The Devil and I by Kay Alastor

Chapter Eight

Lucas

Seeing her face light up in my office makes me feel really damn good. This is the first time I've seen her like this, and it makes me want to keep that look on her face forever. I could watch her all day, sipping at the white mug in her small hands while she watches the birds bounce between my feeders. Having her in my home like this makes me feel more human. Watching this broken girl feel something other than misery gives me a sense of purpose. I could easily see myself devoting my entire life to making her feel everything good, and keep the negative shit away.

She deserves to feel good. She is sweet and shy and lights up over books and birds. The trust she has put in me shakes me all the way down to my usually rock steady core. She has this frailty to her that makes me want to keep her safe from the world. A frailty I imagine is the product of a difficult life, where people either hurt or somehow fail her.

My mind begins to race as I lean over to turn my computer on, trying to figure out how the hell to keep her here and make her fall in love with a monster like me. I don't feel in absolute control right now, and that is something I need to remedy immediately. For more control, I need information. The more information, the better. Having access to police databases is useful in situations like this.

My superiors would lose their minds and fire me immediately if they knew I had access to all of our databases, both provincial and nationwide, from my home office. Everything I have access to right now is illegal outside of a police station, or my cruiser. It seems my minor obsession with hacking as a teenager paid off well in my extracurricular pursuits.

I start by firing up the main ID database, entering Rayna's full name and age to see what information I can find.

Rayna Archer. Age 20. Born on October 14.

No notable infractions. There are no mental health incidents and only one report, which has since gone cold. The report is short, detailing her home address and basic details, along with the name of the officer that answered the request for police support. It had been filed as a violent sexual assault that resulted in a hospital visit with physical damage to her body. Reading the report feels like taking repeated punches to my gut. Nearly unbearable.

The motherfucker beat her, leaving bruises on her body and abrasions on her genitals. She even had tearing in and around her anus. The reality of what was done to her hits me full force, making it difficult to breathe.

It takes all of my strength to force the air in and out of my lungs, steadying my breathing so that I don't draw Rayna's attention. The last thing I need is to have to explain why I am suddenly enraged when I don't want her to know I'm digging into her records.

I close my eyes momentarily to calm myself as best I can, and when I open them again, I let them wander over to the girl sitting by my window. She's idly sipping her tea while she slowly turns the pages of the book settled in her lap. I watch her for a while, trying to convince myself that she is here now, and she is safe. She's far away from the son of a bitch that raped her, and he won't ever lay a hand on her again. No one will.

Once my blood pressure drops, I turn my focus back to the monitor in front of me, silently promising not to smash it to pieces in a fit of rage as I pull up the full report. It goes cold fairly quickly, unfortunately, indicating at the end that the victim refused to provide further details on the assault. She kept insisting that she just wanted to go home. This left the assigned officer with no leads and no information to press charges with. Ms Archer did clarify that someone had raped her, and she would be requesting STD testing and a pregnancy test in the near future. Beyond that, she went silent as she struggled to keep herself together. With that, the report went cold.

I can't stop the sigh that rushes out of me as I lean back in my chair, lifting my eyes to Rayna again. She looks up from her book to meet my gaze, a wordless question lingering in her pretty brown eyes. “Just work stuff,” I tell her, running my hand across my face and through my hair. She frowns slightly, but nods and turns her attention back to the book.

I close the report and scan over her basic details again, absorbing everything I find, even though it isn't much. Once I've seen everything there is to see, I exit the database and pull up my browser and toss her name into the search engine to see what social media she maintains. Not surprisingly, I don't find much. Just a Facebook page that isn't super active. I quickly browse her friends list before looking through the lists of her friends, but find no “Mark” within any of it. I do a quick scan of her timeline for any mention of his name, but find nothing. I'm not positive, but I imagine this guy isn't a friend or relative. A stranger to her, or someone she met briefly, is the likely option here. I sit in silence for a while, contemplating the information I've gathered.

Knowing that I need the guy's last name to move forward, I close everything pertaining to my sweet girl down and pull up my legitimate work access to finish up reports from the last week. A couple domestic disturbances, a break in, and various civil complaints.

I lose track of time as I write, completing the reports from my last work shift. Getting all of this out of the way now means that I can put work on the back burner for the rest of my vacation. Peering at the time at the corner of my monitor, I acknowledge the late afternoon with a stretch and a yawn. Rayna sets her book down and mirrors me, turning her head to look out the window again.

“Are you up for watching a movie?” I ask her as I shut my computer down and rise from my chair. “I need to unwind a little from writing reports,” I explain with a brief chuckle. She nods and stands up, bringing the book and her tea mug with her. As she wanders over to set the book back in its place, I walk to the window and try to declutter my brain. I know I'll need to find out Mark's last name, but I have no intention of asking her right this second. I'll figure things out as we go.

“May I use the bathroom?” she asks as she makes her way back towards me.

“Of course. You know where it is,” I tell her as I brush a strand of dark hair out of her eyes, motioning towards the office door. She offers me a small smile as she exits, making her way back towards my bedroom. I'll need to re-dress her arm before bed and make sure she isn't fighting an infection.

I watch her until she disappears, then turn my attention back out the window. A few minutes pass, and eventually I hear the muffled sound of the toilet flushing. When she doesn't immediately return, I decide to go seek her out myself. As good as it sounds to curl up on the couch with her and find something scary to watch, I'm still harboring a lot of intense feelings and they are moving beneath my skin like a destructive parasite. Lust, rage, and my own brand of sickness coil within me and demand an outlet. Shit I need to expel if I'm going to act like a decent human being for the rest of the night.

Thankfully, I can think of the perfect outlet.