062 SEEING THROUGH WALLS
Damen turned slowly, forcing calm into his voice. "Why are you back? You came to… erm…too?"
Kurt blinked, thrown off by the question. "Erm… I'm visiting a friend." He wiped sweat from his brow like the lie was a nuisance. He was obviously hiding something.
"Who? Someone I know?" Damen pressed.
"Nobody you know—my cousin from out of town. She's staying here for a few days," Kurt said, his eyes darting as if searching for an exit.
Damen forced a smile. "Alright, I'll get going," he said, and stepped away, keeping his movements casual. Kurt slipped into his room and shut the door.
Damen melted back toward his own room and slid inside, his heart thudding against his ribs.
He thumbed the group chat.
Damen: Sazie could be in the next room. Kurt is with her.
Lander: Wait for Kurt to leave. Then sneak into his room and check if Sazie's there.
Damen: Easy for you to say. There's a "fat bucket" waiting outside—won't be simple to cross the carpark.
Dorin: Fat bucket… you mean the fat guy riding a woman outside the carpark?
Damen: Yes, that's him. Handle him—don't let him come in.
Dorin: I'll see what I can do.
Damen stared at the screen, stretching unbearably long every second.
"Damnit… should I crash the door?" he muttered, then stopped himself. "If I'm wrong and Sazie isn't here, I'll ruin everything. It would alert Kurt or his accomplices."
Damen didn't know if Kurt was acting alone or had accomplices. If it was only Kurt, he wouldn't worry… but if there were other people involved… it'll complicate matters and affect the safety of the other missing students.
Then an idea struck him.
He pulled out his phone, logged into Kurt's profile, and activated Live View.
Before Kurt had left the motel earlier, Damen had tagged him as a favorite target. Now he could watch him in real time.
Damen waited, his muscles coiled, and his ears strained. Kurt's feed showed only the attached bathroom…. there was no clear view of the room itself.
"Damnit, Kurt. Come out of the damn bathroom," he murmured.
Then he saw it.
"I'll be damned…"
In the vanity mirror's reflection, barely visible in the corner of the feed, was a woman tied to the bed.
Her head was covered, so Damen couldn't confirm whether it was Sazie. But that didn't matter. Either way, this was a kidnapping.
Damen rushed out of his room and slammed his foot into Kurt's door.
Thunk.
A force field flared to life, stopping him cold.
"Damnit! Why did they install a force field on the damn door?" he cried.
Motel Blue Moon wasn't expensive, but it wasn't careless either. Every door was protected by both an alarm and a defensive field. It was quite standard for hotels in the city to have this feature because there are too many meta humans who could easily break wooden doors.
The alarm screamed to life, the sirens blaring down the corridor.
"Damnit… I triggered the bloody alarm."
Damen tried kicking the door again, but it wouldn't budge. The force field was strong—strong enough that breaking it would take time he didn't have.
Then he remembered.
Fat Bucket's keys.
He pulled them out, swiped the access, and the force field dropped instantly.
The door flew open.
Damen rushed inside—and froze.
Just like in the Live View, a woman was tied to the bed.
But Kurt was gone.
"Hell… where the hell is Kurt?"
His eyes snapped to the bathroom.
The window was open.
Kurt ran the moment the alarm went off.
Soon, footsteps thundered down the hall.
SIA agents stormed into the room moments later.
"What the hell happened here?" Dorin demanded, already moving toward the bed.
She pulled the cloth from the woman's head—
—and recoiled.
Her face was unrecognizable.
The body was decaying.
Silence fell over the room.
If this had been Sazie, she'd been dead for days.
Moments later, Lander burst in, followed almost immediately by police units swarming Motel Blue Moon—their lights flashing, the scene sealed in red and blue.
"What the hell is that?" Dorin whispered, pointing to the mummified body of a girl.
"She was probably already dead when I came in," Damen said, his voice low.
"Judging by her condition… she's been dead a long time," Lander added grimly.
He quickly collected a sample of the mummified tissue, scanning its DNA through his instrument. His eyes widened as he checked his data pad.
"She's Sazie, alright," he said, flatly.
The words hung in the air.
The girl they'd come to save was gone. Outside, the police had rounded up Fat Bucket, and everyone else in the motel was being taken in for questioning.
-----
"What about the other missing students?" Damen asked them.
"We've searched the whole place and gathered interviews from the staff… there is only Sazie here. This time Kurt is probably acting alone", Dorin said.
They had found Sazie at last, but it was grim news.
If the missing person's cases were connected, the others had almost certainly met the same fate as Sazie.
"This is sick… did you get Kurt?" Damen asked, his fists clenching.
Lander shook his head. "I've issued arrest warrants for Kurt and Irine. But both of them are missing."
"Damnit! How could you let them get away," Damen slammed his fists against the wall, his fury and helplessness colliding.
----
Fat Bucket and his staff were questioned. They confessed they knew nothing about Sazie's murder. There were no other missing people in the hotel, so the police concluded the motel wasn't involved in the crime.
Kurt had simply chosen it as the place to commit his horrific deed.
The news of Sazie's death sent shockwaves through the entire school. Students whispered in corridors, teachers looked over their shoulders, and investigators swarmed the campus.
Every student whose meta scores had shown abnormal improvement over the past month was brought in for interrogation.
Even Miss Gallum was arrested.
-----
"Where did you keep the missing students?" the interrogator asked inside a closed windowless room with a large mirror as partition.
Wendy Stuart was strapped to a chair, a device attached on her chest wired to a machine that hummed silently in the background.
"I… I don't know anything about missing students," Wendy stammered, her voice trembling. She was one of the students who had remarkable increase in their meta stats recently.
"You'd better think carefully and answer truthfully," the interrogator warned, leaning closer. "Otherwise, you may never walk out of here again."
"I really don't know…" Wendy broke down, tears streaking her face.
Behind a one-way glass partition, several people observed the interrogation, their faces grim.
"She's the tenth suspect who said nothing," Dorin muttered.
"Their polygraph readings are clean," Lander replied, scrolling through data on his pad. "Micro-expression analysis too. Either they're telling the truth—or they believe they are."
"That doesn't make sense," Damen said, his tone sharp. "One or two students fooling the machine, maybe. But this many? It's quite impossible."
"There are psychic-based techniques that can erase memories," Lander suggested thoughtfully. "If that's what happened, these students truly wouldn't remember what they did."
"Then questioning them is pointless," Dorin said.
"What about Miss Gallum?" Damen asked.
-----