Chapter 5
Behind her, the carousel spun slowly.
She laughed with pure joy.
Her eyes turned into little crescent moons.
Her face...
Her face...
It was hauntingly familiar.
And yet, strangely foreign.
It felt like I was gazing at my own reflection, but through a thick, foggy glass.
My heart suddenly raced.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Even faster than when I was trapped in the subway station, surrounded by them.
I reached out my hand.
My fingertips quivered.
I wanted to touch the girl's face in the photo.
Just as my fingers were about to touch the photo, my mind suddenly erupted with a deafening blast.
It was as if something inside me had detonated.
A shrill, piercing noise stabbed into my ears.
It wasn't the little girl's laughter.
It was the sound of crying.
Raw, desperate sobs—cries so hoarse they tore through the silence.
And...
The crash of shattering glass.
Deafening, piercing.
"No!"
I screamed.
I clutched my head with both hands.
The photo slipped from Quentin's hand.
It floated down, drifting softly to the floor.
The girl's radiant smile landed face down, pressed against the cold, unforgiving floor.
The world spun around me.
All that remained were the sharp cries and the sound of glass breaking.
They kept reverberating inside my head.
The cries.
And the crash of glass.
Like two invisible hands, they clamped around my throat.
I couldn't breathe.
I felt myself slipping, helplessly pulled downward.
Into a bottomless pit of freezing darkness.
"Luna!
"Luna, look at me!"
Quentin's voice was like a lifeline.
It reached down to me from above the abyss.
He caught hold of me.
He shook me firmly by the shoulders.
I opened my eyes suddenly.
The world came back into focus, and I found myself in that warm room again.
Quentin's face was right in front of me.
His eyes brimmed with concern.
"It's okay, it's okay," Quentin murmured softly.
"It's just a nightmare."
His voice was steady, grounding me.
My frantic breaths slowly steadied.
But I couldn't stop shaking.
I was shaking all over.
The lady cop poured me another cup of hot water.
I cradled the cup in my hands, but I still couldn't shake the cold.
It was the kind of chill that sank deep into my bones.
"What did you just see?" Quentin's voice was soft and cautious.
I shook my head.
There was nothing to see.
Just the sounds.
Hopeless cries.
And the shrill crash of glass breaking.
They lingered in my mind, haunting me and refusing to fade away.
Quentin saw I wasn't ready to talk, so he let it go and didn't press me.
He picked up the photo from the floor.
The girl's bright smile in the photo looked like she was laughing at how messed up I was.
"Captain." The female officer walked over and spoke softly to Quentin.
"The FTU just got back to us," she said.
"They've checked over thirty out of the hundred numbers so far.
"But none of them are picking up yet," she added.
Quentin nodded.
"Keep at it," he said.
He glanced at the photo in his hand again.
"Do we have an address or any way to reach this girl's family?" Quentin asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"The missing person report was filed in Ashfield. It's quite far from us," she explained.
"We've already contacted the local police station for assistance with confirmation.
"They'll have someone visit the family's home to check on the situation," she said.
Quentin paused, deep in thought.
"That's not enough," he said.
"We can't just send them. We need to be involved ourselves," he said.
"I need to talk to her family myself," Quentin insisted.
The female officer seemed uneasy.
"But Captain, it's the middle of the night..." she said.
"Now," Quentin said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"Get them on the line right now," he ordered.
The female officer didn't say anything else and hurried out to take care of it.
Once again, it was just the two of us in the room.
I curled up on the couch, trying to make myself as small as possible, like a hurt puppy.
I couldn't bring myself to look at the photo again.
I couldn't even look at Quentin.
I kept my head down, staring at my toes.
I was wearing a pair of old canvas sneakers.
The tips were already worn through.
My brother bought them for me.
He said these would carry me far.
The memory of my brother surfaced unbidden.
I kept thinking about him. I realized the ache in my chest was growing stronger.
"Be good, Luna," he whispered.
"Count to ten thousand, and I'll come back for you."
Those words were all I had to hold onto.
They were the only light in the darkness.
I started counting.
One.
Two.
The lady cop in blue.
Quentin, dressed in his dark uniform.
Out in the hallway, a cop walked by.
Three.
I had to keep counting, no matter what.
If I made it to ten thousand, my brother would come for me.
He'd take me away from all this.
He'd tell me the crying and the glass breaking were just in my imagination, nothing real at all.
Quentin didn't disturb me.
He just sat there in silence across from me.
The call was connected quickly.
The female officer brought in a phone and pressed the speaker button.
"Hello?" A man's voice, thick with exhaustion and sleep, came through the speaker.
"Who is this?" he asked.
"Hello, this is the Casterly Rock Police," Quentin said.
His tone calm and firm.
His voice was steady and authoritative.
"Is this Mr. Samuel Thorn?" he asked.