Esper Chapter 1

It’s the cool summer breeze whispering through the curtains of the open window that keep me awake while I wait in a quaint little office. The scent from outside wreathes around me, and I can smell pollen and flowers, something sweet, maybe bread or ice cream from down the street. And water. I can taste the tang of it on my tongue as I let oxygen flood my lungs.

My psychiatrist had left the room a few minutes ago, so I’d taken to stealing his spot in the large black leather office chair. It spins, and if I didn’t get motion sick extremely easily, I’d probably attempt to spin around, since no one was watching.

My psychiatrist is an alright man. He’s young, so he’s probably closer to understanding what my life is like, rather than one of those out classed, washed up old fools who just nod their heads and want to lock you up in a sanitarium. If anything, he actually seems interested in the way I tell my stories, and how I felt about them. Sure I don’t tell him everything. I’ll never tell anyone, everything. But still, I don’t mind Dr.Sparrow.
I can’t tell him my big secret, or shall I say our big secret. After all, it’s not just mine to tell, because it’ll get us all in trouble. More than just trouble, it might even get us killed depending on how the government views us. We’ve kind of rubbed the police force’s face in the dirt.

The door leading to the hallway creaks open, the sound of the brass hinges screaming against each other practically lances through my skull and I instinctively lift my hand to my forehead, fruitlessly hoping the coolness of my hand will ease the sudden pain throbbing in my skull. It literally feels like someone’s taken a screw driver to my brain. I shake my head slightly, before Dr.Sparrow’s voice snaps me back to reality.
“Are you okay, Reivun?”

“Ugh, yeah. I’m fine.” I bite the inside of my lip and throw up my usual tough front. It’s hard to ignore the sudden headache, but I don’t want anyone to worry. “I’ve just been getting a lot of sudden headaches lately.”

“It’s probably stress. Stress can bring on random headaches. They don’t last long do they?” He inquires, raising an eyebrow at me as he moves to the spot I was supposed to be sitting in. That’s one of the reasons why I like him, he doesn’t fuss over the little things or try to control me.

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Blinking, I place my hands back in my lap and play with one of the little draw strings hanging off my silky white dress, which really doesn’t match my heavy black combat boots or the fingerless black gloves on my hands, but again, no one ever comments. But maybe Sparrow was right about something for once. I wasn’t too quick to believe ‘stress’ could cause physical symptoms, but headaches did seem believable.
“Because it’s extremely common.” He chuckles slightly, probably at the annoyed expression on my freckle dusted face. His hazel gaze stays on me, and hardly drifts to the note pad on his lap. I don’t even think he writes down half the stuff I say, which I appreciate.
Dr. Sparrow is a tall man, and like I said earlier, he’s young. Maybe in his early thirties. He has a little bit of sandy blonde facial hair and wild shaggy hair of the same colour. It’s about shoulder length and it curls wildly, nearly giving him a rather handsome yet insane appearance. Which is much better than my last psychiatrist, who looked like a crazy mad scientist, and I’m not exaggerating.

“Ah don’t look so irritated.”

“I’m not.” Despite my objection, I quickly change the expression on my face, painfully aware of my furrowed eyebrows and narrowed emerald eyes. The headache that had pounced on me a few minutes ago was beginning to subside, so I tried to relax a little.

“There we go. That’s better.” Sparrow chuckles to himself and turns to write something down on his notepad. Since it’s the end of our session today, I’m pretty sure he’s just writing down my next appointment. I let my attention stray to the phone in my breast pocket on my dress. Snatching it up quickly and skimming through my password, I check my messages. A simple hey from one of my casual friends. And then another message from Thomas, who I know more commonly as Ice.
 
‘Have you seen the news lately? There’s another one running around Toronto close to Etobicoke. The gang is ready to head out any time this week, you in?’

I hit reply and let my fingers dance over the touch screen as I type up a message to shoot back at him. I hadn’t watched the news lately, which was part of my job as group leader, oops.

