Chapter 41: The Abduction of Judy

Seeing Samuel embracing the girl, I was relieved. My fear about his disappearance evaporated, and in its place came a moment where I felt sympathy for the girl crying in his arms. I roughly knew what had happened to her. Perhaps she was on the brink of a breakdown, a collapse of her consciousness.

As I witnessed this scene, it suddenly changed. The girl, who had been weeping in Samuel's embrace, suddenly pushed him away and tried to run, or more precisely, to hide under the nearby bed. There, she began to emit sounds of screaming, or perhaps agony. She seemed prepared for torture or something even worse.

Samuel, who a moment before had been comforting her, calmly approached the bed under which the girl now lay. "Don't be afraid – this is my colleague. He's come to rescue you and your parents. Like me, he's a policeman, so he will protect you," Samuel continued to coax her into calming down. After his words, her screams began to subside.

Witnessing all this, I realized how terribly late we were in handling this case. She was like an animal cornered. She feared us like a child fears adults. I carefully approached Samuel, squatting down, and addressed her. "Judy, right?" I said as gently as possible.

Under the bed, the sounds of her hoarse crying stopped. As the sounds ceased, I panicked, fearing for her, which made me attempt to reach my hand under the bed. When my hand entered the gap, something sharp struck it, and I reflexively pulled it back.

Withdrawing my hand, I noticed a cut, similar to those found on the victims. Now I was sure. We had found her, the one who had been killing them, but certainly not of her own free will. She was just a victim being used by a sick bastard. I was sure it was him, Riley – an animal walking around with a contented smile.

Feeling a fleeting rage towards the perpetrator of her suffering, I managed to suppress the pain from the cut. Samuel, having seen this, remained silent, then spoke to her. "We know everything, Judy. We won't punish you for this. We'll help you avoid punishment because you are a victim too. We need your testimony, and then we can put him behind bars," he said. "He looks like him," she uttered.

I tensed up at her words, confident that I bore no resemblance to Riley. We were too different, even physically. "I'm sure he doesn't resemble the one who forced you to kill," Samuel said. "He looks like the one who captured me," she replied. "Did you see him?" I asked. "Only his eyes. His eyes are the same as yours," she said. "But you hardly had a chance to see me," I responded. "I only needed a glance, because I will never forget him," she said. "Maybe you'll come out to us?" I asked. "I don't trust you, your eyes are just like his," she said in a plaintive voice.

I was wracked with pain for her. I felt her emotional agony as if she were my own daughter. I felt her pain and couldn't think straight. Noticing my feelings, Samuel spoke to her. "Let's do this. He'll move away from the bed to the room's entrance, and you come out. You're not afraid of me, right?" he said.

Hearing him, I stood up and headed to the entrance, saying as I went, "See, I've stepped back. Come out, I will never harm you," managing to hold back my tears, though I am an adult man. But the sight filled my eyes with tears.

I could no longer contain them. Emotions overwhelmed me, but I couldn't release them. I had to help her, the sooner we saved her, the quicker we could lock up that bastard. But considering her words, it seemed there were two of them. Bastards who had stolen her and forced her to kill.

"I promise you, I will catch them both. They will face the law and you for what they've done," I said, clenching my fists so tightly that my nails dug into my skin, drawing blood. I tried to contain myself, wanting to rush to her and comfort her, but held back, understanding her fear of me because of my eyes, so treacherously similar to the eyes of the bastard who had abducted her.

Samuel gently approached her and draped his jacket over her shoulders. She flinched slightly at his touch. My breath caught. I feared she would run back under the bed, but she stayed. "Can you tell us who made you do all this and how they forced you? Then we can arrest them right now," I said with effort.

She looked at me. I tried to hide my eyes from her, looking down. "I... I was abducted more than two months ago. He initially kept me in another place where he beat me, and after a week, he showed me a photo of my parents being held at a farm," she sobbed, holding back tears.

I waited for her to calm down a bit more before continuing. "When I saw the photo, he said he would kill them if I didn't obey. I agreed to do everything he said, but I didn't expect him to make me kill someone. He brought a widower from the church and ordered me to kill him, but I couldn't, and then he began to cut small pieces of skin from my arms," she said, now crying, as Samuel, standing beside her, gently put his arm around her shoulders, trying to comfort her.

"I tried to endure it all, but I couldn't. When I took the knife, he told me to listen to the widower. And before letting me out, he showed me other photographs. I didn't expect him to show me the body of a girl. He told me how he dismembered her and said I would be next if I didn't do everything the widower demanded. Only then I learned his name was Riley," she said, crying but calming down a bit in Samuel's embrace.

"Then he told me where to go and put a camera on me, and I waited until the person was alone and killed them," she said and then began to scream and convulse on the floor.