Haunted by the Past (Original)

Chapter 42

Even though I had been awake for 24 hours, even though I had a shitty night sleep in car the night before, sleep was impossible. Every time I closed my lids, I saw Jorge's bloodshot eyes staring back at me. I tossed and turned in the bed, even tried putting in earphones and drowning out my thoughts with music, but nothing could even dim the image burned into my retinas. After another ten minutes of trying in vain, I sat up and groaned at the top of my lungs.

"Eli, I can't! I just can't!" I snapped. "And don't say I'm not trying hard enough when you clearly haven't tried at all!"

Eli opened his mouth to speak, but he knew he had no counterargument when he was sitting behind his laptop at the table. "I'll lie down once I finish setting up the robots."

"Then what's that?" I gestured to the fresh energy drink can at his side waiting to be opened.

"I, uh, I bought one from the vending machine for later," he lied. He was definitely waiting for me to go to sleep so he could drink it and not sleep. Again. "Why can't you sleep?"

"Because, oh I don't know, every time I close my eyes I see a man dying?" I responded sassily. "How can I sleep!?"

"Dani," Eli sighed, then stood up from his chair and walked over to the bed. "You know there was nothing we could do right? With the location data on the phone being blocked, there was no way to locate them without having direct access to the cell phone towers."

"So your package was useless?" I frowned. "After all your big talk."

He ran his fingers through his hair then sat down next to me, "No, I still have back door access to the phone. When it is turned on again, I'll know, and hopefully Triple-6 will be foolish enough to turn it on near his home Wi-Fi network."

"And if he never turns it on again?" I questioned.

Eli shrugged, "Then I guess yes, the package was a failure. But as far as I could tell, he didn't detect the trojan."

"So it's a wait and see?" I simplified.

"Yeah, something like that," he spoke softly while staring down at his hands clasped in his lap. "I am really sorry that you had to witness that."

I turned away and looked at the sunlight peeking through the side of the curtain, "I'm not. I mean it was horrible, but at least he didn't die alone. Not like Gabe. Or Heather. It would've been better if none of it happened at all, but what are you going to do with a fucking psychopathic serial killer?"

The silence weighed heavy in the room. Even getting it all out in the open, sleep was still not an option for either one of us.

"I don't think I can rest until we get him, Eli," I admitted.

"You have to. We don't know what it's going to take or what else he's going to throw our way. If we're going to confront him, you need to be at the top of your game," he argued.

I glanced back at him glaring, "Don't you mean 'we need to rest'? 'We need to be at the top of our game'?"

Eli rolled his eyes, "I need to keep an eye on things."

"I thought you said we were safe here," I pointed out.

"We are," he stressed. "But that can change."

I narrowed my eyes, "I think we can afford you to have a few hours of shut eye. Triple-6 will be lying low for at least a day and we haven't even seen anyone else outside of the hospital. Come on, you have to admit now's the chance for you to sleep!"

"Ok, so go to sleep," he countered. "Show me how it's done."

I stared at him for a moment before clicking my tongue and turning away, "You could just admit that you were affected by that call too."