Page 88 of Body Count

It was halfway down the page; they were sorted by the titles of the videos, which were linked.Boot on neck, piss on face (01:34) - Gray Dulac – justaprettyprettyface.My profile name was linked too.

Another image came through on the Prowler chat a moment later: a still image from a video.It took several seconds before I recognized my face—cheeks puffy, hair wet, eyes glazed.

I closed the app.Then I stared at my phone.After a shaky moment, I locked it and got out of the car and headed for the apartment.

That video.

A horn blared, and I looked around in time to see a white pickup slam on the brakes.It came to a stop about six inches from me.It took me a moment to start moving again.Behind me, the guy was shouting curses.

My name.

My face.

My profile.

I misjudged the curb and stumbled getting up on the sidewalk.The glare of the afternoon sun made it hard to see, so I put a hand up, but that didn’t help.I was only distantly aware that I was still moving, like my body belonged to someone else.

Everybody would know.

I tried to box up the thoughts.I tried to push them to the back of my mind.I’d deal with it later.I’d deal with everything later.But there was still a voice inside me screaming,Everybody will know.When I got to the door, I had to put a hand on the jamb, my stomach clenching and spasming.I’m going to be sick, I thought.I’m going to shit myself.

Somehow, I forced the thoughts back again.I hammered on the door.No one answered.Of course not; Jordan was on the run, and Tip was dead, and Rory’s car was gone.I wiped my hands on my shorts.My gut clenched again, and I held myself up by clutching the jamb.And then the wave of nausea passed.

It’s okay, I decided.It’s okay.It’s just one website.You can get it taken down.

How?

There had to be a way.

And nobody was going to look at that website anyway.It had to be a super small subset of the population—not just the people who watched gay porn, but the ones who went the extra step to track down the guys in the videos.The creeps who would want to see a porn star doxxed.Or a Bang Boy.I laughed, and a college-aged girl carrying groceries past me turned to stare.I tried to wave, like I was all right, and that only made her adjust her grip on the plastic bags and work free a little can of pepper spray on her keychain.

Who the fuck was I kidding?All it would take would be one person.One.And then everyone would know.

I rubbed sweat from my eyes.I took some deep breaths.I’d get it taken down.Or I’d tell people it was one of those things I’d seen on Reddit.Deepfakes.They did it with celebrities, swapping their faces in pornos.That’s what I could say.

Clutching at fucking straws, man.

But it was enough, anyway, to let me breathe again.

I tried the door, but it was locked.Mopping my face with my shirt, I headed back to the car.I got my kit out of the back and made my way down the alley behind the apartment.The old sash windows had been touched up so many times that the paint was probably a quarter of an inch thick, bubbled and peeling in places.I double-checked I was alone, and then I worked the slim jim between the sashes.I’d started carrying the slim jim when I’d been on patrol.You didn’t know how many people locked themselves out of their car until you worked third shift on a weekend in a college town.And now you’re breaking into a suspect’s apartment, I thought.And you’re crossing another line.

But it was better than thinking about that fucking wiki.

It took thirty seconds to get the cam lock to open—the longest, hottest, sweatiest thirty seconds of my life.Also, that totally would be the title of my porno.Wait, no, thirty seconds makes it sound like I have a problem.The window slid up.I did another quick sweep of the alley; still no witnesses.I hopped up and pulled myself through the window.

It was located over the kitchen sink, which was stacked with dirty dishes.I knocked over a few bowls and plates as I climbed inside, but nobody came to investigate the noises.I closed the window behind me and, still carrying the slim jim, headed for Tip’s room first.

Nothing had changed.It was hard to believe I’d been here only a few hours before; it felt like days—weeks—had passed.The flag still lay where Jordan had let it fall, and the body count wall was exposed.I took pictures of it with my phone, trying to get close-ups of each individual photo.I didn’t know for a fact that Tip’s killer was featured among the photos, but it was a strong possibility, and it was a pool of potential suspects that the sheriff’s department hadn’t even known about.

When I finished, I retraced my steps through the kitchen toward Rory’s room, on the other side of the apartment.The only sounds came from my sneakers on the linoleum—soft, sticky whispers.I wondered if Jordan really had gone on the run after his confession; he didn’t seem like he’d be able to make it last, if he had.He’d slip up.Or, more likely, the guilt would get to him.He wasn’t a bad kid, just a stupid one, and he’d made a mistake.I decided I’d check his room after I got done with Rory’s; Rory was the whole reason I’d come back, after all.

Rory’s door was shut, but it opened when I tried the handle.The hinges made a quiet protest, and the sound of my steps changed as I moved onto ancient carpet.His bedroom wasn’t much different from Tip’s.Neater, tidier, although not exactly clean—no clothes on the floor, no clutter of shopping bags and hair products and all the other junk that seemed to accumulate.But a litter of receipts covered the top of the dresser, along with a vape and what appeared to be empty pods.And a closer inspection showed a fair bit of dust.He hadn’t run the vacuum in a while either.

Unlike Tip, Rory had made no effort to hide his body count photos.He’d made a collage of them on a large mirror, leaving the space in the center clear.As I drew closer, my own face appeared in the glass, floating among all the other faces.Rory had a type, it appeared.For the most part, they were older men—ten, fifteen, even twenty years his senior.But not all of them.A few showed younger guys, and in those, I was surprised to see, there was regularly a third.No one consistent, but I started to suspect they were established couples, and that Rory had somehow managed to insert himself into the pairing.I heard that particular thought and wished John-Henry had been around to hear it.Or at least Emery.

I found the picture from Sunny’s.It showed a bare-chested Rory kneeling on the edge of a bed.The lighting was bad, and it was clear he’d extended his arm and taken the picture from as high as he could reach.The angle mostly captured my ass and back, but if you knew what you were looking at, you could make out the pillowcase they’d put over my head.Nobody else was featured in the photo.Had the other two guys been Tip and Jordan?That didn’t seem likely; Tip had been too busy getting wasted and looking for a hookup, and Jordan had been chasing after him.Two of Rory’s other friends, then.Maybe even whoever had told Rory about Sunny’s party in the first place.Or they might have been strangers; I’d been too fucked up by that point to make the distinction, and I wouldn’t have put it past Rory.

I pulled the photo from the mirror and considered it for another moment.Then I peeled the tape from the back, rolled it into a tight little wad between two fingers, and pitched it in the trashcan next to the bed.The photo went into my pocket.

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