Page 28 of Heathens
I have no interest in him, per se—and I’m a terrible person for stringing him along. But he’s my connection, the thread that will lead me to Evelyn. The thread I’ve looked for—beggedfor—throughout the last two years. So I have to play this right. I must act the part. If I scare him off now, he might disappear forever, and then I’ll truly be lost. I’m in it for the end game.
Whatever that may entail.
“Would you like something to drink?” Benedict asks, his black hair hanging over his forehead as he bends down to look inside of his small refrigerator.
“Just water,” I reply sweetly. I study his profile as he nods and putters around his tiny kitchen. His face is golden and handsome, his jaw chiseled. A strong, muscular body. French, to top it off. The Clark Kent of every woman’s dreams. A small pang of guilt settles in my stomach.
What am I doing?
From the beginning, Benedict has been nothing but pleasant. There are no signs—no red flags, no warning signals—to indicate that he takes after his father in any way, shape, or form. He has no idea how long I’ve thought about slitting his father’s throat. Surely, if he had any idea who I was, or what I was planning, he’d run far, far away. He wouldn’t have asked me back to his apartment. He wouldn’t have invited the predator into his lair.
In the weeks after our capture, I spent my days in the offices of the Paris Metro Police. I hired an interpreter, much to the chagrin of my parents, who arrived the day after the incident and left just as quickly. They handed me a credit card and didn’t call me again for a month. I was alone, scared, and I needed to find answers. I didn’t have much, but at least I had money.
Once my Etsy shop starting doing well, I sent all of their checks back to them.
Every single one of them.
Facebook became my best friend. Google did, too. I took things into my own hands. It took months—over a year, actually—before I found any leads. I dropped money on a private investigator, who swore he knew where all of the hidden human trafficking rings were in the city. He searched them all. He didn’t find Evelyn, though.
Nothing.
It all led to nothing.
Every single lead... went nowhere.
And then, one day, I received a Facebook message.
Auguste Martinwas all the message said. To this day, I believe it was a message from Evelyn. The account belonged to an older businessman. Hardly used. I never replied. It sickened me to think that he was, potentially, one of her clients. That fact alone made me add him to my list. When I was done with Auguste, I would find him, too.
Typing the name—Auguste Martin—into Google, I was stunned to see the man who orchestrated our capture staring back at me. One picture, no information. I went through all of the search pages, expanding my search worldwide. I paid for internet searches—even the ones you suspect might give your computer a bajillion viruses. I scoured them all.
Eventually, a few months later, I found a birth certificate in the public records.
Benedict Martin. Born April 7, 1985, to Auguste M. Martin and Natalie L. Martin. The name Benedict is derived from the Latin name Benedictus.Blessed.The name is common among Catholics. Sixteen popes have been named Benedict. And I knew he was Auguste’s son. Same eyes, same hair.
Finding Benedict wasn’t very hard after that. I learned that he was single, worked in banking, and lived in the 10th arrondissement, on a tree-lined street that ran along Canal St. Martin.
82 Quai de Valmy, Apartment 4, 75010 Paris, France, to be exact.
Black hair, brown eyes, attractive. I’d burned his picture into memory.
So, I did what any normal stalker might do. I started to eat at the restaurants on his block. I hauled my laundry across two arrondissements because I knew his building didn’t have laundry machines, but there was a public laundromat across the street from him. For weeks, I spent my days working in cafés in the vicinity. I was starting to lose hope. No matter how often I looked up when I saw tall, dark strangers, I never saw the one I needed.
Until that day in the supermarket.
And I wasn’t even looking that day.
To think, I’d almost given up on Benedict Martin.
“Here you go,” Benedict says, handing me a small glass of room temperature water. His accent is so different from Salem’s. It’s harsher, more broken. A typical Frenchman.
Thinking of Salem jolts me.
In a world where everyone wears a mask, it’s a privilege to see a soul.
His words, his inspiration, are the only anchor I seem to have lately. Those words at the cemetery stunned me—shot me right through the heart. An arrow coated in honesty and sincerity, warming my cold soul up just a little bit. I barely know him, and yet I trust him completely. I am a fucking ray of pitch black and bad intentions. I don’t deserve to know someone like him.
“Thanks,” I say, taking a small sip.
