Page 5

The Locket

C harles didn't waste any time putting out a BOLO for Sage.

Hans couldn't blame him. It was what an officer should do after all.

Unlike himself, sitting back and waiting for the circus to begin.

It made sense. With Marco gone, Charles was essentially standing in his place.

He probably felt that if he did a decent job then he deserved to be Marco's replacement.

Ugh.

Hans couldn't shake Marco’s face from his brain, how small and pathetic he had looked as Hans sat him down in the car. He wasn't the strong, cocky son of a bitch that he portrayed himself as at the precinct, but an actual human being.

Bastard .

Marco had won Hans over and he knew that he was going to miss him more than he wanted to, but that is life now, Hans supposed. Missing a man and having a psycho stalker killing people for him.

Yet, deep down his feelings for Sage still burned bright. Hans continued thinking while he fiddled with the locket between his fingers.

"Hans, I want you to have this." Gretta handed him a velvet satchel that contained a beautiful locket. "Why me?" Hans asked. They hadn’t been friends for long and he didn’t think that he was deserving of a best friend's necklace, just yet.

"So you'll never forget who I am at this very moment."

It's like she knew that one day she would no longer be herself.

Hans licked his dry lips, noticing the metallic taste. He really needed to make a store run to get some lip balm.

"Shit, my car!" At the reminder that his car had been destroyed, he sunk back into the couch a little deeper this time, hoping he would just be absorbed into it.

Hans couldn't even bring himself to be okay with the idea of having his car towed from the hold the forest had on it.

There were too many memories there and he didn't dare show his face back in those woods.

Brighton Forest was on his do not enter list, indefinitely.

What about work? Hans' mind started running a million miles per second, unsure of if and when he would be able to return.

He had become a detective with the intent of solving the mystery of what had happened to Gretta.

Now that he had his answers, he didn't technically have to be a detective anymore. Right?

Wrong .

That was the only life Hans knew, and his desire to help others solve their own mysteries was what kept him going. He just didn’t have to continue that life in Acadia.

Hans reached into his pocket to grab his phone and call a buddy of his to see about any available cars when he stopped, remembering that his phone had also been destroyed.

Once Sage was finished texting Marco, pretending to be Hans, she had used a sledgehammer to ensure that no one else would be able to track his location.

Fuck!

Hans was starting to feel extra vulnerable in his own home.

Sage had taken everything from him and he was left unsure of what his next move was going to be.

He had been a resident of Acadia since the day he was born, but now he found himself beginning to question if he was going to be able to stay here.

Perhaps a new start was exactly what he needed. ..

Glancing at the time, Hans determined it was too late to be shopping around for cars anyway. It wasn't too late to get his laptop fired up and start applying for other precincts far away from Acadia though.

He freed himself from the grasp that the couch had on him, rising to his feet.

Shuffling to his room to grab his laptop he then made his way to the kitchen, flipping on the coffee pot.

It's never too late for coffee . Hans smirked as he thought about all the times he had given Alana hell for her late-night coffee binges.

Before the coffee had finished brewing, he poured a cup and made his way back to the couch to start his research, double-checking that his resume was up to date just to be safe.

The concept of relocating was becoming more tempting by the minute.

California? Too many bros.

Kansas? Gross, too many cows and corn fields.

Maybe, another country? He shook his head.

Hans continued scrolling through the listings, coming up with excuses for each one until he came across a posting that caused him to pause.

How did that... Hans squinted at the screen.

Marco's position had been listed in the national database.

It’s too soon.

Hans continued staring at the screen. He had just admitted to Charles that Marco had passed. With no body and no investigation to confirm whether Hans was even telling the truth, there is no way that Marco’s supervisors would have enough evidence to justify the position listing.

Did Marco resign after losing Alana, before risking his life entering Brighton Forest? Nothing made sense anymore, but this made it seem like Marco went into that forest not expecting to come out alive.

Interesting. It looks like Charles isn't getting that position . He smiled. Charles had a history of being a hothead which had gotten him in trouble a few times. It was a surprise that Charles hadn’t been fired since he was such a liability.

Regardless of the knowledge he had just come upon, it still didn't make Hans feel any differently about relocating.

Hopefully, he would be able to stay on the East Coast, close enough he could still come back and visit friends, but far enough away that Sage wouldn't be able to follow him unless she learned to ride a broom.

A position listed in New York seemed promising.

It would also come with a pay raise, though most likely due to the increased cost of living there.

But he liked the idea that he would only have to be in the field for high-priority cases; they were the ones that most were too chicken-shit to get involved with, and in New York they would probably be even more dangerous than what he dealt with when it came to Sage.

Hans quickly uploaded his resume and filled out the application, hoping that it would get him out of there sooner than later.