Finding the serial killer

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Jake’s POV,

A month later,

We walk through the crystal doors opening us to the mild smell of freshly sprayed disinfectant mixed with rotten and pungent smells of blood gushing out of fresh wounds and medicines all hitting us like a powerful punch. Walking into the corridors from the reception to the intensive care ward, I've been doing a lot of thinking. A lot of thinking about how to dodge passing out today, cold, hard on the floor and right now. Thinking about the case I've got, fighting the possibility of suspension, once again, that brings me to this hospital. Last time I was here, I passes out and I can't help but suffer the trauma of that on my career as a homicide detective. Whoa! That sounded like something… something that makes me proud and nervous and a lot of things that that has made me suffer.

“Hi Mr. Rui.” Emily stood by my side greeting the grieving father of the young victim, I'm so thankful to her, as my partner I know she suffers, but sometimes when I'm feeling down, she is the only one giving me a cheer.

I try not to look around too much, all the blood and wounds and the smell it makes we feel some kind of way, the vomit kind of way.

“Mr. Rui?” The poor man slouched by the door watching his wife inside the ward recovering the murder of their only child, bonded by IVs and blood fusing into her body, he looked at us with swollen eyes, I know he must be crying anyone would. How the life can change for the worst in a day, it’s every day I meet people who made me feel that way. One moment you are happy and blessed and next you’re lost in the deep dark ally of loneliness, regret and abandonment. And I can tell he’s feeling just that. I can feel the darkness around him. “I am detective Davis,” she says, not smiling, “and he is my partner detective Wilson.” I do the same, not smiling. “Can we ask you a few questions about your daughter?” poor man looks down to his hands. I look down to his hands and I shouldn’t have. They are so messed with blood of his child, and the blood, the blood, f*****g blood.

Look away Jake, look away. I breathe, I puke in my mouth, but I try to keep on breathing, the new technique I've learned, ‘breathe in, count to ten and let it go’. I look away, I breathe in, I count till ten, I try to let go. I walked a foot away, I breathe, I count to ten, I let it go. Seeing blood does me something, like all my insides wants to come out of my mouth somehow, and I will die. I look away, I walk away, I breathe away. I'm still not used to of this, this exposure therapy is doing nothing to me phobia, I don’t know when it will be over. My vision gets blurry, but enough for me to see Rui fists his hands knocking it hard against his thighs. He’s broken and so, so angry. I deviate my focus back to his face. He sighs a sigh of grief and looks towards his wife.

I saved myself this time. this technique might really work. I don’t know what will happen next time this happens.

Tears begins leaking his eyes in fast streams as he attempts to hug himself. “If only I was home an hour early. Like every day. Nothing would’ve happened. I could’ve saved them, her, both of them.” He cries like he’s broken, shattered, empty, but so angry, at life, at himself. I don’t know his pain. I don’t know the pain of losing a family member, a beloved, not physically losing them. I don’t know but somehow, I can feel his pain ripping through the air reaching everyone with his desperate cries. I can see the suffering of a father who was trying so hard to tell his story. Trying to carry all the blame and guilt.

He rubs off his tears in the clean corner of his wrinkled shirt, I'm still watching him with squinted eyes so I can blur out those splashes of blood. When the therapist said these techniques can help, I was skeptical, now, I'm not. “You can ask me anything, but please don’t bother my wife.” He sobs watching her lifeless on the hospital bed surrounded by a billion beeps and needles. They said she had some kind of trauma in her head from the attack and shock. She won't wake up; it’s been five hours. “She was our life, our only child. How will she feel? I don’t want her to think about any of this anymore. Please. Please don’t say anything—” he breaks down on his knees watching helplessly to the walls, tears won't stop. Sobs won't stop. Seeing him, I feel like there is a pit I have in my stomach. An unknown pain I've never experience before feels rising inside me. the pain of losing someone. But I shrug away my feelings. I need to just get the hell out of here as soon as I can and that is only possible if we scrutinize the details we are here for.

“Of course, sir.” I bought him water I help him drink it. It does nothing to the poor father but to curbs his hard sobs into thick tears and trembling hands. We help him sit on the bench behind. He is a mess, from clothes to hair to eyes, everything. I pity him, but I also can't look at him. he reeks of blood and it makes me sick to my stomach.

“Do you have suspicions on anyone?” Emily does all the talking. I just try to remember all he says closing my eyes or looking away every moment I get. “Who could’ve have done this? Any enemies? People who would want revenge on your family?”

“Enemies, no. We are not like that. Jess was the sweetest girl you will ever know, who would want to do that to my family, a kid. Why?” he sobs harder. “I can't imagine who would want to do this to my girl, she is just a kid, she was just a kid.” He keeps glancing back at his wife and on his hands and us and the wall, he doesn’t know where to look at. Every moment, every fraction of the moment, he’s out of control.