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HUNTER

" S hit!" I mutter, my frustration seeping through my clenched jaw as I drag deeply on the remains of my cigarette. I’ve quit four times this year.

Four times.

Which, in itself, is insane, considering I hadn’t touched them in nearly five years, and now I can’t stop. But this case— this case—it’s driving me insane. Every lead feels like a dead end. Every twist brings more confusion, more pain. It’s a labyrinth of shit driving me straight to the edge.

And it’s not just me. Noah’s losing his mind too. I can see it in his eyes—the same desperation, the same madness brewing.

"I don’t get it," he growls. He jerks his chin toward the empty pack in my hand. "Give me one. Seeing as I’m passive smoking, I might as well just smoke the real thing, and get the pleasure of moving my hand up and down while I do it,” he says.

He told me last week he quit. I can see he has as much willpower as I do. I’m passing on my bad habits and it needs to stop. He’s only twenty-three and has so much more to live for than I do.

I grit my teeth and toss the empty pack in the trash. I reach into my back pocket and pull out another stash. I’m going to burn through these packs in record time, I can feel it. The only thing worse than the poison in my lungs is that I’m not doing it alone. Noah’s sinking deeper into the same fucking mess.

I open it and hand him the rest, he takes it and chuckles.

“Are you quitting again?”

I scratch my head ignoring his comment, and then light up, what will indeed be my last smoke of the year. Even if we’re only in February.

Sometimes I wonder if Noah knows how much I’ve staked on him - not just this mission, but my sanity and soul. If he breaks, then I’m done.

“Run by me what we have again?” I ask, ignoring his comment.

This is my job: to find the sick fucks who molest kids. As soon as I rescued Noah, I used to keep an eye on him to make sure he was alright. He finished school, got his high school diploma, and he begged me to let him work alongside me, hunting monsters. I must admit, I was dubious at first. He was free; he could go anywhere and do as he fucking pleased. This is all I’d ever wanted for him. Even if being in this job does get lonely.

There was something different about Noah. He tugged at my heartstrings from the start. I kept in touch, and ensured his foster parents were looking after him, I didn’t do it with any other kid, only Noah. Why? I have no clue, but I did.

He closes his eyes, as he inhales. It’s weird seeing him smoke, because he looks as if he’s the fourteen-year-old I rescued years ago, not the twenty-nine-year-old man he is today. Even if I still call him kid most of the time.

“Hunter, it doesn’t matter how many times I say it, the situation is the same.”

I jump out of my chair and pace the room. Noah has three screens flashing before him and his tablet is next to it on his desk. I’m not sure why he needs so many devices, nor do I ask, but it gets the job done.

It’s not like money’s an issue, so I can’t complain. Even though I don’t decorate this place, I’m not keen on hanging pictures on the wall, nor buying a fancy sofa. There's no point, it’s one of the many hideouts we use. Decorating it would be a waste of time and effort.

We were in the last hideout for only a week before the FBI busted down the door. Noah thought we’d be there for a while, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know better. We can never get comfortable, because hideouts are places for us to lay our heads and nothing else. They aren’t homes, so we shouldn’t be treating them as such. It never used to bother him when he was younger, but I can see as he’s turning into a man these little details worry him.

It just worries me that hanging out with me won’t be enough. Someday, he’ll want something more, a life.

A normal one.

A girl. Maybe a wife. Kids and a home.

This lifestyle he started at an early age is okay for now, but how long will "now" last?

I shake my head as my mind starts drifting. I need to focus. It’s something I do when I get nervous—which isn’t often—or when I feel guilty about something, another thing I don’t do.

“Well, we know the therapist Dr. Sinclair is corrupt. She used to only offer therapy sessions to adults, then all of a sudden it was to just kids,” Noah says.

I shrug. It’s not really a red flag. I’m sure there are plenty of people who are fed up with adults, I know I do sometimes. Even though, I’m an adult myself.

