As soon as I walk into the office, I know something’s up. Everyone is gathered around a screen that’s playing something I can’t really see through the bodies crowded around it.
Curious, I make my way forward as someone turns off the lights, brightening up the screen.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Marcus barks, answering the very question I wanted to ask though I didn’t have the desire to bark it loudly.
“I don’t know, this just started broadcasting,” Finn says as I step up to them. Finn Hayes is the only human who works at the Vampire Related Crimes Unit and seems to be quite an interesting addition to the group. He joined recently during our last large case where a man by the name of Perry had created a group of humans who were trying to sow discord between the two species. They’d created a drug that had resulted in Marcus, Briar, and me attacking Finn, which I thought would be the last we saw of him, but he’s still with us and ready to take on another case, which I’m grateful for, since he seems to have helped us figure out how to work together as a team.
He just recently began dating Marcus, who is the oldest vampire in the department as well as my superior. All of us work as detectives, and if the vampire who is flashing his fangs while bound and blindfolded on the screen has anything to do with it, it seems like we have a new case.
I stare at the screen as the man sits in the metal chair, rocking it this way and that. He tugs at the chains that rattle as he twists his body, his expression one of panic.
“I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll kill you! Who the hell do you think you are?” the man asks, and I wonder if he knows about the camera.
“Is this live?” Marcus asks as he looks over at Alexei who’s one of the few still at his computer.
The Russian vampire, who is also on our team, nods. “It went live exactly two minutes ago and has already been shared thousands of times. We’ve seen a glimpse of a second person, probably the abductor, but nothing more than that. They haven’t said or done anything yet.”
“We already have a cyber team trying to track it down, but it all depends on how tech savvy our perp is,” Brooks, the deputy chief and our leader, says from the front of the room.
I’ve never dealt with a case like this before, but I guess with internet and technology becoming more relevant, things like this were bound to pop up. Obviously, there are a lot of cyber issues, but that usually falls into a different department.
My attention shifts back to the screen as the man on display lets out a sob. The background behind the man is a black sheet and there’s nothing else to give us a good idea of where he’s at—no discerning factors that could tell us where this is being recorded. It could be in someone’s house for all we know.
There’s a minor flash of the second man, mostly black clothes, and then a gun makes an appearance. The second man reaches in, still only showing his arm at most, and pulls the blindfold off the captive. The man yanks his head back to look at his captor and growls something inaudible at him. There’s nothing on his face that tells me that he recognizes the abductor, but my guess is that the captor has something covering his face. It’s clear he doesn’t want anyone to see him.
The abductor points toward the camera with his gun and the man shifts his eyes to look. He seems surprised but his eyes are darting back and forth, like he’s fixated on something beside it instead of directly in front of it.
That’s when the vampire shakes his head, turns back to his captor, and yells, “Fuck you. You won’t get away with this. Fuck you!”
The attacker shoots him in the leg and the vampire screams before his head is physically aimed in the direction of the screen. The captive hesitates until the gun is pressed against his head. I notice that the vampire is either extremely young or there’s something in the bullet because his leg isn’t healing. Instead of instantly healing, blood is oozing out of it, dyeing his pants red.
“I-I… fuck. Fine! I’ll do it!” he says. “Just promise you’ll let me go when I’m done?”