Page 20

Fiona sat in the sterile white of the hospital room, her fingers wrapped around Joslyn's limp hand. Machines beeped in a comforting rhythm, punctuating the silence. The antiseptic tang of disinfectant hung heavy in the air, a contrast to the warmth that Fiona tried to transfer from her palm into her sister's.

She studied Joslyn's face, memorizing the pallor of her skin against the crisp hospital sheets. The soft rise and fall of her chest was the only sign that she clung to life. Fiona's heart clenched as she leaned forward, whispering to the still form of her older sister.

"Remember the time we snuck out to catch fireflies?" Fiona's voice barely broke the hush of the room. "You ran ahead, laughing, your hair catching moonlight like strands of dark silk." She swallowed hard, the memory bittersweet. "I've missed that laugh, Jos."

A tear traced a silent path down Fiona's cheek. She wiped it away quickly, her gaze never leaving Joslyn's face. "They say you're strong, that you can hear me." Her words were hopeful whispers. "Please come back to us, Jos. I need you."

The litany of memories continued—a flood of shared secrets, childhood adventures, and teenage confessions. Fiona spoke of the beach where Joslyn had vanished, the years of unanswered questions, the weight of not knowing. With each word, she wove her hopes into a lifeline, willing Joslyn to grasp it and return to the world of the living.

"You have to wake up," Fiona urged, her voice a tremulous thread in the fabric of beeps and hisses. "There's so much I want to show you—my work with the FBI, the insects... I know you'd find it fascinating."

Gently, she adjusted Joslyn's blanket, tucking the edges around her as if the act could shield her from further harm. Fiona's mind raced with scientific facts about comas, about the mysterious threshold between consciousness and oblivion. But here, in the quiet room, all that knowledge felt distant, irrelevant against the raw ache of hope and fear.

"Joslyn," Fiona whispered, as if saying her name could be the incantation to break the spell holding her sister in this state. "Please, just open your eyes."

Fiona's eyes locked onto Joslyn's face, watching for the faintest sign of life. The sterile room seemed to hold its breath, the beeping monitors playing a steady, morbid rhythm. As she murmured a memory about their childhood dog, something miraculous happened—Joslyn's eyelids fluttered. Fiona leaned in, her heart hammering against her ribcage.

"Joslyn?" Her voice was barely audible, tinged with a cocktail of hope and trepidation.

Then, as abruptly as a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, Joslyn's eyes opened. They were the same deep brown that Fiona remembered, now glazed with confusion but unmistakably present. "Fiona," Joslyn whispered, her voice a ghostly echo of its former vivacity.

"Jos!" A surge of elation shot through Fiona's veins like adrenaline. She gripped Joslyn's hand tighter, willing her sister to continue, to speak, to be.

"Can you hear me?" Fiona pleaded, each word saturated with urgency.

But the reunion shattered as quickly as it had formed. Fear—a primal, raw terror—flooded Joslyn's gaze. Her body convulsed, limbs flailing with a violence that belied her frailty. Fiona recoiled, her mind reeling.

"Joslyn, stop! You're safe!" But her assurances drowned in the cacophony of alarms and Joslyn's shallow, panicked gasps.

"Help! Someone help her!" Fiona's voice cracked, her plea slicing through the chaos. She watched, helpless, as Joslyn thrashed on the bed, her dark hair whipping across the pillow like storm-tossed waves. The monitors screeched their warnings, a discordant symphony to the terror unfolding before Fiona's eyes.

"Please, Joslyn, please calm down!" But her words were lost in the tempest of her sister's fear.

Fiona's thoughts spun, recalling every case file, every victim's plight, but nothing from her training had prepared her for this—watching the sister she longed to save spiraling into an abyss of terror. All her knowledge of insects, all her analytical skills, were useless against the human mind's shadows.

"Joslyn, I'm here!" she cried, desperation clawing at her throat. But Joslyn was trapped somewhere only she could reach, beyond Fiona's grasp, fighting an invisible assailant in her own mind.

The blare of the alarms was swift and jarring, fracturing the fragile hope that had blossomed in Fiona's chest. Nurses, clad in their scrub blues, flooded into Joslyn's room like a tide of calm urgency. They moved with practiced precision, hands steadying Joslyn's thrashing form as they murmured soothing words lost beneath the din of machinery.

"Please, step back," one nurse said, her tone firm yet not unkind. Fiona retreated, her gaze fixed on Joslyn's contorted features—a far cry from the placid sister she had spoken to moments ago.

Dr. Keller entered, his presence cutting through the turmoil. His eyes, sharp and assessing, took in the scene before him. "What happened?" he asked, voice level.