“Anything else?”

No more are the big time pedophiles using websites, no they are using child therapists. The therapists find out if the guardian has any financial issues and if so, they offer them an opportunity to clear their debt. Usually, it means giving up their child’s body and soul to the predators.

This is how I rescued Noah, along with other kids. Sure, some predators still use websites, whereas others target kids in poor neighborhoods, where parents are either strung out on drugs or too busy working to keep an eye on them. The police don’t give a shit. They label them as another missing person and turn a blind eye.

The ones who use therapists are usually billionaires with certain fetishes; politicians, athletes, and others who believe their money can buy them anything. They all have a sick appetite for kids, and use their wealth to feed their disgusting desires. Back when they relied on websites, it was easier to catch them. Now they have found a different way to hunt their victims, it makes my job a hell of a lot harder.

Noah takes a slow drag from his cigarette, the ember flaring in the dim light like a warning. Smoke spills from his lips and coils into the stale air between us, thick enough to taste. It clings to the cheap walls and to my lungs, wrapping around the silence like a noose.

The room is quiet—too quiet. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I swear I hear the slow tick of a phantom clock. It’s imaginary, but it presses against my skull all the same, making the space feel smaller, heavier—like the walls are breathing in.

“Her last patient…” I murmur, mostly to myself.

Noah takes one final drag from his cigarette, the smoke curling around him like a fading memory. He stubs it out in the chipped mug on the table. I wince. Just buy a fucking ashtray. But then again, I’m not exactly one to talk. Housekeeping’s never been my thing either, and I’ve got my own collection of bad habits.

“Penelope Blake,” he says, not looking at me, because his eyes are fixed on the glowing screen in front of him.

“She’s the one whose parents died in a freak car crash, right?” I ask, already knowing. I’m not looking for confirmation, but just filling the silence. “Then she was placed with her grandparents?”

He nods. “Yeah. Officially,” he mutters. “The aunt took the grandparents to court. the parents didn’t do a will, so it turned into a fight. The grandparents won, but…”

“But now the kid’s living with the aunt,” I finish the sentence for him. We’ve been over this before, and reached the road to nowhere, I feel as if we missed something. I can feel it in my gut. So, I want us to go over all the facts again.

I lean back with my eyes following the smoke as it slithers toward the ceiling like it’s trying to escape. I can relate.

“I remember the file,” I say. “Penelope only visited her aunt twice a month after the accident. Earlier, maybe once a year. She barely knew the woman. But the grandparents? She lived with them. Saw them all the time. Then suddenly—poof—they vanish from the picture, and she’s living with the aunt full-time. No visits, no updates. Nothing.”

Noah shrugs, lips twitching like he’s still holding a cigarette, forgetting he already put one out.

I sit in silence for a moment, letting it settle. But my thoughts won’t. Stephanie Ann Johnson doesn’t work. Doesn’t do shit, and yet she’s blowing thousands at the casino like she’s some Fortune 500 exec. I’ve been tailing her. Sometimes she hits the tables twice a day—once in the afternoon, then again at night.

And Penelope? No one has seen her in months. Maybe even a year. She doesn’t go to school, nor anywhere else.

Noah said she was being homeschooled—it’s what the records show. But something about it doesn’t sit right. Not anymore.

“Does it matter?” he finally asks, locking eyes with the tip of the cigarette now burning between my fingers.

I don’t answer. I push off the couch and run a hand through my short, spiky hair, realizing I’m overdue a cut. I prefer it shaved—clean, no bullshit.

“No,” I mutter, after a beat. “It shouldn’t. But sometimes pieces of the puzzle don’t fit? And we fuck up.”

Then again, we’ve already fucked up once.

We busted down the wrong door, because we thought one of Dr. Sinclair’s clients were part of a predator ring, and they were involved in offering up a kid for abuse. It turned out they were all clean, both the stepdad and his new wife. But the damage was already done. We terrified a family, and an innocent girl. A mistake which we can’t erase.

