“Zade?” Jay’s voice cuts through my mother’s whispers, fading like wisps of cigarette smoke.
Speaking of, I shove my hand in my hoodie pocket, snatch one out of the packet, and light up.
Jay’s mouth opens, poised over words I honestly don’t want to hear right now.
“Don’t tell me not to smoke, and don’t ask me if I’m okay,” I cut in, voice hoarse with rage.
His mouth clicks shut, and he nods, looking back at the video of Addie fighting for her life, time-stamped seven days ago. The cameras don’t have audio, so while I’m unaware of the reasoning for the doctor trying to kidnap her, it doesn’t change the fact that he tried. Made clear by him quickly urging her out of bed, and her resistance the entire way.
She ambushed him with a scalpel of some sort, and he attacked her in retaliation. Only for the back of his head to be blown off while on top of her.
And while that is incredibly traumatizing, that’s not the part that has me boiling with rage. It’s the asshole that killed the doctor, then followed her up the stairs and watched her fucking shower.
Rio.
Daya has done her research, and while there was plenty to find on Rick Boreman—there’s almost nothing on Rio, outside of being born and raised in Puerto Rico, his school records, then migrating to the United States when he was eighteen. From there, she could find almost nothing on him. Only his visa, the apartment he rents, and two speeding tickets.
I call bullshit on that.
“Kind of weird this guy has cameras in his room only facing his shower and bed,” Jay mumbles, more to himself. I’m too busy inhaling a cigarette like it’s giving me life rather than taking it. If I watch that video again, I’ll be liable to whip out my gun and shoot the monitor until it’s nothing but shards of plastic and metal.
Jay’s fingers fly across the keyboard so quickly, I think I see flakes of his purple nail polish flying off. The video feed from when Addie was here disappears, and in its place are archived recordings that span back several years.
Whoever this guy is, he’s been illegally practicing for decades. Several times a month, injured people are brought to him—people that look like they’re up to no good.
I flick my cigarette to the ground and crush it beneath my boot, blowing out smoke as I watch Jay skip through several recordings. Just as I lift my boot to kick away the butt, I freeze and clench my jaw, hearing Addie's smart mouth even now.
Stop littering.
This place will be ashes by the time I’m done, but I said I would stop, so I will.
I pick up the butt, stuff it in my pocket, and force myself to refocus on the screen.
Several clips of women showering display on the screen, and with each passing video, my teeth clench harder and harder until every bone in my face threatens to crack.
They are all dressed in hospital gowns before and after their shower, and plenty are covered in bandages or have casts. They were patients, and they were unknowingly being recorded for the doctor’s viewing pleasure.
Jay’s face is tightened into a scowl, hundreds of videos on the screen. But then he pauses, hesitation permeating the air.
“What?” I ask, scanning my eyes over the screen to find what he’s seeing. It takes two seconds, and my heart stops. “Play the videos.”
Jay shakes his head and croaks, “You know what happens in them, Z. You don’t have—”
“Dammit, Jay, I do have to watch them. You know I fucking do.”
He sighs, acquiescing with a slump of his shoulders, and clicks the video. It’s just like the rituals—I wasn’t there to save them at the moment, but I’ll be damned if I turn my head away from their pain now.
On the screen, the doctor is carrying an unconscious woman to his bed, having just come from the second floor where she was probably treated for wounds.
He lays her down, removes her hospital gown, and then his own clothes. And for the next several minutes, he defiles her unconscious body. Disgust swirls in my stomach, growing stronger alongside a whirlpool of anger and the deepening desire to resurrect him so I can kill him myself.
As Jay continues to flip through videos, we realize that woman was one of probably hundreds of patients that were taken advantage of while they were unconscious.
Patients that were also children.
“I think we’ve seen enough. I don’t want to keep looking at this shit anymore,” Jay says, voice tight and uneven.
Clenching my fists, I nod, “Look up who this guy is real quick.”
He does as I ask, and I turn away, fiending for another cigarette already.