Page 4 of Blossoming Dahlia

The words floated through my brain, taking a few moments to really sink in.I was safe?I took a deep, shuddering breath in, reigning in the panic that had seeped into my limbs. I took another look at the person in front of me, claiming to be with the FBI. He didn’t look like an FBI agent, he looked more like a T.A.after finals week. His black hair was rumpled and messy, and he had dark circles under his bright blue eyes like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He was tall, but trim under his wrinkled dress shirt, and I wondered if he’d ever been in a physical fight in his life. There was ink on his chin, like someone had drawn on him with a pen. There was no way he was the person who had taken me. I knew in my bones—that person would never have a wrinkled article of clothing anywhere near them.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words caught in my throat instinctively, and I pressed my lips together. Mr. FBI was watching me closely, studying me like I was a specimen in a lab. “We removed the collar,” he told me gently, and my fingers flew to my neck. The pressure I’d felt was just a bandage, that sadistic piece of metal was finally gone. I let out a shaky breath.

“My name is Dahlia Porter,” I managed to get out, barely above a whisper. I tensed, waiting for the pain, but none came. A smile broke out across his face, making his eyes light up. It must’ve been contagious, because I felt the corners of my mouth begin to draw up as well, my muscles unused to the feeling of smiling. The room started to tilt, and I felt my legs shake as they began to give out. In a heartbeat, his hands were under my elbows, catching me before I collapsed into a heap on the floor.

“You really should lay back down,” he told me, his brow furrowed. I nodded and let him guide me back into the little hospital bed, my head feeling light from just that minimal amount of exertion. He was sturdier than I’d been expecting, so there must’ve been some decent muscles hidden underneath his dress shirt.

“Where am I?” I asked, watching as he grabbed his chair and pulled it closer to the bed before sitting down and picking up his notepad and his pen. He ran his hand through his hair, messing it up even further as he pulled out his phone.

“We’re in Columbus right now,” he replied, frowning as he typed something in his phone.

Columbus, Ohio?! He brought me all the way to Ohio?!

“When can I go home?” I rasped, coughing as my throat rebelled against its newfound freedom. He was up and out of his seat so quickly it made me jump, but he was only grabbing me a cup of water off the table next to me. I took it from him carefully, drinking a few sips before I set the cup back down.

“As soon as you’re stable enough to travel, we’ll take you back to Virginia,” he explained, sitting back down. “We have to arrange for a protective detail, and you may need to stay near Quantico for a while, at least for the ongoing investigation.” I frowned, not quite understanding what he was saying.

“Why do I need protection? What’s left to investigate?” I asked, and he put his pen between his teeth as he shifted nervously in his chair. If this was him trying to think up a lie, he was terrible at it.

“Well, we need to keep you safe until we catch him…” I saw his mouth continue to move, but a ringing in my ears drowned out the words. They hadn’t caught him. He was still out there, lurking, hunting. I rubbed at my neck, but the collar was crushing my windpipe as I tried to suck air into my lungs. He was standing up again, and I tried to focus on what he was asking me, his eyes full of concern. I slapped my hand against my chest, trying to restart my lungs, but the fear had coiled around them tightly and they wouldn’t move.

The door opened and I froze, staring at the stranger who’d walked in. My eyes went to the gun on his hip and my mouth opened in a silent scream. The Dr. FBI guy, Cross? He put his hands on my arms, he was saying something that I couldn’t hear, and I grabbed him like a lifeline. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I clung to him, squeezing my eyes shut tight so I wouldn’twake up back in that fucking room. I couldn’t go back there, I wouldn’t survive.

There was movement beside us, and a woman in scrubs was grabbing at my IV. I felt a nauseating dizziness as the sedative hit, and I began to sob, I didn’t want to fall asleep again.

Cross was rubbing my arms, holding me as my vision blurred and the world got so fuzzy that I couldn’t help but sink back down into the darkness.

