Page 178 of Eternal
She pulled back a few minutes after that, and I left. I didn’t ask to stay, even though I wanted to, I still do.
It was too long ago in my opinion. Training with her once in a week or sharing a burrito when we both have a day off isn’t enough.
And now it’s almost summer again.
I sit here, in this too-quiet apartment, eyes burning from the screen glow. The last file was finally cracked and it hit hard, a crime scene report, three bodies, one child.
Photos, medical notes, a stab wound just under the jaw, and a face, blurry, small,scared.
Eyes I know, blue and green.
My breath caught, and there it was beneath it all… A name.
My eyes followed the way it was written, letter by letter.
Azra.
I read it again. And again.And again.Check the dates, the missing foster home records, the cold case status. It’sher.
That girl who texts me skull emojis and raises her eyebrows when I make fun of her, who wears boots that are too big, who feeds dogs better than she feeds herself, who makes jokes when she’s breaking, who smiles when she’s hoping. Her name isn’t Voron.
It’s Azra.
And now I know it.Finally.
And I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with that.
48
AZRA
“Something In The Way” by Nirvana
Present
Months go by quickly when you want them to take longer. It’s like a weird thing the earth does when she’s trying to test you.
Damir has been really busy lately. We text a lot, he comes to eat every now and then but it’s still not enough in a way, he’s been working a lot alone. And I’ve been working a lot on my own.
I’m sitting in front of Viktor and Kat, the screen on my lap lighting up our tired faces. I scroll through the last piece I found, something I didn’t even know I was looking for.
“I finally have her name,” I say it like it was easy to go from nothing to this, like I haven’t been sitting up until 3 a.m. combing through scanned police files from 20 years ago.
They both lean in, Vik reads over my notes, eyes narrowing and then, he exhales slowly. “Finally...”
They know how I get when something haunts me, that unhealthy obsession with uncovering whatever’s hidden. “I traced every missing person report from around the time my mom started digging into this.”
I scroll through my timeline, names, photos, notes, all color-coded and arranged by date.
“Minor girls, in the city, are all connected to foster homes, youth centers.”
Kat frowns. “That must be hundreds of files. Plus, it was so long ago.”
I nod. “It was... But I narrowed it down to the girls who went missing the same week Antony’s wife died, then, those spotted near his restaurant or along his delivery routes.”
“Alana M. kept coming up. Fourteen years old, no record, no known family.” I click on a PDF, an old, scanned intake form from a youth shelter. “She was staying at Sainte-Marie and I called. The director from back then still works there part-time.”
Vik looks at me, focused. “And?”