"Sh-she woke up... and said my name," Fiona stammered, words tumbling out in a rush as she backed away from the bed, her retreat halted by Dr. Keller’s guiding hand on her shoulder.

"Let's give them some space," he said gently, steering her towards the door. The click of the closing door muffled the sounds of the ongoing struggle inside the room.

Out in the sterile brightness of the hallway, Fiona leaned against the wall, her breaths coming in short gasps mirroring Joslyn’s earlier ones. The scent of disinfectant hung heavy in the air, but it couldn't cleanse the fear clinging to her thoughts.

"Joslyn spoke," Fiona managed to say again, her voice trembling like the last leaf clinging to a winter branch. “She… she wasn’t well after, but she still spoke. I swear it.”

"Good. That's good, Fiona," Dr. Keller reassured, though his furrowed brow betrayed his concern. "We'll take care of her. The team knows what to do."

He placed a comforting hand on her arm, grounding her amidst the storm of emotions. Then, with a nod that seemed to carry the weight of the world, he turned back to the room, leaving Fiona alone in the corridor.

She slid down the wall, hugging her knees close. Around her, the hospital continued its rhythm—footsteps, distant conversations, the underlying hum of life-saving machines. But in the void left by Dr. Keller's departure, Fiona felt an unsettling quietude seep into her bones.

"Joslyn," she whispered to herself, a prayer for her sister's return from wherever terror had taken her. The memory of Joslyn's voice—a ghostly thread of familiarity—was a lifeline in the uncertainty that now enveloped them both.

Fiona heard the measured steps before she saw Jake. He rounded the corner, his gaze sweeping until it found her crumpled form by the wall. His eyes, usually sharp and probing, softened with concern. Without a word, he crossed the distance between them.

"Red," Jake said, his voice low, a rumble that somehow cut through the cacophony of the hospital's relentless rhythm. He had pieced together her absence from the emergency ward, deducing her need to be close to Joslyn.

She looked up at him, her vision blurred by the tears that threatened to spill. The day's events had hollowed her out, leaving her feeling like one of the dry exoskeletons she so often studied. With Joslyn's name on her lips, Fiona pushed herself off the floor and into Jake's waiting arms.

His embrace was an anchor in the storm, a promise of solidity when everything else felt precariously close to shattering. Jake held her tightly against him, his hand cradling the back of her head, fingers threading through her curly red hair. For a moment, Fiona allowed herself the solace of his warmth, the steady beat of his heart against her cheek.

"Joslyn's going to pull through," he murmured into her hair, his breath warm on her scalp. His words were not just hope; they were a declaration, a willful defiance of the fear that had gripped her since she'd heard her sister's voice—frail but unmistakable.

The strength of his conviction wrapped around her, and Fiona clung to it like a lifeline. It was the same tenacity that had driven him to become an agent after his mother's murder—an unyielding resolve that now bolstered her own wavering spirit.

"Thank you," she breathed, her voice barely audible against the fabric of his jacket. The hospital's antiseptic smell couldn't mask the comforting scent of Jake, a blend of his cologne and the faint smokiness from their earlier visit to the crime scene. It was a reminder of the world outside this corridor, of the life they had beyond these walls—a life she was suddenly desperate to reclaim.

"Always, Red," Jake replied, his tone carrying the unspoken pledge that whatever lay ahead, they would face it together. Their intertwined cases, their shared pasts, and the uncertain future merged into this single point of connection. And in that embrace, Fiona found a momentary peace amidst chaos.

Fiona stepped back, the solidity of the hospital wall a harsh reminder to compose herself. Her heart was still racing, her thoughts an entangled mess like the webs they'd encountered at the crime scenes. "What about Victor Harmon?" she asked, her voice steadier than she felt.

"Victor's our guy," Jake said, his eyes hard with determination. "But we need more evidence. We've got a warrant to search his house."

"Good," Fiona nodded, the professional in her surfacing above the tumult of personal anxiety. It was a lead, a direction to take her mind off the image of her sister's gasping awakening.

"Red, if you need to stay here..." Jake began, his gaze softening.

"No," she cut him off, her resolve building. "I'm only in the way here, and this case... it needs us." Fiona straightened her glasses, the scientist within her itching for answers amid chaos. She needed to be doing something, anything that could bring them closer to stopping the killer.

Jake studied her for a second, then nodded. "Okay, let's go get this son of a bitch."

They walked together, their footsteps echoing down the sterile hallway, away from the room where Joslyn lay. Fiona could feel the weight of her sister's condition on her shoulders, but it was overshadowed by the drive to solve the puzzle that had consumed her life for far too long. The mystery of her sister had been cracked open; now it was time to unravel the twisted thread of murders that had brought her to this point.

