Mikhail

16

They had shot her twice, one in the belly, and the other in the head.

I crouched beside her slowly, taking in her lifeless face and the red hole on her forehead. I brought my hand to caress her cheek and realized they were shaking.

Shaking from pain and rage.

Those bastards. What did Helena ever do to them? What was she doing here in the first place anyway? I thought she'd already left.

Had she tried to stop them from taking Montse? Was that why they'd killed her?

“I'm sorry.” I whispered.

I had never apologized to anyone since my parents were murdered. Ironic that the first person I was apologzing to was a corpse.

She was the only person I'd ever seen fit enough to call a friend. And they'd taken her away from me. Those bastards had better prepare themselves because I was coming for them.

Hard. Merciless.

I looked towards the couch and found my black jacket sprawled on it. Getting up was a hellsh job when all my joints felt locked with denial.

Grabbing the jacket, I felt through the pockets and fished out my phone. I was gritting my teeth so hard I was surprised they hadn't shattered already. I clenched the phone in my hand so tightly that a faint crack appeared on the screen.

Unlocking the phone, I launched the tracker app. The idiots didn't know I had tracker on Montse. They would soon be hearing from me.

And God help them if they dared hurt a hair on her head.

*****

I'd handled cases of abduction. And always, it was with a cool and rational head. Not so much with this case. Not when the victim involved was my Montse.

My phone rang in my hand. Looking at the unknown caller ID, intuition told me who it was before I answered.

“You bastard.” I growled into the phone.

“Wow, not even a hello. How rude.” The voice at the other end laughed cynically. “You should try to be more respectful. I think we both know who's calling the shots.”

“Don't you dare hurt her.”

“Who? Oh, the Cinderella who's silently waiting for her knight to come save her? She's okay. In fact, I think she'd like to say hi.”

There was silence for a while before I heard muffled screams. A moment later, Montse's desperate voice came through.

“Don't come here, Mikhail. They're going to kill you!”

“Oh how sweet.” It was the voice of the abductor this time. "I'll be expecting you. Otherwise...”

“I swear to God I'm going to find you. And when I find you, I'm...”

The line went dead even before I could finish. I gritted my teeth. The idiot had sounded so sure of himself. If only he knew how close I was.

They'd been taking Montse to so many different locations since last night. Everytime I thought they were settled, they would begin moving again.

Until they'd finally settled for this place in the middle of nowhere surrounded by only trees and bushes.

Perhaps they knew that I had a tracker on her somewhere. That was why they were expecting me to find them without giving me any location.

I looked at my phone screen. The glowing srrow indicated that I was very close to where they were keeping Montse.

I continued making my way around the trees while looking out for any structure. Then I spotted the cottage.