Chapter five

Asher

There was a reason why I didn’t conduct interviews without Hunter. It was the same reason why I had crossed M.D., psychologist, and lawyer off my list of potential careers when I was a teenager. Even at a young age, I lacked even the most remedial bedside manner, and it resulted in things like this. She hadn’t even been conscious for half an hour before I’d managed to trigger a panic attack so bad she’d needed to be sedated, all because I hadn’t considered the possibility that she wouldn’t know her abductor was still at large. I was sure I had marks from where she’d clung on to me, pressing so tightly against me I could hardly breathe. She’d been afraid of Hunter, a man she didn’t recognize, right after she found out Curing was alive and free.

“She never saw Curing’s face,” I blurted out, and Hunter’s scowl morphed into a frown as he tried to process what I said. I realized then that he’d been talking to me about something, andclearly what I just said didn’t fit the context of our one-sided conversation.

“What the fuck do you mean?” he asked, leaning back against the table behind him. We’d commandeered the staff room near Ms. Porter’s room so he could yell at me without disturbing her rest.

“She was afraid of you because you were a stranger with a gun. She thought you were her abductor because she’s never seen his face,” I explained, and his face softened as he absorbed what I said.

“Right... but why didn’t she freak out when she saw you then?” Hunter asked, raising his eyebrow. I shoved my hands in my pockets, leaning back against the wall. “She was surprised at first, but then I think she must have recognized me? Maybe from the crime scene,” I mused. “Plus I’ve been told I’m quite non-threatening.” Hunter snorted a laugh.

“That’s true,” he smirked, rubbing his hand over his jaw. His stubble was starting to show, and I knew he was itching to go back to the hotel and shave. Both of us had been up and on the move for close to forty-eight hours now, and it was starting to show. Even I was beginning to feel gross, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in an actual bed. He caught my eye and sighed, pushing up off the table. “Go, you need a shower and some fresh clothes. I’ll stay here until you get back.” I grimaced at him, smoothing my hair back away from my face.

“I’m fine. You go first, you’ve been awake longer,” I replied. “I got at least an hour in the chair earlier, so I’ll be good for a while.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “If you plan on playing the white knight for our witness again, you need to freshen up. Plus, you’ve got pen all over your face.” He laughed, and clapped me on the shoulder as he walked back.

Fuck, of course I do.

I rubbed at my chin and grabbed my bag, nodding to the officer standing guard as I walked past Ms. Porter’s room and headed toward the exit.

Hunter had checked us into a hotel nearby and already dumped our bags there, so I didn’t need to track down the car at least. It was a short enough walk over, and I appreciated the chance to stretch my legs a bit after sitting in that tiny hospital chair for so long. The first thing I did when I got to the room was head straight for the shower, using the complimentary shampoo and conditioner they provided to scrub the last two days of travel off my skin, and I felt moderately refreshed once I was done. There were still dark circles under my eyes, but that was nothing new; at least the pen had washed off. I grabbed a clean muscle shirt out of my bag and threw it on, before I dropped down on the bed, debating if I should go over the case one more time or try to get a few hours of sleep.

Grabbing a file out of my bag, I spread the documents over the bed, sitting down to review them again. We had techs combing through Curing’s bank statements and purchase habits, trying to pinpoint where he might’ve gone to hide out. We’d located his living family members, but they all checked out, leaving us with more questions than answers. There was something we were missing, and I was sure it had to be here, it was just hiding in the details somewhere.

This was what I excelled at, the puzzle aspect of it. Give me five hundred pages of obscure notes and random bits of information, and I could build a profile out of it. With the collected files from all of the different abductions, I’d been able to piece together a rough description of who our killer was, what drove him, and enough personal details that we’d been able to get this far. All that was missing was the final piece that would tell us where to find him now. I had to find that missing piece.

Hunter hadn’t wanted to take this case at first. I’d just recently gotten back from a forced leave—our bosses said they’d needed someone to come and do a few lectures on behavioral psych at the academy, but really it was thinly disguised stress leave. Our last case had been… difficult, and even I could admit that I hadn’t handled the outcome as well as I should have. I’d been living with that hanging over my head for the last six months, so I had fought for us to get put on this case when it came across our desks. I wanted to prove to them, but mostly to myself, that I wasn’t just some nerd who couldn’t handle getting his hands dirty. I would catch this asshole, and they wouldn’t dare to bench me again.

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