“We can’t afford another one,” I say, mostly to myself.

Noah leans back in his chair, balancing on two legs like he always does when he’s trying not to care. “Maybe Frank got her wrong. Maybe Dr. Sinclair’s just a shrink doing her job. We’ve been watching her for a year, and we’ve got fuck all.”

I stop pacing. “Don’t throw the towel in yet. Something’s off about Stephanie Johnson. I know it.”

He lifts a brow. “That gut of yours again?”

“I saw something,” I say, grabbing the folder from the table and flipping it open. “She’s been using an alias account. I missed it at first. But once I connected the dots—Penelope’s name started showing up. Over and over again. Quiet breadcrumbs, just enough to make my skin crawl.”

Noah brings the cigarette to his lips—when the hell did he light another one?

“What are you saying?”

I meet his gaze. He drops the chair back down with a dull thud and leans forward, voice low.

“All the bank entries have the patient’s name next to it, and today’s date too.”

It’s as if everything goes still, as my stomach tightens, a slow, heavy burn rising from deep in my gut.

Today’s date.

It’s not a coincidence, but a sign that something’s going down tonight, and if we’re not careful—someone’s going to pay the price.

I shoot up with my heart thudding like I’ve been snapped out of a trance. Sitting here’s not going to make anything clearer. I feel like a target, like a goddamn sitting duck.

“Where are you going?” Noah asks as I grab my jacket from the back of the chair.

“To get some answers,” I say, slamming the door behind me before he can ask anything else.

He knows better. The person I need to talk to—Noah doesn’t get to know about them. Not yet. Something’s going to go down tonight. And I don’t do mistakes. Well, not after the last one, six months ago with one of Dr. Sinclair’s patients.

“Figure out what time it’s going down,” I say as I re-open the door. “I’ll be back once I can think straight.”

I walk aimlessly in the streets of Manhattan, then I make a call from my burner phone. I’m about to give up, and hang up the phone when he answers.

“What? You have two minutes.”

Hello to you too. I know better than to expect him to say anything else. Either he is with someone and he can’t talk, or as usual, he doesn’t feel like talking right now.

“Dr Rachel Sinclair, is she someone on your radar?” I ask.

“No,” he barks straight away without hesitation. Jamie was never a talker. How he managed to get a job as an FBI agent is still beyond my comprehension when communication is really not his skill point. Then again, agents aren’t hired to entertain, they’re hired to get results.

“Should she be?” He asks, and now I can sense his curiosity.

“Seems like it. Noah managed to figure out she’s had nearly half a million deposited in her account.”

I can hear him exhaling, which means most likely my two minutes are coming to an end unless I talk fast.

“Under patients' names,” I give him clarity.

“I see.”

Good, because I fucking don’t.

Unknowingly Noah had met his predators before they raped him. They loved to meet the child when they were awake, one time his mom took him to the dentist. Noah never knew the dentist cleaning his teeth, would later be raping him in his own bed.

Another time, it was caught on camera, that Noah was at his therapist and one of them was in the waiting room. They would always want to meet their victim beforehand, this is how they got a kick out of it.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Jamie warns me. It’s as if my silence is confirmation for him, I am going to do exactly just that.

“Jamie, it’s exactly what I intend to do.”

Then I hang up, because I know when my brother’s fucking lying. He knows something is about to go down tonight, and he didn’t seem surprised when I mentioned Dr. Sinclair’s name.

I need to get to the address of the fucking aunt before it’s too late.

I rush through the night crowd as I find myself at TimeSquare, nearly half-an-hour walk from the hideout and even further from my car. I can’t leave a trace, so it’s time to put my jogging skills to the test, which wouldn’t be a problem if I hadn’t started smoking again.

I have a feeling the deposits aren’t only for them to fuck her, but to do some real damage.

And tonight, if I’m right, someone’s going to bleed for it.