Ryzen, p.5
Ryzen, page 5
part #3 of Federal Protection Agency Series
“I’ll do that now,” Cooper said as he turned his attention to his computer.
“Well, given the black magic angle, could this be ritual?” Roland asked.
I had wondered that myself when the first victim appeared. It wouldn’t be the first time someone was killing a person and offering them up as a human sacrifice. However, the second victim told me that wasn’t what was going on.
“Human sacrifices are usually drained of their blood as part of the offering. They also have symbols painted or carved into their body. They don’t get tortured, because it can ruin the offering. They all die from exsanguination. They are placed within a pentagram and they are bled until they stop breathing. It’s a long death, but a relatively painless one,” I explained.
“Definitely not what this guy is doing,” Hollingsworth said.
Mason’s phone rang and he pulled it out to answer. He moved outside to speak with whoever was on the other end. I hoped it was some good news for us. That whoever was calling would be able to give us a clue as to who this UnSub was. The call didn’t last very long, and Mason strolled back into the room. Based on the look on his face, he wasn’t happy with whatever intel he just received.
“Calls are coming in on the tip line. Most of them are people asking for more information. However, there was a series of calls that had been placed using a burner phone and a voice modulator. The man claimed to be the UnSub and he has been calling threatening to kill Special Agent Knox Hunter.”
“He’s just posturing. I don’t fit his victimology. Assuming he even is our UnSub.”
I knew that some serial killers would reach out to the media. I had gone through this before when they weren’t happy that the Feds were investigating them. They wanted fame and glory and killing was how they were going about getting it. But this time around, we had no reason to believe it was the UnSub and even if it was, I wasn’t a twelve to fourteen year old boy. He wasn’t going to come after me. He didn’t have the courage to.
“Regardless, your boss is not looking to take any chances. He is ordering you to be placed in protective custody until this UnSub has been caught. And I agree. There’s no point in taking the risk of you being grabbed. When killers have been backed into a corner, they lash out at anyone. If he believes the investigation into him dies with you, he won’t think twice about killing you,” Mason stated.
I knew there was no way I was going to get out of this.
I didn’t need to be in protective custody. I highly doubted this UnSub would come for me. Even if he thought he could keep killing by killing me. I was a lot bigger than he was used to grabbing. Plus, I was a high profile Profiler. Grabbing me would mean the full force of the FBI would come down on him. It was essentially suicide. He had been smart this whole time. He wasn’t going to make that fatal mistake.
“Fine, I will go to a safe house every night,” I conceded.
“And that would usually be perfectly acceptable. However, your boss also informed me that you don’t always do as you are told when you get a lead on a case. That you have gone out into the field before without backup because you figured something out. Because of that, you are going to be staying with one of us to ensure you don’t leave on your own.”
This was ridiculous.
The few times I had gone out on my own it was perfectly safe. I didn’t go to a killer’s house or some deserted area of the city. I went to populated areas to chase down a lead. Nothing ever happened to me. Now, I was being stuck with a babysitter again and I didn’t appreciate it.
“Who gets him?” Rafe asked.
“Well, only two of you have the safest homes on the team. But I am not going to place him with you, Rafe, because I’m not going to put Lilly at risk. Not with a serial killer targeting children,” Mason started, but Ryzen cut him off.
“No.”
“You have the safest house,” Mason started.
Oh hell, no.
I was with Ryzen on this one. I would rather be captured by this UnSub then trapped in a house with Rumpelstiltskin. It also didn’t surprise me that his house would be one of the safest. He probably had ten guns in each room and a bomb that would go off if you stepped on the welcome mat the wrong way.
“He’s not living with me,” Ryzen pressed.
“He is, because I’m ordering it. We have to keep him alive. The safest place for him to be is your house. If you don’t want your house being used as a safe house, don’t turn the thing into Fort Knox. It’s been a long day. I suggest everyone go home, get some sleep, and then we can start fresh tomorrow morning. We will have the court files by then and, hopefully, that will shed some light for us,” Mason said, his tone firm and final.
I knew there was no arguing against him on this. I was rooming with Ryzen, whether I liked it or not.
He would probably murder me in my sleep.
CHAPTER 6
Ryzen
This fucking sucked.
The very last person I wanted anywhere near my home was Knox. I didn’t make my home secure so it could be used as a safe house for any stray that came along. It was designed this way to ensure I would be safe while inside. To ensure that none of my enemies would be able to get to me as long as I was in my home. So I could sleep at night and not have to be on edge waiting for an attack.
There were people out there that would love to get their hands on me. Either to kill me or to try and get me to turn against my country and be a sniper for them. I didn’t survive the shit I did growing up just to be captured as an adult. Not while I was old enough and strong enough to defend myself. The reality that I lived in was the fact that I would always have enemies. It was part of the reason why I never dated anyone. They didn’t need a target on their back.
Besides, dating was overrated.
There was no point to it. It was just another social convention that made no sense and was completely useless. If the world needed to increase in population, which it didn’t, people could just have sex and make a baby. They didn’t need to date to have sex.
