Three Cursed Gods

05 : AN UNSATISFYING EXPLANATION

That night, McKayla tossed and turned, unable to sleep comfortably. Her thoughts kept dragging back to the phantom Linda she'd seen earlier, to Cameron, who'd appeared out of the blue bringing more questions along with him, and Felix, the scrappy little boy striving for more than life had given him. It was in this swirl of thoughts that she felt herself falling asleep, sinking gratefully into the respite of her dreams.

McKayla. McKayla. Wake up.

It's Linda. She's in the ER..

She overdosed. On her pills. Her depression meds.

She...she might not make it.

Do you want to go see her? Let's go. Quickly—we don't know how much time she's got left.

...

I'm sorry, McKayla. I'm so, so sorry.

Linda. Linda. LINDA—

She woke, gasping for breath, her sheets wrapped tightly around her, choking her, and she ripped them off as she panted, where was the oxygen in the air, why did her lungs feel so small, why couldn't she just breathe—

It took her ten minutes. Ten minutes to calm down, remember where she was, and stop feeling like the world was trying to shatter her into a million little pieces.

She stood up on shaky legs and moved out of her bedroom into the kitchen where she began making hot chocolate—her mom's foolproof remedy for night terrors. She could almost hear her voice, soothing her, telling her 'it's okay, my love, it was just a dream'. She smiled at the memories, and made a mental note to make sure to bring something for her mom at dinner next Friday.

The stove beeped, and McKayla poured the warm chocolate into a mug, and took it out on her balcony. She was lucky, she knew, that she could afford an apartment as nice as this, especially here in New York City but she knew that she would give it up in an instant, if she could get Linda back. She laughed at the thought. Of course, she'd give it up. She'd give up anything, everything, just to see her face one more time.

You said you'd never leave me, Linda. You promised. Why'd you go?

***

"Alright," she said. "I'm ready. Tell it to me."

She was standing by a whiteboard that she'd dragged over in front of the desk Cameron was seated at, a marker in her hand. She'd let his earlier mention of Linda go, and was about to help him with the missing persons case he was working.

When she'd told him to wait before telling her the case details so she could find a pen to take notes with, he'd snorted and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'nerd' under his breath, though when she'd asked him to repeat what he'd said, he'd denied saying anything, an angelic smile on his face. Once she would have called him out on it, and she felt the urge to bite back with some retort but...

While it was good to see that he was the same old Cameron that he'd always been, she felt too different. Too changed. It was almost like puzzle pieces, one of which was too damaged to every fit properly again.

"Okay, so: there's this couple, right?" Cameron began, siffling though his files spread out in front of him. "Martin and Nia Williams. They have a little girl, Destiny. On May 17, thirteen years ago, Destiny—five years old at the time—goes with her parents to a supermarket in Queens. Maggie's Grocers. They enter at 11:09 in the morning with their daughter, seen on a security camera. In the store—"