’s dirty… There are so many living things… I fear mice, cockroaches, and spiders…”       “Did you think I’d bring you to some kind of luxury room and let you feel like a princess?”       “Please, Mr. Longbottom, don’t leave me here,” Helene begs with pity in her eyes.       “Don’t be sorry, my love.”       Marcus claps Helene slightly on her hand.       “Your suffering will not last forever. And I don’t want to delay it all the time. Making pleasure longer is good, but you should always bring the case to an end.”       “No, please…” Helene shakes her head with tears in her eyes, pressing her knees to her chest and wrapping her legs tightly. “I don’t want…”       “If you do everything we tell you and be as quiet as a mouse, we will get along with you. But if you are sassy and showing off just like Peter did when my guys caught him, we will have to punish you a little.”       “I’m scared… I don’t wanna be here alone…”       “You will not be alone. My guys will be watching you by one. So, you don’t decide to run away from here. While one works and does their business, others spend days and nights here until my next orders.”       “No!” Helene cries. “Don’t leave me with them! They wanna hurt me! I don’t want! I don’t want!”       “Relax, baby, nobody is going to kill you yet. The guys do remember that I banned them from doing this. But I can’t promise that the men won't love to have some fun with you. They are young and energetic, with blood boiling in their veins… Besides, they are single yet…”       “No, for God’s sake, please, don’t do this…” Helene starts shaking strongly from fear as she looks at Marcus with widely open eyes. “Don’t do this…”       “Sorry, honey, but no healthy man can resist a young, beautiful girl.”       Marcus looks at Helene with interest from her head to her feet, making her cover her décolleté shamelessly with her hands.       “Especially in this top, in these shorts. If I were twenty years younger, I would definitely pay attention to you. Though… To be honest, I’m not interested in having fun with girls. I’m too old for this now. I have too much to do. And the peak of my sexual wish was reached a long time ago.”       “No, please, don’t…” Helene begs with a heartbreaking sob. “Pity me… I will do anything you say. But don’t let them get close to me.”       “I can’t!” Marcus throws his hands up. “I gave you to them as a gift and cannot change my mind. Otherwise, I shall lose my authority for the guys, who will call me a chatter.”       “I’m not a trophy to you to give me from hand to hand! And I didn’t plan to become a prostitute!”       “Sorry, Helene, but I can’t change anything. I think this is a wonderful gift for my men, who have always been loyal to me. Just like their fathers, some of whom are dead, to my sadness.”       “I have a man!” Helene exclaims. “I can’t betray him! And I will not let any strangers touch me with a finger!”       “That man will surely believe you have affairs with other men if my guys do everything right and get the dirt on you.”       “No! Don’t dare to do this! Don’t dare!”       “Since Peter wants proof of my words, he will get it soon,” Marcus says confidently. “I shall be happy to show him how good you feel in the company of young men.”       “He will not believe it!”       “Oh, he will. And trust me, he will no longer care about what’s happening to you after that. His friends will no longer be able to assure him that you are innocent. Because the proof will be real.”       “It will not happen! Never!”       “We will see it, my sweetie. Anyway, since you’re taken hostage, I’m going to use the moment to the fullest and play on Peter’s nerves. Who knows, maybe I shall go so far that he will want to do me a favor and kill himself. I wouldn’t mind it. I would have less work. But I shall deal with you with no problems.”       “No!” Helene shouts, closing her mouth with a hand. “Not this! I won’t take another attempt of Peter to kill himself!”       “Oh, alright, dolly, I think we need to finish this talk at this moment. I think I’ve told you everything you should know, and I truly hope you will not play on the nerves of my guys and me and provoke us to commit an early murder.”       Marcus gets up quietly from the bed, while Helene looks at him with wet eyes full of pity, not paying attention to the tears that roll over her cheeks slowly.       “A little later, I shall ask someone to come here with food and water for you. And I shall think about how and where we can have a toilet. If you keep behaving well, we will be feeding you more or less well. Maybe we will even find a different place where you will spend your last days. Something better. In case you are a good girl. But if you are rebelling, you will have to be hungry and suffer from dehydration. And live with rats and cockroaches. You decide how you want to spend the rest of your life.”       “I want to spend my life on freedom. Next to my close and dearest people.”       “You can say goodbye to them in your mind, and then they will put flowers on your grave. Of course, if you have the one. I’m not sure about it.”       Helene says nothing and just makes a loud sob, leaning on her knees with her chin.       “By the way, it’s getting dark outside, and there’s no light here. So, I kindly brought you this. So, you can light up the room a little. I spent my money on my gorgeous captive. Though I can tell you a little secret: I bought it on sale with a big discount. So, I literally paid nothing for them.”       Marcus puts a matchbox and a pack of white candles on the table near the bed.       “But don’t burn anything down, please. Because I don’t need your death now.”       Helene swallows nervously as she keeps watching Marcus like a charmed person.       “I’m not saying goodbye, baby,” Marcus says confidently. “I will be visiting you regularly to know how you’re behaving. And telling you news about your sweetheart if I know something.”       Marcus comes to the door quickly and glances at Helene after he puts his hand on the handle.       “By-y-y-y-ye, Helene,” Marcus waves his hand. “And yeah, I’m actually a quiet man, but if someone gets me mad, I shall be ready to destroy everything in my way. Remember this.”       Smiling slyly, Marcus opens the door and closes it after leaving the room. Helene watches him nonstop at first, but when she stays alone, she lets herself cry much more bitterly. Closes her face with her hands and doubles over with a sense of shaking in her whole body, choking from a lack of air, and understanding that every beat of the heart gives her unbearable pain.       “No…” Helene says under her nose in a shaking voice. “No… I can’t end my life like this… I can’t die so early…”       Breathing heavily enough and running her hands over her loose, matted hair, Helene looks around the whole room with wet eyes.       “Please, girls, help me…” Helene begs in despair. “Please, men, save me… I need you all so badly… I’m too weak to fight with all of this alone. Please, guys… Before they bury me in the ground…”       Helene makes a heartbreaking shout.       “Is this really happening to me now?” Helene wonders. “Am I really not sleeping? My God… God, please, tell me it’s just my dream. I will not take all of this… I can’t do this… I can’t…”       Helene lies down, turns onto her side, and squeezes the pillow with her fingers as it gets wet due to all the tears that roll out of her red eyes.       “Find me, Peter, please…” Helene sniffs quietly. “If you don’t save me, I shall die. I can do nothing… You’re my only hope… Please, sweetheart, don’t leave me. I need you… I need you like never ever.”       Helene keeps crying bitterly, understanding that she is in a hopeless situation, but still trying to make herself sure that it’s not the truth. All these extraneous sounds still make the girl tense, and the fact that it’s totally dark in the small room makes her much more horrified. And the thought that something is running over her legs becomes something like an obsession that makes her look at herself again and again and go crazier and crazier. Her heart is beating fast from fear of loneliness and enclosed space, she cannot swallow the lump in her throat, and every single muscle is cramping, so that it makes her feel discomfort.       At some moment, Helene sits up and lights a couple of little candles from the pack with a matchbox. That’s why it’s getting a little lighter in the room. Then she starts watching these little flames like charmed as they barely shake, depending on the strength of the wind that gets into the only window. Putting her hands together and bringing them to her mouth, the girl makes just one, the greatest wish she has right now – to escape from this captivity and be next to her closest people, whom she needs like never ever before. Without whom she feels like a little, unhappy child surrounded by the crowd of evil and dangerous people who want to give her as much pain as possible.       