Sex was also overrated.
Everything involving sex was overrated. From kissing to the actual deed. There was no point in any of it, at least not to me. It also hurt and anyone that said sex didn’t hurt had clearly never been a bottom. There was nothing pleasant about the experience and it only left me feeling empty. I never got off on it. I’d never had a guy make me cum. Fuck, I almost never get hard when someone touched me. Sex was animalistic and should only be done when the need to increase the population called for it.
If that meant you never had sex because you were gay, then so what?
It wasn’t like a person needed sex to survive. You didn’t need an orgasm to keep living and even if you did, that’s what your hand was for. I was done with sex. I was done with all of it a long time ago.
There was nothing I could do or say to make Mason change his mind about Knox coming to stay with me. As much as I would have liked for him to stay with Rafe, I also understood why that was a terrible idea. There was no way any of us were going to risk Lilly. We knew Fin would be fine to take care of himself, but Lilly had already been through so much, we weren’t going to risk putting her through anything else.
I didn’t say anything. I just got up and strolled out the door. If Knox was going to be staying with me, then he could follow or not, the choice was up to him. Personally, I didn’t give two shits if the UnSub grabbed him or not. I could hear him following me, though, so apparently, he cared. We got into my car once again and he spoke.
“I need to pick up some clothes at my place.”
“Address?”
“1033 Parkview Ave.”
I started my car and headed for his address. The sooner we solved this case, the better off I was going to be. We drove in silence for a good ten minutes before he felt the need to break it. I don’t know why.
“Who is Lilly?”
“What?”
“Lilly. Mason said I couldn’t be with Rafe because of Lilly. I was just curious who she was.”
It wasn’t any of his business who Lilly was or anything about our personal lives. At the same time, though, it wasn’t like Rafe or any of the other guys wouldn’t share the information with him. I could refuse to answer the question, tell him to mind his own business, but that was going to put him in a sour mood and I was going to be stuck in my house for the next twelve hours with him.
“It’s a bit of a story. Basically, Rafe went undercover with his boyfriend, Finley, into a human trafficking ring. Lilly is Fin’s six year old niece, almost seven, now. Fin’s older brother and his wife were killed so the trafficking ring could take Lilly. Fin worked undercover for nineteen months, eighteen alone and one with Rafe, before we found Lilly and shut it down. They all live together, now.”
“My God. That poor girl. Is she healing okay?”
There was genuine concern to his voice and that surprised me. I didn’t think he was capable of caring about anyone. He always seemed to be more interested in reading the paperwork than actually getting to know someone without judgment first.
“She has her dads, she’ll be fine. She’s in personal therapy and group therapy. She stays home from school, for now, but they live in a gated community with good security. She’s safe. They’ve been thinking about a service dog for her. I guess the nightmares are bad.”
I knew what it felt like to have night terrors. I knew what it felt like to be scared to close your eyes, to dread what you’d see. I still had that issue. All too often, I’d stay awake for a few days before going to sleep. My insomnia was always on, no matter what I did. It wasn’t easy for me to just fall asleep. Not after all of the horrors I had lived through. The horrors I had seen. Despite what everyone chose to believe, despite what Knox thought he knew about me, the killing did bother me. I was taking a life and it didn’t matter if the person was a criminal or not, I was still collecting souls and I had a lot of them. Close to a thousand now, between growing up and the CIA. It was a lot of souls to carry around and they did get very heavy.
I kept doing it, though, and not because I was gifted with a gun, but because these people needed to be taken out. They were too dangerous to keep alive. Not killing them meant thousands more would die and that wasn’t something I could live with. It was just better to kill them and carry around their soul, compared to thousands of other innocent people that I refused to protect because I refused to pull the trigger.
It was a lot to try and live with and I wasn’t certain I had figured out the balance for it, yet. I was trying. I was trying to sleep and have more of a normal life, but it wasn’t working so far.
When Mason had reached out looking for help on the Task Force, I had thought about saying no. I had never worked within a team before. The CIA always worked alone, and even if they didn’t, as a sniper, I sure as shit did. Growing up, I was always on my own so there was no team playing there. I wasn’t really sure how to operate on a team or if I even wanted to be on one. Still, I didn’t have anything else going on and it was a chance to take down a corrupt cop. When it was over, I was ready to leave, but then Mason had said we could stay and keep working the Task Force. It seemed like the right thing to do.
I had never wanted siblings. I had never wanted brothers. I never felt like I needed anyone in my life, but working alongside the guys, it was different. It made me feel different. The hole that had always been inside of me wasn’t so big anymore. It was still there, but it wasn’t as big and I didn’t feel so empty. Working for the Agency, with the guys, it all felt right and I was glad that I had taken Mason up on his offer. I was glad that Mason had called me when most probably wouldn’t have.