***

Fiona stepped out of the unmarked sedan, feeling the crunch of gravel beneath her boots. The afternoon sun cast long shadows over Victor Harmon's dilapidated abode, a structure that seemed as unstable as the man himself. She squinted against the glare, pulling her curly red hair into a ponytail.

"Looks like no one's taken care of this place in ages," Jake commented from beside her, his voice edged with distaste.

"Or he likes it this way," Fiona replied, adjusting her glasses. They approached the house, and the once vibrant paint peeled away to reveal the rotting wood underneath. It was a visual echo of Victor's fall from grace.

The forensics team, clad in their blue uniforms, gathered around them. Fiona took the lead, stepping onto the creaking porch. She didn't need to be an expert in human behavior to sense the chaos that awaited them inside; the state of the exterior was a testament to the turmoil within.

With a nod from Jake, Fiona pushed open the front door. A musty smell assaulted her senses, a mixture of dust and decay. She wrinkled her nose but forged ahead. The living room was a battlefield of clutter, with piles of papers and clothes strewn about as if left mid-tantrum. Fiona scanned the mess with a trained eye, noting the lack of any semblance of order.

"Let's get to work," she said, motioning for the team to start documenting the scene. As they dispersed, Fiona and Jake began their own meticulous search. She moved slowly, careful not to disturb potential evidence, while her mind raced with thoughts of Joslyn and the urgency to find justice for the victims.

The walls of Victor's study were plastered with posters and handwritten notes, a chaotic collage that crept into the corners of the room. Butterflies, pinned and framed, adorned the spaces in between, their delicate wings open as if in mid-flight.

"Entomologist turned juice bar manager," Jake mused aloud, his voice tinged with irony as he examined the display. "Quite the career shift."

Fiona's eyes traced the intricate patterns on the butterfly wings, each one a silent witness to Victor's obsession. Her knowledge of insects was an intimate part of her being, yet here it painted a picture of a disturbed mind.

"Look at this," she murmured, stepping closer to a series of detailed sketches. They depicted the life cycle of various butterflies, annotated with Victor's scrawling handwriting. Despite herself, Fiona felt a pang of professional appreciation for the accuracy of the drawings.

"Always thought butterflies were a symbol of transformation," Jake said, glancing over her shoulder. "Seems fitting in a twisted way."

"Transformation or entrapment," Fiona corrected softly, thinking of the victims and their final moments. She wondered if Victor saw himself in these creatures, or if he related more to the spiders he allegedly used to seal his crimes.

Together, they continued their search, every finding a piece of the puzzle that was Victor Harmon. His world was a blend of beauty and madness, and they were determined to sift through the chaos for the truth.

Fiona's fingers brushed over the dusty shelves, her eyes scanning for any hint of the silk threads that had become synonymous with their grisly case. She found none. Around her, the forensics team moved like shadows, their presence a silent dance in the cluttered room. Each opened drawer, each lifted paper, deepened the void where evidence of spiders should have been.

"Nothing," she whispered to herself. The word hung heavy in the air, an unwelcome guest amid the chaos of Victor's home. Fiona's gaze lingered on a jar, its inhabitant a butterfly with wings the color of sunset. But no spiders. No eight-legged architects of death that had marked the scenes of their string of murders.

With every empty corner and silent crevice, Fiona's certainty wavered. She felt the weight of doubt pressing against her chest, her breaths growing shallow beneath it. Could they have been wrong about Victor? Was the true killer still breathing free air, weaving their next deadly trap?

"Red?" Jake's voice pulled her from her spiraling thoughts. He stood in the doorway, his brows knit together, a mirror of her own concern.

"Spiders," she said, the word barely audible. "There are none."

The realization settled between them, an unspoken fear that their path might have led them astray. Fiona turned away, her mind racing through the possibilities, every scenario darker than the last. If not Victor, then who?

The search wound down as the light outside began to fade. Shadows stretched across the room, the dimming light painting the strange posters and notes in eerie hues. The team packed up, the click of their cases a punctuation mark to the day's work—a full stop laden with uncertainty.

Outside, the sky bruised purple with the coming night. Fiona leaned against the car, the chill of the metal seeping through her clothing. Jake joined her, his face somber under the streetlights' glow. They shared a look, both understanding the gravity of what was left unsaid.

"More questions," Fiona muttered, her voice carrying the weight of her frustration and fear.

"Answers have to be out there," Jake replied, his determination a faint spark in the growing gloom. "We'll find them, Red. We have to."

But as they drove away from Victor Harmon's house, leaving behind the labyrinth of a mind obsessed with beauty but devoid of their crucial clue, Fiona couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere in the darkening city, the real predator was watching, waiting, a specter unseen but deeply felt. The threat remained at large, and time, she knew, was slipping through their fingers like sand.