***

      A little more than half an hour later, Victor Johnson arrived at the home of Scarlett, who is still with Peter, Terrence, Edward, Daniel, Raquelle, Natalia, and Anna. The woman got high blood pressure from excitement, but the friends managed to stabilize it a little with special tablets. And since Helene’s grandmother does not feel good, she is lying on the bed, as everyone insists, covering herself with a blanket and putting the pillow so that she lies in a half-sitting position. The dog Sammy keeps being next to her, lying on the floor, and still coming to himself after the surgery that he underwent to mitigate the consequences of the knife wound.       But taking care of Scarlett, the men and the girls do not forget about Peter, who withdraws into himself at some moment and only gives monosyllabic answers to some questions, without emotions on his face. After his attempt to harm himself with scissors before their eyes, Daniel does not leave his friend alone and watches everything he does very closely. He is the one who manages to talk into the blond a little later, while Rose spends his strength to hold down all his emotions inside. The others also distract him with talks and do not stop reminding him that he can say anything he feels inside without fear and shyness. Nevertheless, the guy does not speak too much now. But he does not refuse to accept some tight hugs that let him keep the rest of his mind.       “I listened to the voice message that you sent me much more closely again,” Victor confesses, sitting on the chair that someone brought from the kitchen. “Because I didn’t try to understand everything at first. Though, I understood that something happened to you.”       “Thank God, you’re finally back from your trip,” Raquelle exhales with relief, sitting on the bed alongside Anna and Natalia next to Scarlett. “We need your help to find our friend.”       “If we don’t take measures in time, Helene may die,” Anna adds excitedly.       “Don’t worry, guys, we will find your friend,” Victor promises. “And we will do it before the criminals want to harm Helene.”       “But we don’t know where to find her!” Natalia throws her hands up. “They could take Helene anywhere!”       “I’m sure that we can find at least one witness, who can help us find out her approximate location. Moreover, we have the number of the car, in which they took the girl away. We can try to find out who the owner is and track their way thanks to the cameras on the roads.”       “Sadly, the witnesses only confirmed the fact of the kidnapping,” Terrence throws his hands up, standing in front of the bed next to Edward. “We don’t have any more clues.”       “As far as I know, there are some shops and attractions in that neighborhood. It makes sense to ask the staff members about whether they saw something suspicious. Or maybe, someone would even recognize Helene herself if we showed a photo of hers.”       “I wish someone saw something,” Scarlett expresses hope, lying in the bed with her hands folded in front of her. “It can’t be happening that everyone became deaf and blind when Helene was kidnapped.”       “Do not worry, ma'am, we will find your granddaughter for sure. You and I will make an official report, and I will be controlling this case personally.”       “For God’s sake, Mr. Policeman, find my little girl.” Scarlett sniffs quietly. “I am not going to sleep at night because she is far from me and has to be with some awful men.”       “The situation is hard, but many things are clear,” Edward notices thoughtfully. “Now we surely know who started it all.”       “Yeah, many things have changed, as far as I understand,” Victor nods. “And the situation hasn’t gotten better.”       “Not even better!” Peter throws gloomily in a quiet, low voice, sitting near the foot of the bed next to Daniel hugging him around the shoulders. “I was almost taken away nobody the hell knows where. That’s good I managed to escape.”       “It will not work in the case of Helene,” Daniel adds. “They’ve become smarter, and she’ll hardly get away from that crowd.”       “That’s why we don’t expect that she’s about to call someone and come back home,” Natalia says with sadness in her eyes.       “You should’ve told me about the attempt to kidnap Peter when it happened,” Victor says confidently. “Yes, I was out of the city back then. But I would’ve told some of my colleagues to work on this case. Darwin is on vacation yet, but there’s also Oliver.”       “We wanted to call you!” Anna exclaims. “But at this moment, Peter called on Helene’s mobile number from the telephone in the city.”       “I see. And how many hours had passed before it happened?”       “I can’t be sure, but I think like three hours,” Raquelle shrugs hesitantly. “We… Decided to wait a little. And then call you in case he didn’t show up.”       “I can tell you one thing surely: there is a small chance to find Helene in the place where they brought Peter. Yes, we can check it out, obviously, but I think the criminals will find a different place this time. As everyone knows, they don’t come back to the same place twice.”       “And we don’t know which one!” Daniel exclaims. “Helene may be anywhere!”       “First, I will give an order to check closely all the abandoned houses in our city,” Victor says. “Your friend was probably driven to one of them.”       “I’m sure those cads chose the place that nobody would reach so easily,” Terrence assumes, putting his hands on his hips.       “Most likely, Helene is not at his home. Marcus Longbottom probably understands that it may lead to some bad consequences for him.”       “I agree with you,” Peter agrees. “He’s pretending to be some kind of saint. A regular man that works hard and has a wonderful relationship with his neighbors, colleagues, and everyone he knows.”       “That’s what I mean. The neighbors of that man would notice that some guys drove the young unconscious girl to his home.”       “Holy Mother, where’s my granddaughter now?” Scarlett sighs heavily, while Natalia caresses her hand softly. “Where do we find her? What does Marcus want to do to her?”       “Listen, guys, maybe you have more information that may help the investigation?” Victor specifies. “What if you missed something? Maybe someone saw something…. Maybe, someone said something… I don’t know… Now any kind of information may be very valuable to us.”       “Alas, Mr. Johnson, nothing like this,” Terrence shrugs.       “Wait!” Raquelle exclaims, rounding her eyes. “I forgot to tell you something!”       “What?” Peter asks surprisingly.       “When we were on the way to the vet clinic, the people, who founded the wounded Sammy, told me that one of those, who kidnapped Helene, lost his bank card on the crime scene.”       “Bank card?” Anna frowns slightly.       “As that man and his mother said, the card got out of the pocket of the coat when they carried Marshall to the car. And the criminal didn’t even notice it and got out of here without thinking about it.”       “It would be great to take a look at this,” Victor says thoughtfully.       “Yes, Raquelle, do you know where it is?” Scarlett asks hesitantly.       “I’ve got the card,” Raquelle says. “I asked those people to give it to me, saying I wanted to show this thing to my familiar policeman.”       Raquelle glances at Terrence and Edward still standing together in front of the bed.       “Terrence, could you give me my bag, please?” Raquelle says, pointing at the writing table. “You’re much closer to it. The black one.”       After looking around quickly, Terrence takes the female black bag from the writing table and gives it to Raquelle, who smiles at him shyly.       “Thanks.” Raquelle opens her bag and starts checking it out. “I have it here…”       Two seconds later, Raquelle takes out the plastic card with the information about the owner.       “I got it! It’s here!”       With these words, Raquelle gives the card to Victor, who looks at this closely, while Natalia, Anna, Daniel, and Peter move closer, and Edward and Terrence come to the bed.       “Hm, it says the name of the card’s owner is Luther Winchester…” Victor notices thoughtfully. “And it expires in two months.”       “That’s the asshole, who almost drowned Helene…” Peter notices thoughtfully. “His name is Luther…”       “I think it will not be hard for us to get the information about the card’s owner. We just need to make one application to the bank where they have everything about him.”       “Hasn’t he been featured in some cases?” Daniel specifies.       “Erm… No, as far as I remember. But I may be wrong because I have investigated like hundreds or even thousands of cases of varying degrees of severity.”       “Does it mean there is a chance that asshole may be featured in a case?” Edward asks.       “I will try to talk to my colleagues and check out the archives. But most likely, Luther has never been featured in anything. Some names usually seem familiar, even if I don’t remember the details of cases. But the name of Luther Winchester is not familiar to me.”       “And the name of Marcus Longbottom?” Scarlett asks hesitantly. “Do you know something about him?”       “But everything is different about him,” Victor replies confidently. “I remember the case of Marcus Longbottom very well. I mean, I remember all the crimes he committed. And some of them had people with a strong mental health shocked by their cruelty.”       “As far as I understand, were you already working in the police?” Anna ask thoughtfully.       “Yeah, almost thirty years ago, I just started to work after barely graduating from the police school. I was originally an officer, the lowest ranked. But I managed to examine the materials of that case and even went to some crime scenes where the corpses of Marcus’ victims were found.”       “The guys and I recently found an article about that man,” Natalia confesses. “And we were horrified by how cruel all his crimes were.”       “And the worst thing is that Marcus was not caught. I mean, the police could not establish that he was the one who killed all those unhappy people. Though, some witnesses helped them get a sketch of that man.”       “Yeah, he covered his tracks too well,” Terrence throws gloomily. “Everyone knew it was Marcus’ work, but nobody could prove anything.”       “Right, but the police could not get him arrested without good reason. Marcus pretended to be sweet and fluffy and provided himself with a good alibi.”       “Don’t you know anything about his wife, Julia?” Raquelle asks. “As far as we know, she disappeared somewhere in the beginning of the 90s, but Marcus rushed to move to a different place in 1993.”       “No, I know nothing about his wife, even though I know surely that he was really married. Their neighbors had a good opinion about these people and considered them a perfect family. The weird thing was that Julia was too timid and refused to spend time with her neighbors without her husband. That woman went anywhere with him, but she preferred to stay home without him.”       “We have an assumption that Marcus could murder her,” Daniel confesses. “And that’s why he rushed to take his stuff and got out.”       “Yes, the case of his wife’s disappearance really seems too weird to me. Sadly, nobody could find her, and at some moment, their neighbors actually stopped hearing and seeing her. So, there’s a high chance that she became Marcus’ another victim.”       “You know, I wouldn't be surprised if there were many more victims,” Peter throws gloomily, crossing his arms over his chest. “What if he buried a couple of more corpses. Or actually burn some of them down and got rid of the ash.”       “I don’t exclude it,” Victor strokes his chin. “Anyway, this case still remains unsolved, and Marcus’ fault for all these crazy crimes has not been established.”       “It’s alright, this time, Marcus will go to prison,” Raquelle says confidently. “If he doesn’t pay for all those murders, he will pay for kidnapping Helene and all the attempts on Peter.”       “But again, we have to prove it. Undoubtedly, Marcus is going to find excuses so hard, just like he did it the last time, and pretend that he is guilty of nothing. But we need the proof, against which he would not mind at all.”       “And what do you want us to do?” Scarlett throws her hands up. “Wait for that cad to decide to kill my granddaughter?”       “First, we should find out at least the current location of Helene. And when we can do this, we will be thinking about how to save her.”       “There will not be any claims of random,” Natalia assumes. “Marcus didn't kidnap her for money.”       “But he will send a sign early or late.”       “Aha, he will…” Peter pronounces in a low voice, glancing aside. “When he deals with her. And wants to show me her corpse.”       “God forbid!” Scarlett horrifies loudly, putting her hand on her heart.       “Anyway, if Marcus sends you just one message, you must tell me about it immediately,” Victor says quietly.       “Even if he says nothing clear and tell us about how much he wants to bury her and me in the ground again?”       “Now any little thing matters. So, I advise you to listen to all his words. They may hide the hint of her approximate location.”       “I don’t know…” Peter sighs tiredly.       Sammy makes a quiet howl full of pity for the first time in a while, still lying on the floor next to the bed.       “Please, guys, don’t worry,” Victor says. “I promise that we will find Helene. Just believe that she will be okay.”       “It’s easy to say…” Anna sniffs quietly. “When you don’t know where your friend is and what they want to do to her.”       “I completely understand your feelings, but waiting and believing is the only thing you can do now. It’s painful for me to say it, but you’re all powerless. You could protect her somehow before, but now it’s impossible.”       “I will be praying that this story does not last for too long,” Scarlett promises. “That those stinkers don’t torture my girl for too long. I don’t know how long she will hold on. Helene is my mentally weak and vulnerable girl. She’s always been under the view of Roger and me and busy with studies, work, and something else.”       “I’m sure she completely understands the situation and will try not to make the kidnappers mad. Yes, it’s very hard to keep calm in such a stressful situation, but if she’s rebellious, it will probably kill her.”       “I’m afraid it will not help her,” Natalia says in a little shaking voice. “If we don’t save her in time.”       “Believe it, ladies and gentlemen. Believe that the girl will come back home soon alive and healthy.”       “Until Marcus and his henchmen are free, Peter and he will not live a quiet life,” Terrence crosses his arms over his chest.       “And it seems like he has a grudge against the men and me,” Edward notices. “Marcus is enraged that Daniel, Terrence, and I help Peter and protect him in case he runs into those assholes.”       “I’m happy at least because he doesn’t talk about wishing to harm the girls,” Peter adds thoughtfully.       “But it doesn’t mean Marcus will not think about it,” Raquelle notices. “Killing Helene and the men may not be enough for him. He may want much more blood.”       “And it’s possible enough, knowing about his love for violence, murders, and mutilation,” Anna adds hesitantly. “Knowing that he terrified literally the whole country.”       “I can say just one thing: stay together,” Victor advises. “In big companies, preferably. And always walk where there are witnesses and cameras. It would be much easier for us to track the path of criminals.”       “It’s a shame that there are no cameras in the place where they took Helene away from,” Raquelle exhales sharply.       “But… We have the car’s number that you gave me. And it means, as I’ve said before, we can make an application to get access to the videos from cameras to track at least a part of the way, in which they could take the girl away.”       “I don’t exclude that the car’s owner may have a lot of penalties,” Daniel notices.       “So, my colleagues and I will check it out. And if we manage to track at least a part of their way, it will be easier for us to orientate. The zone will be much fewer in this case.”       “You’re right…” Scarlett says thoughtfully.       “Yeah, guys, don’t you know if the car they took Peter away in is the same as the one they took Helene away in?”       “Well, erm, I was taken away in a cheap one,” Peter says thoughtfully. “Not very big… And it’s clear that it was bought a long time ago.”       “And as the witness said, the car, in which they took Helene away, looked modern,” Raquelle recalls. “Black metallic. Erm… A sports utility vehicle, I think…”       “I see, it means the cars were different,” Victor concludes. “Didn’t you memorize the number of the one you were taken away in? Moreover, you said you stole in when you tried to escape.”       “No, sadly,” Peter shakes his head. “I didn’t think about it. I mean, I thought of nothing but my wish to get away from those assholes that ran after me.”       “And who’s the owner?”       “No idea.”       “So, I got it. It means we will be working with what we have at the moment. It’s not too much, of course, but much more than the last time.”       “You’re our only hope, Mr. Johnson,” Scarlett says in a shaking voice. “I’m begging you so badly, find my girl.”       “Don’t worry, Mrs. Marshall, I will do everything I can.” Victor strokes Scarlett’s hand softly. “I cannot refuse to help because this is my job, and the guys are my good familiars, who always count on me.”       “If something happens to my granddaughter, I will take it.” Scarlett sniffs quietly. “I have nobody else. My daughter ran away after Helene’s birth and hasn’t shown up. And I don’t know if she’s alive or dead. My husband died four years ago. And I don’t have other relatives. Helene and I were together.”       “I completely understand you, but please, think of yourself. Hold on at least for Helene. If something happens to you, it’s going to be a great hit for her.”       “I’m trying… I’m trying to believe my girl will stay alive.”       “By the way, Peter, did you do what I asked you about the last time?” Victor glances at Peter.       “Huh?” Peter pronounces hesitantly, rounding his eyes.       “Did you find your mother? Did you go to the place where you lived before? Asked your neighbors?”       “No, I didn’t…”       “Why? I asked you!”       “Does it make sense, Mr. Johnson? It would be just a waste of time!”       “Since we know your mother has to do with it, you must find her.”       “She didn’t show up there since she left home! That woman never came back before I bought the apartment and moved here.”       “But many things may change while you are not here.”       “Nothing’s changed. Nothing.”       “Don’t you want to end this story? I don’t understand you.”       “It’s all worthless!” Peter breaks down. “It’s all worthless! That asshole will get what he wants! He will kill Helene first and then deal with me!”       “Nothing is worthless. We can still solve it.”       “Don’t calm me down, Mr. Johnson. I know my girlfriend and I are doomed. I know there no end, and there will not be the one.”       “Listen, Peter, I completely understand your feelings. But in order I can help you, you should help me too. Did you think you’d be sitting quietly aside and suffering, while we’d do everything for you?”       “I think of nothing!” Peter throws irritably. “I want to think of nothing! I am done with all of this! I am sick!”       Doubling over, Peter grabs his hair with both hands as he is breathing heavily, while Anna sitting next to him, caresses his back softly, and Daniel takes his friend by the shoulders and hugs him tightly.       “We all feel bad now, Peter,” Raquelle pronounces in a low voice. “You’re not alone. We’re also worried and horrified by the fact that we can do nothing.”       “Sorry, guys, but…” Peter pronounces in a low voice and sniffs. “But I really can’t… It’s unbearable. I’m in despair… Despair.”       “You can’t solve it with tears and hysterics, Peter,” Victor notices confidently. “There’s nothing bad in letting your emotions out. But you must not let them make you distant from everything and just wait for people to do something.”       “I don’t say I refuse to do something. I’m just losing the strength to take it all. I’m on edge, understand me.”       “But you could just try to find your mother in your mother neighborhood.”       “It doesn’t make sense.” Peter swallows up nervously. “And I don’t wanna come back there. Too many terrible memories.”       “You’re doing this to save your girlfriend and yourself.”       “Oh, alright, Mr. Johnson, alright… I will go there someday. I will. But I am more than sure that I will find nothing. And if my mother is still alive, she is one hundred percent lying somewhere near a fence, snuggling her drinking buddy.”       “Okay, give is the address of your neighborhood so we can check everything out,” Edward suggests. “Since it’s painful for you to come back there.”       “I will go.” Peter closes his face with his hands, leaning on his knees with his elbows. “I promise. Promise…”       “My God, Peter, my poor boy…” Scarlett pronounces with pity in her eyes, moves closer to Peter shaking from tension and caresses his head tenderly.       Sammy also shows his great sympathy by barking quietly.       “Shake up, man, don’t let yourself break down,” Victor demands determinedly. “Yes, it’s hard, but don’t forget Helene needs you. She needs a strong and determined man, not a whining, weak, and crying milksop.”       “I am weak…” Peter pronounces in a low voice. “I’ve always been.”       “It’s your emotions,” Natalia replies. “You’re just worried about Helene. We get it.”       “I… I don’t know how to take this. Really. Helene’s sufferings are much stronger hit than my own sufferings. If I could, I’d be happy to take them all. I’d prefer to be captivated by that old bastard and tolerate any of his cruel tortures.”       “We know, buddy,” Anna pronounces with sadness in her eyes and gets up from the bed. “But our hearts would hurt for you then. And Helene would go crazy, knowing you’re somewhere far.”       “Though, they hurt anyway,” Terrence notices, sits next to Peter, and hugs him around the shoulders. “Knowing you’re not fine yet. Never been fine. Even when we thought things got better.”       “Damn it, guys,” Peter throws gloomily. “I will get through this.”       “Yeah, you will,” Edward nods. “You just stabbed yourself with scissors. Right before our eyes.”       “You’re right!” Scarlett exclaims. “Thank God, Daniel noticed it and stopped you in time.”       “Now I can’t hold down myself,” Peter confesses, setting his half-wet, dead eyes into the distance. “While everything is fine, I don’t wanna hurt me. But now… Now this wish is strong. I want this…”       “No, no, Peter, get these thoughts of your head now,” Daniel demands determinedly. “And if you don’t do this, you will have to live with me and Anna. So, you’re always under our view.”       “What?”       “Yes, yes, Rose, if you come back to your old habits, you will move into our house and be under my personal view all the time.”       “It’s a good idea, huh,” Victor notices. “You must not stay alone in a condition like yours.”       “God must not let you let do anything to yourself!” Scarlett horrifies, putting her hand on her heart. “I haven’t come to myself after your attempt to kill yourself.”       “If something happens to Helene, I will have no reason to live in this world,” Peter says without emotions. “Without her, my life will make no sense.”       “It’s gonna be okay, Pete,” Edward promises, bending to Peter and clapping him on the top of his head slightly. “No matter how hard the situation is, we’re not totally powerless yet.”       “If I start one or another case, I always aim to bring it to an end,” Victor says confidently. “And whatever happens, I always believe in the good end of the story. In the case of Jamie and Michael, in the case of Julian and Norman – I never doubted that kindness and justice would get a victory. This time, I am also sure that we will save Helene in time.”       “I am sure about just one thing: Marcus is dead,” Peter says coldly in a bass voice. “I swear, when he stands in my way, I shall strangle with my own hands. As well as his gang. Especially that asshole Luther, who does choke with saliva when thinking of Helene.”       “No, man, don’t even think of lynching. Leave it all the justice. When we have proofs, and the criminal is in prison, the judge will sentence him the way he deserves it.”       “The only thing he deserves is a death penalty. For everything he has done.”       “I also think Marcus deserves to be executed. But I’m not the one to choose his punishment, the judge is. I just investigate cases: getting clues, questioning witnesses and victims…”       “Ha, the judge…” Peter blunts under his nose.       “I also lost some of my important people because of him. Including my colleague, with who I started my career from the beginning. The girl was young, responsible, smart, and determined. But alas, it did not save her when Marcus hit my colleague on the head, took her somewhere to the woods, and murdered her cruelly. The corpse was found a few days later after her tragic death.”       “Oh, I don’t know what to say…” Peter exhales with a shake, holding down some emotions so hard, even if he really wants to fall into a hysteria. “I d-don’t kn-n-now…”       “Don’t be shy buddy,” Daniel encourages, squeezing Peter’s shoulders slightly. “If you wanna say something, do this. If you wanna scream, do it. We’ll get it.”       “Mr. Johnson just said my hysterics wouldn’t help.”       Peter gets up tiredly form the bed, turns his back on everyone, and comes to the window, through which he looks at something at without emotions on his face.       “Just like scars…” Peter leans on the windowsill with his hands. “I get it. But… Sometimes a habit may not be good for a person. Sometimes it destroys them inside slowly and determinedly if they don’t find the way to stop in time and wean themselves away from it.”       “We’re with you, Pete,” Anna says confidently, coming to Peter and hugging him by the shoulders. “Whatever happens, you can always count on us.”       “Yes, it’s hard for us, too,” Natalia notices and caresses Peter’s shoulder after she comes to him along with Raquelle. “But we still have the strength to help you get through this.”       “Maybe, you were lonely once, but now it’s otherwise,” Raquelle raises her head proudly, caressing Peter’s back. “Now you can come to any one of us and tell what you’re worried about. If we can’t help you with a business, we can listen to you and support you with words.”       “Thanks a lot, girls,” Peter thanks with sadness in his eyes. “Your support means a lot to me.”       “Come to me, Peter,” Scarlett opens her arms. “Come to me, my boy.”       While Raquelle, Natalia, and Anna press themselves to each other closely and barely hold down the tears as they watch what’s happening, Peter comes to Scarlett obediently and ends him in her strong hug. She caresses his head tenderly, comforting the man like a loving man, while he chokes from a lack of air and understands that every single muscle of him squeezes so that they hurt. Meanwhile, Daniel and Terrence look at each other with sadness in their eyes, and Edward puts a hand on the shoulder of Victor, who pets the whining Sammy softy on the head.       “Oh, my gosh…” Victor sighs heavily, takes his glasses off, and squeezes the bridge of his nose.       “I’m shocked, too…” Edward says thoughtfully.       “As Mr. Johnson said, let’s work with what we have,” Scarlett says thoughtfully, hugging Peter around the shoulders. “Since we can do nothing, I will be just praying. Going to a crunch, putting candles, or asking God to protect my daughter in front of the Icon at home.”       “The most important thing is that you take care of yourself,” Daniel says. “Think of Helene and hold on with the thought that she can’t do without you.”       “The guys and I will go to your home by one so you don’t stay here alone,” Terence promises. “If you need to buy something, it’s not a big deal.”       “Thank you so much, guys,” Scarlett truly thanks. “You’re all very nice to me.”       “Unity is the thing that will not let you go crazy now,” Victor notices. “If you’re together, you can get through all the sufferings much easier.”       At this moment, Peter rubbing his eye and avoiding looking at his friends steps away from Scarlett, gets up from the bed, and goes aside silently. Then he turns his back on everyone and leans on the writing table with his hands, inclining his head and thinking about something negative. Ah, how happy Sammy would be to get up on his paws and come to the man to press himself to him and look at him the way he lets him know that he will always be near. But sadly, the dog does not feel good now and feels a strong weakness that is the reason why he is lying powerlessly and making no sounds.       “Peter…” Natalia pronounces softly.       “Poor guy…” Raquelle sighs heavily, running her hands from the top of her head to the nape of her neck. “If Helene dies, we’ll lose him for sure. He won’t be able to live without her.”       “Gosh, why is he so unlucky?” Scarlett wonders. “The boy has done nothing bad to anyone, but someone has kicked and tortured him all his life.”       “Everything was alright before the story of Marcus started,” Daniel notices.       “Maybe, it seemed to you that he was alright?” Victor assumes. “Maybe, Peter told you he was okay, but he kept suffering deep inside?”       “He doesn’t hide that he is not healthy yet,” Terrence shrugs. “Peter does recognize his problem and doesn’t run away from it.”       “I think the problem is that he hasn’t forgiven those, who hurt him. He can’t forgive his mother for betraying you by choosing vodka over him. His schoolmates for all their mockeries. The girl, who betrayed him. I don’t exclude that Peter is still mad at you because of something.”       “Why do you think so?” Anna frowns slightly.       “Maybe, some of you gave him a strong pain, but he still cannot forget it.”       “No, Mr. Johnson, it’s excluded!” Daniel exclaims. “Yes, I harmed Peter with my bad jokes. But I didn’t know it was painful to him. I recognized my mistake and asked him for forgiveness. And Pete himself said he wasn’t mad at me and blamed himself for not telling the truth much earlier.”       “Maybe, he did. But the memories still give him a lot of pain.”       “We’re doing our best for him to feel good,” Edward throws his hands up. “We give him no reason to doubt our loyalty to him. If we had to do something that would put an end to our friendship, we’d choose our friend for sure.”       “Yeah, guys, I know,” Victor says quietly. “But Peter is sick. He’s got a lot of psychological traumas related to his past. Besides, he didn’t have anyone to support him when he was growing up.”       “Who knows, Mr. Johnson…” Anna shrugs. “But maybe, you’re right. I personally got much better when I forgave Julian for all the pain he gave me and told him personally about it. Maybe Peter should really let everything go and forgive anyone. Leave the past in the place where he doesn’t wanna come back.”       At this moment, Peter moves his eyes to everyone in the room. And seeing that they are busy talking to each other and do not look at him anymore, the man gets out of the room quickly and goes to the room to stay alone and fall into his dark thoughts.       “Does it mean our efforts will be worthless until Peter lets all the offences go?” Natalia rounds her eyes.       “It’s clear that it’s eating him so hard that he cannot live well,” Victor assumes. “He cannot trust people. He expects a betrayal from them all the time.”       “He’s really expecting it from us,” Daniel confesses. “And he’s terribly afraid of this.”       “Helene is not perfect, I can’t deny it,” Scarlett says thoughtfully. “But deep inside, she’s a very good girl. She wasn’t just lucky to end up in bad company. If she’d befriended with Raquelle, Natalia, and someone else, not that hooligan Ashley, my girl wouldn’t gone too far.”       “I guess Mr. Johnson is right that Peter just needs to forgive everyone,” Raquelle says thoughtfully, looking at her hands. “My child years made my mental health much worse, too. And I lived many years with a wish to prove that I was worth something. Everyone and myself. My offense because of the unfair way everyone treated me was strong, and I didn’t wanna let it go. I literally lived the life of another person. A brave and confident woman that feared nothing and knew what she wanted. I denied the existence of the little girl with broken wings until the end. But when I recognized the problem and let it go, I started to feel much better.”       “That’s why Peter is going to have nervous breakdowns every time fate tests him while he keeps being mad and remembers the past,” Victor says confidently. “He can take someone’s problems easily and is not afraid to fight with his close people’s enemies. We all remember that he showed himself as a very brave and determined man in the situation of Daniel and Anna. But his personal problems will keep breaking him and making him go crazy.”       “You described everything well…” Daniel notices thoughtfully. “Peter really behaved worthily. I really believed he became different. But… Now… Now I see nothing has changed at all. Everything kinda came back to the old ways. When Rose ran into his own problem, he broke down.”       “The important thing is that Peter himself recognizes his problem. It’s very good. But it’s not enough, though. He should also want to solve it. Want to get deeper into his mind, find the original source to all of this, and work it out somehow. I don’t know… Maybe, he actually has some memories that he, so to say, blocked. Because they are much more painful to him than the story of the school bullying.”       “Do you want to say something else we don’t know about happened in the story of that boy, and it’s much more awful?” Scarlett opens her eyes widely.       “I don’t exclude it, Mrs. Marshall. I’m not a psychologist, I’m going to specify, but I have a lot of life experience. It’s just my assumptions based on what I hear and see. Peter’s brain could erase something from his memory as a protective reaction, even though some things keep giving him some signs. They tell him, ‘Remember, Peter, remember!’ It may hide the source of all his problems. And his school years made the situation much worse.”       “But what could happen?” Terrence throws his hands up. “Which memories did Peter block?”       “Any sort, Terrence. Your adult life mainly depends on your childhood years. If your relationships with adults were healthy, and you learned to set up your personal limits and defend yourself from dirt and negative, it’s easier for you to get through any ups and downs when you’re an adult.’       “Do you mean the situation with his childhood years is much worse than we think?” Edward surprises.       “I repeat, it’s just my assumption. But even if there’s something about it, everything depends on Peter himself. Whether he understands that the problem is hidden in the depth of his soul. The depth of his brain.”       “You make us reflect,” Natalia says thoughtfully.       “Anyway, now you'd better focus on making Peter feel comfortable and able to hold on. The situation with Helene made him freak out.”       “He scared me to death when he reached out to scissors and then didn’t react to any of our questions,” Anna confesses, putting her hand on her heart.       “Not just you, sweetie,” Raquelle adds with anxiety. “Though he’s still walking dumbfounded and doesn’t speak a lot. That’s why I’m seriously worried about him.”       “That’s why Daniel’s suggestion of Peter’s move into his house seems very good,” Scarlett says thoughtfully. “Who knows what that boy may do when he is at his apartment all alone.”       “If the situation gets worse, I will personally go to his home, take all his stuff, and drive him to my home,” Daniel says determinedly. “And I don’t care if he wants it or not.”       “Yes, yes, I’m asking you not to leave him alone,” Victor says. “Otherwise, Peter will do something to himself. He is now in despair and thinks there’s no way out.”       “We know, Mr. Johnson,” Edward nods hesitantly.       “All the problems kind of layer on one another,” Terrence adds. “School bullying, people trust issues, the girlfriend’s kidnapping…”       “Marcus’ false accusations about Helene’s betrayer,” Daniel adds.       “My granddaughter would better die than betray Peter!” Scarlett says confidently. “She would not do a bad thing to him. She would be the last one that boy could expect a hit in the back from.”       “We completely agree with you, Mrs. Marshall,” Anna replies determinedly. “It just cannot be the truth! No person would give pain to someone, the secret feelings for whom they’ve hidden for one and a half years.”       “In short, do everything I told you,” Victor insists. “While the police are working on the search, you should make sure that Peter doesn’t go crazy from grief and believes that he will reunite with Helene soon.”       “Alright, Mr. Johnson,” Edward nods. “We will do what you said.”       “If I need some information, I will contact you shortly. And you can call me at any time if you have something to say. Call me after the first sign from the kidnapper.”       “Yes, Mr. Johnson,” everyone in the room pronounces confidently.       “And yeah, I will have to leave for my personal business for two days again. But I promise that I will be controlling it all, and my colleagues will help me with investigating this case. You can contact Oliver at any time. I will explain everything to him so he can help you.”       “Thank you so much, Mr. Policeman,” Scarlett thanks in a little shaking voice. “Thank you for agreeing to help.”       “I will do everything to find your granddaughter alive as soon as possible.”       Sammy barks quietly and gets some caress form Victor.       “And you get well, buddy,” Victor says. “Have a lot of rest, eat a lot, take cures… We need you healthy, too.”       “Sammy is a baby yet, I would say,” Scarlett notices. “He’s just one year old. When you’re young, you heal everything quickly.”       “I wish, my darling!”       And while Sammy keeps pressing himself to Victor, who pets the dog on the head with pleasure, Natalia looks around and frowns slightly when she does not see Peter anywhere.       “Hey, guys, does someone know where Peter is?” Natalia asks.       “It’s weird, he was just standing near the window!” Anna notices. “He came to it and fell into silence again.”       “Did he get out of here when we talked?” Edward surprises.       “And we didn’t even notice it,” Terrence adds with rounded eyes.       “Erm, excuse me, Mrs. Marshall, I hope the doors in your apartment cannot be locked from the inside?” Daniel expresses hope tensely.       “The door of the bathroom can be locked from the inside,” Scarlett confesses. “My husband and I often fought because he loved locking himself in there and spend one or two hours in the bathroom.”       “Oh, damn…” Raquelle closes her mouth with a hand, rounding her eyes and getting a little pale. “What if he really locked himself in the bathroom?”       “My gosh, he can do anything there!” Natalia horrifies.       “Are there some sharp things in it?” Anna addresses Scarlett with anxiety,       “Just a box of new blades and Helene’s razor,” Scarlett replies hesitantly. “It’s in a small drawer under the sink.”       “Damn, how we could miss this moment!” Daniel claps himself on his forehead.       “I’m sorry, Mrs. Marshall, but if Peter really locked himself in there, we will have to break the door,” Terrence says with sadness.       “Holy Mother…” Scarlett closes her mouth with her hand with tears in her eyes. “Why is this happening?”       Sammy makes a quiet, heartbreaking howl that expresses all his pain and worries. Being super excited, Daniel gets up from the bed first and goes quickly to the bathroom, while Terrence and Edward follow him, and Natalia, Raquelle, and Anna do it after they look at each other with horror in their wet eyes. Victor stays with Scarlett, asks her to lie in the bed, and suggests that they work on the official application of Helene’s kidnapping.       For the friends’ luck, the door of the bathroom is closed but not locked. Daniel opens it with no problems and sees Peter standing with his back turned on him and being busy with something that lies in the sink. But when he hears the squeak of the opening door and sees his friend in the reflection of the mirror, he turns sharply on him with widely open eyes and a heavy breath, grabbing the sink tightly with both hands.       “Hey, what are you doing here?” Daniel asks with suspicion.       “Me?” Peter surprises falsely, while his eyes are running from side to side. “Erm… Nothing…”       At this moment, Peter feels up something in the sink and takes it in his hand that he hides behind his back.       “N-n-nothing at all…”       “How did you get out of there so that nobody noticed it?” Daniel wonders and enters the bathroom, while Edward and Terrence come to the doorstep.       “Erm…” Peter stutters and swallows nervously, putting his head on his shoulders. “I… I just… Wanted to be alone…”       “To do some stupid things?”       “What stupid things?”       “Don’t act like an idiot. You understand everything well.”       “I said I did nothing.” Peter moves his tense glance aside. “And I ain’t gonna do…”       Squeezing something tightly in his hand, Peter wants to leave the bathroom with his head inclined. But Daniel, frowning slightly, pays attention to the way the blond tries to hide something.       “Hey, hey, stop!” Daniel pronounces determinedly, comes to Peter in a sharp, quick step, takes him under his arm, and pulls him toward himself. “What are you holding in your hand?”       “What hand?” Peter asks without emotions.       “What are you trying to hide there? Why are you hiding your hand behind your back?”       “Nothing, I…” Peter starts breathing a little heavily. “Erm… I just squeezed it… Because I’m nervous…”       “Give it to me,” Daniel reaches out his hand.       “What?”       “Give it, I said. Until you give me what you’re holding, you won’t get out of here.”       “I have nothing!”       “Pe-ter…” Daniel looks at Peter closely.       “Sorry, dude, but I wanna be alone. I’m not in mood to talk about anything.”       Peter turns around and wants to leave the bathroom. But Edward closes the way, standing in the doorstep, leaning on it with one hand, and coughing quietly.       “Quiet, quiet, blond, quiet,” Edward says quietly, looking at Peter confidently with his head proudly raised, while the blond steps back. “Not so fast.”       “We saw you took something from the sink and hid it behind your back,” Terrence says. “And I’m ready to bet that’s the blade.”       “Please, guys, leave me alone,” Peter says excitedly, still hiding something behind his back with a heavy breath. “I wanna be alone.”       “Yeah, so you go to the fucking afterlife?” Daniel breaks into a cry. “So you put the case you didn’t start one day to an end?”       “Come on, Peter, show us what you’re hiding there,” Terrence demands determinedly.       “I said I have nothing!” Peter exclaims in a high, loud voice.       “Show your hands then,” Edward says quietly. “Show us that you’re holding nothing.”       “Listen, get off me. Why are you all annoying me?”       “If you don’t give it, I’ll take it by force,” Daniel says, crossing his arms over his chest.       “I’m an adult, capable man who can do anything he wants.”       “Don’t be a fool, Rose,” Terrence puts his hands on his hands. “You completely understand you’ll not leave this place with that thing in your hands.”       “Why do you the fuck care about what I do and what I hold?” Peter snaps, getting nervous at the realization of the fact that he is now in the trap and shifting his weight from one foot to another.       “We do because you’re our friend,” Edward replies. “And we will not let you do anything to you.”       “I am not going to do anything to myself!”       “And yeah, my words about you moving into my house weren’t a joke,” Daniel says confidently. “If your condition gets worse, it will happen. And I give a fuck about whether you want it or not. I will go to your home and take your stuff personally.”       “Listen, guys, get the fuck off me!” Peter demands coldly. “I feel fucking bad, but you are irritating me now.”       “Calm down, buddy, it’s okay,” Terrence says quietly. “Just give us what you wanna take with you, and you can get out.”       After looking at his friends with widely open eyes full of anxiety and fear, Peter tries to run away from the bathroom sharply with the hope that he will manage to leave the apartment. But Terrence and Edward close the way with themselves and push him in by force. And Daniel grabs Rose from behind and holds him tightly, not letting him take a second attempt to run away.       “Let me go!” Peter demands aggressively, trying to get out of Daniel’s grip desperately. “Let me go, I said!”       Using the moment, Edward tries to open Peter’s hand and take what he is hiding in it, even if it turns out to be a hard thing due to the blond’s hard resistance.       “Gimme the knife!” Edward demands. “Give it, I said!”       “Get off me!” Peter keeps breaking free. “Leave me, the fuck! Let me get out!”       “Are you really crazy?” Terrence wonders loudly. “To kill yourself in your girlfriend’s apartment! While the old woman with a high blood pressure is lying in the near room!”       “It’s my business!” Peter snaps. “It does not the fuck have to do with you! IT DOES NOT, HEAR ME!”       “It does have!” Daniel exclaims, starting to hold Peter much tighter, while the blond’s arms are immobilized and presses closely to his body. “You will not do stupid things with us!”       “I shall do what I want anyway! And nobody can stop me! NOBODY! IF I WANT TO DIE, I SHALL DO MY BEST FOR NOBODY TO KNOW IT! I SHALL NO LONGER BE AN IDIOT THAT I WAS THE LAST TIME!”       “Wake up, Peter!” Terrence demands loudly, taking Peter by the shoulders and shaking the guy as he sets his confident look into Rose’s bloodshot eyes. “Hear us!”       “LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE! I WANT TO HEAR NOTHING! NOTHING!”       After barely getting out of the grip of Daniel and pushing him off himself, Peter rushes to the exit from the bathroom, near which Raquelle, Natalia, and Anna are already standing, not holding down the tears, closing their mouths with hands, and watching their friend falling into a hysteria with horror in their widely open eyes. But again, he meets a failure because Edward catches him with no problems, grabs him tightly from behind, and pulls him onto himself by force, despite the blond’s hard resistance.       “LET ME GO, EDWARD!” Peter roars. “LET ME GO, I SAID! I SHALL NOT STAY HERE ANYMORE!”       “Please, Pete, don’t scare us…” Anna begs with tears in her eyes in a quiet, shaking voice.       “Girls, get out of here!” Daniel demands. “He’s having hysteria. He may harm you.”       “Watch Mrs. Marshall and calm her down,” Edward adds. “We will solve the problem with him.”       “Please, Peter, brace yourself,” Natalia says in despair. “You can do this, we believe in you. It’s gonna be alright. We promise you. Just don’t do stupid things.”       “We can solve any problem,” Raquelle says softly. “And self-harm or suicide is not a solution. Yes, we know the situation is hard. But I’m sure we will get through this if we’re together. Unity is the key that opens any door.”       “But in my case, everything is fucking WORTHLESS!” Peter explodes. “WORTHLESS!”       “Peter… Peter, please, listen…”       “LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU ALL! LET ME DIE QUIETLY WITHOUT ANY WITNESSES!”       Losing control of himself, Peter makes an incredible effort to break free again and run to the exit from the bathroom as fast as a meteor, scaring the girls with his crazy eyes and making them step back sharply and press themselves closely to each other. Then Daniel and Edward grab him at the same time, while Terrence closes the way with his body and pushes the guy into the bathroom again. Even if they are scared deep inside, the friends keep absolute calm and collected as if they know what to do.       “It’s okay, Peter, it’s okay!” Daniel exclaims, grabs Peter’s face, and sets his confident look into his eyes that are now literally black from anger. “Look at me! Look! Hear me! Wake up! Don’t do stupid things!”       “Lock us here,” Terrence says quietly, addressing the crying girls. “He will not get out of here in this case.”       “He doesn’t control himself!” Natalia notices with horror in her eyes. “Peter may harm all of you.”       “Don’t worry, girls, it’s gonna be okay. Now we’ll wake him up. Just give us time.”       “What if you can’t?” Anna expresses anxiety. “You just look at his condition! Pete may easily kill himself right before your eyes.”       “He will not. We won’t let him.”       “Oh, God!” Raquelle opens her eyes widely, seeing Peter already fighting with Edward and Daniel, who try to hold him and pull him aside by one.       “Okay, lock the door and go to the room of Mrs. Marshall. But if he doesn’t calm down, we’ll give him some sedative. Find something in the first aid box.”       Despite the girls’ excited protests, Terrence closes the door of the bathroom quickly and rushes to help Edward and Daniel, who have to dodge everything Peter throws at them with an irritated growl, not thinking that he may accidentally harm them. Raquelle, Anna, and Natalia look at each other hesitantly, not knowing if they should do this. But when someone leans on the closed door with the body, the friends jump aside with a quiet squeak. After this, Cameron slides the bolt with shaking hands and hugs tightly Rochester and Seymour, still standing in the same place with them and not even thinking of leaving.       Meanwhile, Terrence manages to grab the hand, with which Peter is holding a filled bottle of shampoo. After making him throw it to the floor by force, the man has to fight with his friend for two seconds, while the blond’s loud, irritated breath can be hard even behind the closed door. Then MacClife, Sr. manages to grab Rose tightly from behind so that his arms are immobilized, while Edward helps Daniel get up after he slips over something.       “LET ME GO, MACCLIFE!” Peter keeps being hysterical, trying so hard to get out of Terrence’s grip. “LET ME GO, I SAID!”       “We wanna help you!” Terrence exclaims. “We won’t let you harm yourself!”       “I KNOW WHAT TO DO WITHOUT YOU!”       “Do what you want to us – we’ll take it all. But don’t dare to cut yourself!”       “I DON’T NEED NANNIES’ SERVICE!”       “You asked us to be near when you feel bad. So, we’re keeping our promise.”       “I DID NOT THE FUCK SAY IT! NOT THE FUCK!”       “We’re here, Peter,” Daniel says quietly. “Whatever happens, you can always ask us for help. We’ll help you solve any problem. We’ll do our best to end even what seems hopeless.”       “We’d also fret and fume, just like you do now, if something happened to our girls,” Edward adds, taking Peter by the shoulders. “Nobody judges you. We completely understand you.”       “WHAT YOU THE FUCK UNDERSTAND!” Peter screams. “YOU HAVEN’T GOTTEN THROUGH WHAT I HAVE TO GET THROUGH!”       “Yeah, but it doesn’t mean we can’t understand you.”       “NOBODY UNDERSTANDS ME! NOBODY WILL EVER DO! NEVER!”       “It’s okay, Peter, it’s okay. We’ll get through it together. Yes, the situation is hard, but I promise we’ll find a way out.”       “There’s a way! The only one! LEAVING ME ALL ALONE!”       After getting out of Terrence’s grip by hitting him on the ankle with his foot, Peter rushes to the exit from the bathroom and starts hitting the door with hands and screaming hysterically when he finds out that it’s locked.       “HEY, LET ME OUT OF HERE! WHO LOCKED THE DOOR? GIRLS! I KNOW YOU DID IT! OPEN IT NOW! LET ME OUT OF HERE! HEAR ME? GIRLS!”       “You’ll get out of here when you come back to normal!” Edward says confidently.       “I SHALL BREAK THE DOOR IF YOU DON’T OPEN IT! IT’S NOT A JOKE! I SHALL DO THIS!”       “We’re the only ones you can harm,” Daniel says determinedly. “Terrence’s already said you can do anything you want to us.”       “Even if there’s more of you, IT WILL NOT STOP ME!”       When he takes a couple of bottles of shampoo or shower gel from the floor, Peter throws them strongly at Daniel and Terrence, who manage to jump aside in time. And while he is fighting with Edward, the older guys twist his arms around and pull him aside, despite the hard resistance of the blond. But the friends do not hold him for too long because Rose pushes both of them with an incredible easiness so that they fall to the floor like stones. Then Peter looks around with a loud, heavy breath, looking for something he lost when fighting with his friends. And when Edward decides to come to him quietly, Rose grabs the small knife from the floor that he took from the kitchen. Pressing himself closely to the wall, he thinks of nothing better than point the cold gun at the men, making them get back sharply and grab each other’s hands with widely open eyes.       “GET BACK!” Peter shouts. “GET BACK, I SAID”!       “It’s okay, Peter, it’s okay,” Terrence acts like he is calm. “You’re with us, you’re safe.”       “DON’T DARE TO COME TO ME!”       Peter puts the knife closely to his throat, squeezing it in his hand with shaking fingers.       “DON’T DARE! OR I SHALL KILL MYSELF! RIGHT HERE! I’M NOT KIDDING! I SHALL KILL MYSELF!”       “Quiet, Peter, quiet,” Daniel tries to calm down. “Breathe deeper. It’s okay.”       “Either you let me get out of here or I CUT MY THROAT! FOR SURE! I SHALL KILL MYSELF!”       “Don’t do stupid things, Peter,” Edward says. “Give that thing to us.”       “You think I’m kidding? YEAH? IF YOU WANT TO WATCH MY DEATH SO BADLY, I SHALL DO THIS!”       “Brother, look at us,” Daniel says quietly. “Look at us, please. It’s us, your friends. We aren’t your enemies and wanna help you.”       “We know you need us right now,” Terrence adds. “Here we are. Because you want it.”       “I WANT NOTHING!” Peter explodes. “NOTHING! I WANNA DIE! BECAUSE I AM SICK OF ALL THIS SHIT!”       “You need us as much as we need you. If you aren’t with us, things will be different.”       “STOP CALMING ME DOWN! STOP! ENOUGH!”       “Give the knife to us,” Edward says determinedly, reaching out his hand. “Move it off your throat and give it to us.”       “I shall give if you let me go!”       “We will let you go when you give this thing to us.”       “I SHALL NOT GIVE THEN!”       “Please, Peter…” Daniel pronounces quietly and starts coming closer to Peter slowly but confidently.       “DON’T COME TO ME, PERKINS!” Peter points the knife sharply at Daniel. “STAY THERE! HEAR ME! STAY THERE! DON’T COME TO ME! GET BACK!”       “It’s okay, focus on your breath. Breathe deeply and slowly.”       “SHUT UP! GET OFF! GET OFF NOW! OR I WON’T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ME!”       “Do what I tell you, and it will be gone. Focus on your breath. Breathe deeper. Slowly.”       “GET BACK, I SAID!”       “Let’s do it together. And you’ll see you’ll feel much better. C’mon, buddy, repeat after me. Slowly. Inhale… Exhale… C’mon. Inha-a-a-ale… Exha-a-a-a-ale…”       With these words, Daniel slowly pumps as much air into his lungs as possible and exhales slowly, not stopping to look closely into the eyes of Peter, who does the same unconsciously.       “Good…” Daniel pronounces quietly and determinedly. “Again… Okay…”       “Don’t come…” Peter pronounces much quieter, still threatening Daniel with the knife, but doing what the man tells him. “Don’t come.”       “Good, Peter, good job… Good job, man! Keep going! C’mon… Slowly… Not rush… Oka-a-a-a-say… Okay… C'mon, c’mon, you’re doing this great. Good job!”       After a few approaches, Peter does not notice that his hysterical attack gets weaker little by little. And Daniel, using the moment, comes much closer to him and asks Edward and Terrence help him with a glance.       “Okay… Let’s do it all together now.” Daniel smiles to encourage. “Okay, brother, good. You’re doing everything right.”       “Good job, Pete, keep doing the same!” Terrence encourages. “Okay… Focus on your breath. If you keep doing the same thing, you’ll feel much better.”       “You can!” Edward exclaims. “Just remember that you’re with us. And while we’re here, nothing bad happens. We’ll help you.”       “Good, Pete, you’re doing this great,” Daniel says confidently. “Let’s do it two more times… Okay…”       Daniel takes two more steps closer to Peter, who presses much tighter to the wall with his back, while every single muscle squeezes from painful tension.       ‘Okay, buddy… Now take this thing off your throat, please. Take it off. Or you’ll get hurt.”       But Peter still keeps holding the knife to his throat with a heavy, deep breath and squeezing it in his hand tightly as he feels like a bunny caught in a trap as long as Daniel comes.       “C’mon, Peter, give me the knife.” Daniel reaches out his hand. “Just put it on my hand, and it’s gonna be okay. C’mon, brother, give me the knife. C’mon. Be brave!”       A few seconds later, Peter shaking and looking pale from tension, Peter moves the knife off his throat very hesitantly and glances at this. After he looks at Daniel, who seems quiet at first sight, with widely open eyes that do not blink, he reaches out the thing, which the brunet takes with no problems.       “Yeah, good job!” Daniel smiles slightly. “You see how easy it was.”       Not looking back, Daniel twists his arm behind, and Terrence takes the knife that he puts aside, while Edward hides the box with blades much better.       “We’re proud of you, buddy. You’re awesome, man.” Daniel takes Peter by the shoulders and squeezes them slightly. “Can you see that you feel better? Right? Huh?”       Peter says nothing and just nods hesitantly.       “Don’t be ashamed, it’s fine in your situation.” Daniel claps Peter slightly on his cheek, while Terrence and Edward come to them slowly but confidently. “We aren’t mad at you and don’t judge you. It’s okay.”       “Good job, Pete, you’re awesome!” Edward exclaims cheerfully, clapping Peter on his forearm. “Nothing terrible happened. Don’t think about it.”       “It’s okay, okay, bro, it’s okay,” Terrence encourages, clapping Peter on the top of his head. “It’s okay it’s alright. It happens. Don’t hold your emotions inside. Take it on us. We’ll take and understand everything.”       