“A service dog will help with the nightmares. And a weighted blanket can do wonders for insomnia and anxiety. That might be something they consider as well. Unfortunately, all they can really do is keep her in therapy and wait it out. The good news is that she is young enough her mind will bounce back. She’ll be able to have a normal life without the trauma destroying her.”
Hopefully, that was true, but I knew from personal experience the things you saw at Lilly’s age could haunt you for the rest of your life. As for the weighted blanket, I knew they worked. I had one permanently on my bed to try and help me at night. On the nights I could bring myself to close my eyes, it helped with the nightmares and anxiety about sleeping. I was hoping that Lilly would recover better than I did and she would be able to be happy and healthy. She had two great dads in her life, though, so I was sure she would.
After a quick stop at Knox’s place and a pizza joint, we arrived at my house. The house wasn’t in the outskirts, but I wasn’t right in the middle of town, either. There was a metal, electrified fence all around my property. My closest neighbor was half a block away. I had an alarm on both the front and back doors, along with every window in the house. It was a two-story house with a fully completed basement. I had that set up as a gym with my treadmill and my weight set. It was a nice house. It was small and that was how I liked it. I didn’t want too big of a house, there were too many spaces someone could hide and it would be too much work to clean.
We climbed out of my car and I strode over to unlock my door with my keycode. I didn’t do keys, too easy to copy, but having a lock with a passcode meant someone would need my fourteen digit code to unlock the door. And then, they would need my iris scan to shut my alarm off. I knew Knox was going to have some comment about the high level of security, but if it helped me to sleep, if it helped me to feel safe in my own home, it was worth it to me.
“I guess Mason wasn’t kidding with the Fort Knox joke,” Knox commented as he stepped inside behind me and closed the door.
“When you’ve made a living taking out some of the worst criminals in this world, it’s vital to have a strong security system,” I said as I brought the pizza into the kitchen and slid it onto the counter.
“Fair enough,” Knox said, and I could tell he was already looking around and trying to analyze everything. It was just another reason why I didn’t want him in my home. I didn’t need a Profiler psychoanalyzing me.
I turned the lights on in the kitchen and spoke.
“I don’t have a spare room, so you’ll have to sleep on the couch. I’ll bring you down a pillow and blanket.”
I didn’t wait to hear any comments from him. I went upstairs and quickly grabbed him a pillow and spare blanket before I went back down and dropped them on the couch.
Knox was still standing in the kitchen and I could tell he wanted to go and explore the house. I just grabbed a plate with some pizza and a water bottle from the fridge before I headed back upstairs, leaving him to do whatever he wanted to do. I wasn’t dealing with him tonight. I had done my job. I got him here and he was still alive. It was on him to entertain himself. I was certain he would be able to do that easily enough with profiling my home. I was sure, come morning, I would hear all about how my home told him I was a whack job who needed to find a different career. That would only give him more ammo, only give him more confidence in his decision to end my career with the CIA.
Well, he could entertain himself in his perfect black and white world. I would be too busy trying to fall asleep tonight. I hadn’t gotten any sleep in the past two days and I really needed to try and catch a few hours tonight. Though, with having someone in my home, chances were I would be spending the night staring up at the ceiling and waiting for the sun to rise.
CHAPTER 7
Knox
The second I heard Ryzen’s bedroom door close, I couldn’t help but look around. I couldn’t believe the security he had for his house. At first, I thought he was being paranoid. That wouldn’t really be too uncommon with snipers. They were always hyper-vigilant and believed that someone was always watching them. But hearing that he had dangerous enemies out there, that did make a lot more sense. It made sense that he would have this level of security on his home.
I didn’t know what type of targets he had killed, but I did know that the CIA took out major terrorists, cartels, the mafia, and high-powered weapon traffickers. There were an endless number of criminals out there who would want to take revenge on someone like Ryzen. I wasn’t going to hold the security measures against him.
I moved into the living room and turned on the lights. I noticed right away that the lights weren’t very bright. Even in the kitchen they were dim. I’d thought at first that maybe the bulbs were starting to burn out, but when the living room was just the same it just made me more curious. Plus, the curtains were blackout curtains and they were pulled closed. It was definitely weird. But maybe with being a sniper, he was worried about someone looking in. That hyper-vigilance again, I guess. Shrugging, I continued my perusal.
The furniture in the room was basic and looked either secondhand or like he’d had them for a good five or so years. There was a black suede couch, a black leather chair, and a matching recliner. Other than the furniture, there was a coffee table and two end tables that were brown, and a flat screen TV that sat perched on a brown entertainment stand on the opposite wall from the furniture, and that was it. There was nothing else in the room at all.
Hell, there was nothing else on this whole floor.
Not even a kitchen table.
There was nothing personal in the whole main level of the house. Nothing on the walls, not even any of those scenescape type photos that you could pick up in a store. The walls were completely bare. No family photos, though that could be blamed on him not wanting any enemies to know anything personal about him. But he could at least have a photo of a sunset or something. It didn’t have to be anything with family in it, but something that reflected who he was. Something, anything that made the place feel like a home and not just a rest stop.
