Lions Eat Lambs • Prologue

 

Prologue to a new story I will be doing.

Smoke filled the small room as the three bodies shifted continuously. Chief Jasper Hale sipped his hot, black coffee from his plain styrofoam cup, then puffed his cigarette in anticipation. He sat across from a young woman, who appeared to be in her mid-twenties. She wasn't beautiful but he figured that she would be on any other occassion. But now, she appeared as horrid as her ripped dress and soiled face. Her eyes were blood-shot with dark circles encompassing under her lids. She hair was stained and matted red with what he assumed to be blood. Specks and streaks splayed across the skin of her hands and neck, the blood mixing with the dark pigment of mud. Her bottom lip trembled with chills and fear, as if she had seen an apparition from the grave.

Behind her, Detective Demetri paced the confines of the room, filling two corners one at a time over and over again while holding a Marlboro between his index and middle finger. It had been several minutes since he had inhaled and the cigarette was in desperate need of tapping. Chief Hale motioned for him to begin.

Demetri stepped to the table and reach around from behind the young woman and pressed the record button on the small device in front of her.

"Let's begin," Hale said. He took a long drag of his addiction and exhaled the smoke after allowing the fix to linger momentarily. He had quit smoking years ago but started up as a release after many people had disappeared from the city, never to be heard of again.

The woman let out a ragged breath. "Where do you want me to begin?"

"Just start at the beginning. Your name and age would be good."

"My name is Bella Swan. I'm twenty-three years old."

Hale flicked the accumulated ashes into a glass tray that sat beside his notepad. "Why are you here tonight?"

"Because I know what happened to the thirty-eight people that have gone missing."

He leaned forward a bit in his chair, his bared forearms grazing the table. "Is this a confession, Miss Swan?"

"No."

"Then, how do you know what happened to them?"

A tear rolled down her cheek as her fingers fumbled together. "Because I was going to be number thirty-nine."