Again, Peter says nothing and looks into the distance with wet dead eyes, while his whole body shakes, he feels a little dizzy and kind of lacks air, the invisible hands squeezes his chest so that it hurts, and his legs can barely stand and hold him. But at some moment, the guy makes a quiet sob, slides down the wall powerlessly, presses his knees to himself, and puts his head between them. Then he starts crying bitterly, not thinking about any kind of shyness for his friends, who look at each other hesitantly with a heavy from tension breath.       First, Daniel gets down to his knees in front of Peter, but then he just sits down next to him when he takes his crying friend in a tight hug, caressing his head and grabbing him by the nape of his neck, while the blond leans on his shoulder with his forehead and squeezes his hands so that his knuckles get white. Though, a little later, Rose presses Perkins to himself as if he says that he needs his best friends without words. Daniel himself accepts the responsibility of being the older brother, who is trying so hard to comfort his younger brother with the thought that everything his friend needs now is a tight hug or just touches that can show that he is not alone without thousands of words.       After watching what’s happening with a heart squeezed from pain, Edward squats down and strokes Peter’s back softly at some moment. Then Terrence gets down to his knees to put his hand on the top of the blond’s head for two seconds and clap him on the shoulder. While Rose himself keeps crying bitterly and pulling his little disheveled hair so that it hurts.       “I’m sorry…” Peter finds the strength to pronounce in a low shaking voice. “I’m so sorry…”       “It’s okay, bro, it’s okay,” Terrence calms down. “We’re with you. We’ve got your back.”       “We’ll help you get through this,” Edward promises. “You’re not alone. You’re with us.”       Peter doubles over without words and covers his face with his hands, with much louder sobs. And now Terrence takes him in a tight hug, caressing his head and not moving his eyebrow when he understands he cannot breathe due to his friend’s too tight grip. Edward also says and does nothing when Rose squeezes him strongly with both arms, promising himself to take any discomfort to comfort the suffering man as well as his friend and brother.       And when Daniel, Edward, and Terrence take Peter in a group hug, they hear someone unlock the door of the bathroom. It opens slowly, and Anna shows up on the doorstep hesitantly, while her face is wet from all the tears she has cried, and her eyes are puffy. Seeing the girl, Edward flashes a slight smile at her to let her know that the worst is over. She crosses the doorstep slowly along with the tear-stained Raquelle and Natalia and stands like a column for two more seconds. The girls feel that their hearts squeeze painfully when they see the powerless Peter crying heartbreakingly on the shoulder of his friends, who press him to themselves by one.       Sniffing quietly, Anna comes to the men sitting on the floor, squats down, and caresses Peter’s shoulder softly. The man moves his wet eyes to her and hugs her tightly when she presses him to herself and caresses his head softly. Not thinking too much, Natalia and Raquelle join the friends and try to comfort Rose with the same hugs and any physical contact, while he feels absolutely powerless after his hysteria. They do not hear Victor coming to the doorstep of the bathroom quietly at some moment and watching what’s happening with pity in his eyes and the feeling that his heart is breaking as he sees the guy, who has suffered all his life for nothing.       

***

      As long as it’s getting dark outside, having a couple of candles is not enough to light up the room where Helene is locked. Not exactly that she suffers from a fear of darkness, but she is afraid to stay at this place all alone. And some weird sounds do not make her pastime nice. And insects creeping on the walls and floor tense the girl much more as she is sitting on the bed with her legs pressed to her chest and watching what’s going to be her companion in the near future with widely open eyes.       Even though Helene keeps believing that she is in a nightmare deep inside, her brain starts to accept the fact that it’s not the truth. That she is in a trap, which she cannot get out of without anyone’s help. Yes, the girl does not doubt that her friends and boyfriend know everything already and are going to take some measures. But she is not also sure that they will find her because the criminals drove her somewhere out of this town. Judging by the thick woods that she sees through the only small window in this room.       “Gosh, what do I do?” Helene asks herself in a whisper. “How do I get out of here? How do I not let them kill me? I’m powerless now. Even if I can get out of this room, where do I go? Find the car of one of those cads, just like Peter did? But where do I get the keys? I can’t do anything without them!”       Helene sighs heavily.       “However, I can’t do anything even if I got them… They’d catch me anyway… Though, I don’t wanna stay here so badly. I wanna go home, to my grandma… I wanna know what happened to Sammy. Did Raquelle find him? Did she help him?”       Helene glances at the candle that lights up the table, on which it’s placed.       “And Peter… What’s happening to him? Does he care I’m in trouble now? Is he mad? Or is he trying to find me? Can I count on him? What if Marcus tells him something terrible so that Rose believes it and thinks I’m a false bitch.”       When a little mouse runs somewhere far away, Helene shakes sharply and tenses all the muscles of her body so that it hurts.       “Well, I’m really false…” Helene sighs heavily. “I didn’t tell Peter the full story of my conflict with the girls. I didn’t confess that they weren’t the only people who suffered because of me. There are many people. Some of whom probably decided to tell Marcus about me.”       Helene puts her head on her knees.       “Damn, if I’d confessed everything earlier, nothing would’ve happened. I’m an idiot… Just an idiot… Why did I delay this moment ‘til the very end? Moreover, the girls know everything well and could reveal me at any time. I’m so lucky they decided to be silent and give me the right to confess everything. But I did not use it. And I can’t shout that Marcus wanna slander me. He’s right. Absolutely right. Yes, that man may probably want to exaggerate. But I’m really not innocent. The dark angel, as one of his accomplices called me.”       Sniffing quietly, Helene moves her sad eyes to the smoke of the candle that settles up some warm feelings in her soul. Probably, this is the only thing she can do when she has nothing – no book, no TV, no computer. The girl is not one of those who likes lying on the bed like a princess all the time and waiting for everyone to do everything for her. She usually finds something to do: working, doing homework, going somewhere with her grandmother, friends, or boyfriend, or walking with her dog. So, she is not happy with the perspective of doing nothing.       Trying to calm herself down a little with good thoughts as she looks at the flame, Helene does not notice that the door is opened by someone with a quiet squeak, and Elijah shows up on the doorstep, holding a little plate with some cheap food that is definitely for the girl. Seeing him, the girl shakes slightly and presses her back to the headboard of the bed unconsciously, while she gets sharply pale and holds her breath, waiting for something terrible.       “Good afternoon, beautiful prisoner,” Elijah says quietly. “Marcus asked me to give you some food so you don’t die much earlier.”       Elijah puts the plate on the table, on which two candles are placed on.       “Don’t expect anything delicious, but we will not feed you as bad as a pig.”       “How long are you going to hold me here?” Helene asks hesitantly.       “I can’t say it. Everything depends on Marcus’ decision. When he wants to deal with you.”       “Please, let me go. I don’t want to stay here. I’m so scared. I’m all alone here, and some living things are running.”       “Nobody cares about what you want!” Elijah sits on the edge of the bed. “I don’t want many things, either. I sometimes feel bad, sad, and scared. But I don’t tell everyone about it.”       “If you want, I will tell nobody about all of this,” Helene promises. “I will not tell anyone what happened today. But I’m begging you, don't hold me here.”       “Nobody bans anyone from saying something. Your friends and your precious Peter can go to the police and report your disappearance today. But they cannot do anything.”       “There’s nothing impossible.”       “Don’t hope, dolly, nobody will find you,” Elijah says confidently with his head proudly raised, clapping Helene on her knee. “While you come here, you spend a lot of time. Only hermits could live in these thick woods.”       “I don’t want to die. I don't want to say goodbye to anyone.”       “I’m really sorry, but it doesn’t depend on me, Marcus decides everything, and I just do what he wants.”       “Why? Why do you need this? Why do you dance attendance in front of that man?’       “Well…” Elijah glances aside for a second. “At least because my father was one of his closest friends. And I’ve known Marcus since I was a child. He’s always been nice to me. And when he started to ask me for help, I could not refuse. I remember how much that man has done for my father and me.”       “What did I do to you?” Helene sniffs quietly. “Why are you mocking me like this?”       “Don’t worry, Helene.” Elijah wipes carefully tears under Helene’s eyes. “If you don’t show off, we will be friends. Nobody will harm you for nothing.”       “You’re lying!” Helene throws in a high, loud voice. “You consider me as your prize that Marcus promised you. He doesn’t even hide it.”       “It’s true, yeah. Do you think it’s so hard to resist a very sympathetic girl?”       Elijah looks at Helene from head to foot with an interest, making her clover her décolleté.       “Moreover, the guys and I are all single now. It's been a while since we dated someone. Which means we lack sex, too. And you… You could make us a little happy.”       “No!” Helene shouts. “Don’t even hope! I will not let you touch me! No! No way!”       “Don’t forget, you’re our prisoner and must do anything we order.”       “Anything but the rape!”       “Nobody is going to rape you. If you don’t resist somehow with the thought that a prisoner should obey, it’s technically going to be your agreement to the intimate.”       “No, please, don’t do this…” Helene begs in despair, while tears roll over her cheeks slowly. “I don’t want this… No…”       “Actually, it’s one of our orders, darling.”       Elijah runs his hand slowly over Helene’s naked leg, noticing silently how smooth the skin of it is.       “And if one of us tells you to undress and bring your ass to us, you obey silently.”       “It’s wrong!” Helene protests. “You cannot use any girl that makes you excited like this!”       “Let me explain everything to you again since your head is still somewhere in the clouds, and you think this is your nightmare.”       Elijah brings his brings close to Helene’s face, while she steps back with widely open eyes.       “It’s not a nightmare, Helene,” Elijah assures with a sly smile. “This is what’s happening to you in real life. You are our prisoner and will die soon. To the great sadness of your beloved Peter. Well… Or happiness… I don’t know how he is going to behave if we tell him more dirty things about you. And maybe, even send a couple of provocative photos.”       “His friends won’t let him believe it,” Helene assures in a shaking voice. “The guys can think and can make Peter get all the stupid things out of his mind.”       “Trust me, if he keeps being under the pressure, he will fuck off his friends someday and put you in the first place in the list of his biggest enemies.”       “I do believe in them. They’re all by my side. Even if I didn’t ask them about it.”       “Nobody bans them.”       Elijah steps away from Helene sharply, raising his hands.       “But no matter what, you will have to admit that you are absolutely powerless against us. There’s no place to run, we will not let you do this. Resisting and racking your vocal cords doesn’t make sense because no one can hear you.” Elijah sneers quietly. “Expect some flies and mice that you fear to death, as I can see.”       “Let me go, please…” Helen begs. “Please, help me… I don’t know why, but I’m sure that you’re a good man deep inside. You’re not as horrible as Marcus and his other accomplices.”       “Nothing personal, Helene Marshall. I’m just doing what’s said by the friend of my father, whom I deeply respect.”       “You must understand that his actions don’t make sense. He is just a mentally ill man, who must get therapy.”       “Marcus is doing all of this for a reason. He has a real reason to hate Peter. Yes, I blinked my eyes surprisingly, as well. But when he told me everything, I understood it.”       “And what did my boyfriend do? What’s Peter’s fault for Marcus?”       “He was just born,” Elijah snaps. “If Peter hadn’t been born, Marcus would’ve been very happy. And he was deeply disappointed when he found out that Rose survived after his suicide attempt.”       “I would’ve died after him if it’d happened!” Helene says determinedly and sniffs. “Because I can’t imagine my life without Peter. I can’t even think that another man could be instead of him.”       “You all probably think Peter’s condition got worse because of the doctor’s mistake with transferring blood.” Elijah puts his finger on his lip. “You think he ignored the safety rules and treated his responsibility carelessly.”       “What?” Helen frowns slightly. “What do you want to say?”       “Nothing special.”       “Don’t tell me his was tried to be killed on purpose. The doctor was your accomplice, who provoked his blood infection.”       “Who knows, dolly, who knows…” Elijah smiles mysteriously.       “My God… Does it turn out that it started back then? Have you been chasing him for a long time?”       “Not as long as you think. Marcus actually knew nothing about him for many years. But his band’s growing popularity helped him find the boy.”       “Did he almost die because of you?” Helene concludes. “Was it all your work? Did he barely survive because of you? Though if not for you, he would’ve come to himself and back to his normal life a long time ago!”       “I will not confirm and deny anything. I will give you a chance to think a little. You have nothing to do here. So, you can reflect on what happened.”       “It’s awful…” Helene closes her face with her hands for two seconds and runs them from the top of her head to the nape of her neck. “My God… I… I wouldn’t have thought it was done on purpose. I thought that doctor was just unexperienced. Everyone thought so.”       “Nevertheless, Peter survived even after that,” Elijah notices. “Even though everyone literally buried him. They thought he died. Poison in his blood was spreading rapidly through his organism and pushing him closer and closer to the afterlife. But it’s clear that the doctor gave Rose tons of strong antibiotics and made the impossible.”       “Peter has suffered all his life!” Helene exclaims desperately. “He’s had to run into mockeries, betrayers, and loneliness all his life! And now one asshole that went insane is trying to erase him from this world!”       “Marcus will not calm down until he sees his name on the grave. He will be trying to kill Rose again and again until he does it. He didn’t do it then, but he can do this now.”       “No! Please, stop! Don’t harm him! He doesn’t deserve it!”       “I would tell you much more about how we tried to get rid of the blond-haired one. But I will save it for later. I’ve already dropped a hint on Peter feeling much worse after his suicide attempt for the reason.”       “Do you mean you didn’t calm down after that attempt to kill him?”       “Marcus has been restless since he learned about Peter Rose’s existence. Found out that it was the one he needed. The one to be the reason why his whole life was ruined.”       “I would bet whose life was ruined.”       “It’s alright, while you spend a wonderful time here, the guys and I will sometimes feed you with some interesting information. And one beautiful day, you will know the main reason for everything Marcus is doing. You will know how Peter Rose is connected with him.”       “I doubt I will hear something good.”       “What you will hear is going to turn everything upside down and make you forget everything you’ve known before.”       “I don’t understand you.”       “Don’t understand anything, Helene. All you should do now is be quiet and obedient. Not to do stupid things, which are the reason why you would be the only one to suffer.”       “Does it make sense if you kill me anyway?” Helene asks without emotions in her eyes.       “Well… This is how you can make your life longer. I mean, live your last days without pain and suffering. In the worst case, your pastime here is going to turn to a real hell that even men would not survive.”       “I wanna go home, to my grandma… Please, let me go to her…”       “I’m sorry, but it’s impossible.”       “I’m afraid to imagine what’s going to happen to her when she knows everything. When the guys have to explain the reason for what’s happening.”       “Of course, I’m sorry for that old woman, but I can do nothing!” Elijah shrugs. “An order is an order. Moreover, we didn’t make you silent. You decided to hide everything from her. And your friends have to solve it all now.”       “You’re monsters! Heartless monsters that may pay for everything you are doing!”       “No, Helene, we are not monsters yet. We will be monsters if you make us enraged. You will feel all our power then. Or we will just prevent your hysterics by tying you up tightly or injecting you with some powerful things.”       “Pity me…” Helene begs with tears in her eyes. “For God’s sake…”       “Oh, what else can I say to you?” Elijah sighs tiredly, rubbing his forehead with his hand and fixing slightly his bun on the head. “I guess it’s all… I brought you water and food, I explained under which conditions you would be here on, and I told you some interesting information…”       Elijah looks around quickly and stops his eyes on the burning candles.       “I will give you more candles later. Since they burn down too fast if you keep them lighted all the time.” Elijah smirks evilly. “Alright, alright. Since you fear some living things so badly, I shall bring a special spray and treat the whole room. I could also throw mousetraps so they don’t walk here.”       Helene says nothing and just swallows up nervously.       “Maybe, the guys and I will later think about giving you some clothes to change. But all of this will come true if you behave well. If you decide to declare a war and try to escape, flies will bite and eat you here. You, asshole, will wake up at the thought that something creeps on you. Or you will not sleep from fear at all. You will not get water and food. It’s good to be a little hungry at times. Moreover, you, girls, are used to this. You reject everything and walk hungry to keep your seducing body.”       In reply to this, Helene presses her knees to her chest much tighter as she keeps looking at Elijah with wet eyes as if she begs him to set her free.       “Alright, I think I will go,” Elijah says thoughtfully. “I don’t want to tell you all the same thing and laugh at the sight of your puppy eyes that you show me so hard with the hope of making me pity you.”       Elijah gets up quietly from the bed and pulls down his t-shirt slightly.       “Just in case, the night is going to be warm. So, you’re not supposed to get cold.”       “Please…” Helene whispers. “Help me…”       “Tomorrow, someone else will come to you. Tonight, will spend this night alone, but then the guys will be patrolling you by one. Even if the room is locked, and the door is closed with heavy furniture that you cannot move at all. It means, there’s no threat of you running away from here.”       Elijah turns around and comes to the door that is still open.       “Good night, dolly. I hope you will understand what’s better for you.”       Helene swallows up nervously with widely open eyes when Elijah leaves the room and closes the door that he props up with something heavy that cannot be moved so easily. Then the girl keeps crying bitterly, embracing her legs with both arms, and pressing them to herself as if it’s some of her close people, next to whom she wants to be so badly.       “No matter if I’m good, no matter if I’m rebellious…” Helene pronounces in a low shaking voice. “They will kill me anyway. Does it all make sense? When the guys or the police just assume where I can be, it’s gonna be too late.”       Helene moves her eyes sharply up with a heavy breath after one of the boards on the ceiling makes a quiet squeak.       “Grandma Scarlett… I need you so badly now… I wanna press to you right now… Just like in my childhood… I wanna you to read me a tale and kiss me before sleep. Or let me live with you… When I came to you and Grandpa Roger after seeing a nightmare. When you weren’t so severe to me. When you didn’t swear at me for doing something wrong.”       Helene makes a couple of quiet sobs.       “I feel so bad now… So scared… So lonely… I’m despair and don’t know what to do. I don’t wanna die. I don’t want. I can’t do this. I can’t leave you. I can’t leave the guys. And Peter’s gonna go crazy if I’m dead. I know it. I know he needs me. Just like I need him. I can’t live without him.”       Helene runs her hand carefully over the flame of the candle, feeling the burning warmth on her fingertips and seeing that it shakes slightly.       “Ah, I would be so happy to get married to him… And give birth to his little copy… But it’s gonna be impossible if I can’t get out of here. If nobody saves me.”       After lying down and turning her face on the candle, Helene embraces the pillow tightly.       “My God, give me the strength to survive in this hell. Don’t let me die here and make my close people suffer. I must get out of here alive. I must… Even if I don’t know how…”       When she sighs heavily with closed eyes, Helene raises herself a little and moves the small plate with a glass filled with water and a plate of oatmeal. She looks at all of this with sadness in her eyes, mixing the cold porridge with a spoon, and tastes it with some suspicion with the thought that they could add some poison in this food. And since she does not have an appetite due to the strong stress, the girl only eats some spoons of it and ignores the sense of nausea when she drinks some water. But she decides not to declare any kind of starvations and eats silently what she got with the thought that she must thank them at least for their reluctance to torture her with hunger.       Helene understands that she may be wrong, but something tells her that Elijah is kind of different from the other offenders of hers. Not so terrible. Not so rude. The girl tries so hard to get rid of the thought that this man seems more or less caring since he gave her some food kindly and promised to solve the problem with flying and creeping alive creatures. It’s hard to deny that Elijah does not make her as horrified as Marcus or, for example, Luther. She is afraid of them to the snake in her knees, but the right hand of Mr. Longbottom does not make her feel so. Nevertheless, Marshall does not let herself get her head in the clouds and think that the accomplice of the awful man could really be good and wish to save her life. In her opinion, it can only happen in movies or TV shows, but not in real life.