‘Nah I haven’t had the time lately, too busy out with Jayla. I figured one of you would just let me know if anything came up. But sure, yeah I’m down. I’ll set the date for Saturday, spread the word and make your preps.’

I hit the send button, lock my phone and toss it back on my dress pocket. Sparrow finished scribbling down on his note pad around the same time and turned to me with his usual gentle and curious expression. He reached over and handed me a piece of paper with my next session date on it. “Stick this somewhere so you don’t forget, I’ll be seeing you on Sunday, is that fine?”

“That’s perfect, as long as you don’t haul me out of bed before 11am.”

“That’s perfect, I was thinking I’d see you at 3.”

“3 works.” I agreed with a light laugh, rising from Sparrow’s chair. I stretched my arms above my head with a loud yawn, tingles ran up from my spine to shoulders as my muscles woke up from their slumber. Dropping my arms back to my sides I cast Sparrow a quick wave and depart from his office. My mother is seated in the waiting room reading a magazine. I clomp towards her in my black combat boots, inwardly snickering at how unmatched my outfit was. Some people looked at me strangely, but I suppose my combats matched my dress better than my cowboy boots. Not much match those. I don’t wear them often either.

   
       After getting home, I open the door to my room, which is more like an old sun room. The walls are made from barn wood but I have a huge rectangular window on the left wall, and a smaller one above my bed on the right side. There’s tons of potted plants lined up along the window sill of the larger window. To the left of my room is a dining table with 4 cushioned lawn chairs surrounding it. I usually use it for meetings and stuff when I have friends over. Then to the right is my bed, and beside it is the door leading to the backyard. The door is kind of creepy, and being my normal paranoid self it had 3 locks on it and sometimes I’d move my bed side table in front of it at night.
Ever since Blue’s demise I had a right to be paranoid. My whole group did and no amount of therapy was going to help that. I shake the thoughts out of my head as Jayla sits up on my bed, stubby white tail wagging back and forth excitedly. Jayla’s my dog. She’s a strange one, but she’s beautiful. Pure white fur, that’s nearly silver. I’m terrified it will start to yellow so I give her a bath like every day.

Her eyes are green, like a wolf. And other than online pictures, I’ve never seen a dog with green eyes. Her ears are floppy kind of like a border collie, but the fur isn’t wavy, it’s just silky. And she’s not small either. She’s around the size of a large German shepherd so I have no idea what breed she is.

“Hey, did you miss me?” I ask, nearly half expecting an answer. Within the two years I’d had Jayla, I’ve trained her like an army solider. She doesn’t do anything I don’t tell her to do, and it’s almost scary how smart she is. My mom and sister both think it’s weird that I talk to her like she’s a human, but I much prefer a dog’s company then the tons of cats my mom owns.

I rid my feet of my combat boots and set them neatly under my bedside table next to my converse, after fiddling with the laces for a good three minutes. Flopping down on my bed, I let out a heavy sigh and stare at the crappy blue painting job on my shitty ceiling. The house builder’s could not have done a worse job. The wooden logs holding the planks are bent and they look like they’ll come crashing down one day. But if you don’t pay attention to the roof and it’s dull grey blue colour, my room has a certain warm cabin like feel too it. And Jayla slips in and out of the third window on the far wall, since I usually keep it open.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I slide it out once more. Another message from Ice. I’d been texting him on and off since my appointment and the car ride home.  I’d also been debating a walk to the beach with Jayla, since I still had a faint pain in the back of my head although it had nearly subsided by now.

‘Who do you want to come on the hunt?’ Is what Ice’s message says.

I think it over for a moment. We’d need at least three hunters, and one bait player. I’m not the fastest of runners, but I make up for it with my ability to run distances and to fight. Catching pedophiles was risky. And that was what we did. It was something we’d all agreed to risk our lives to do. After all, it was part of our vengeance.
Once upon a time, we were all just a group of rambunctious teenagers who used to run around at night time and paint on walls and steal stuff. We were just dumb kids. Our group was a lot bigger back then, than it is now. Those were the days Ice had a younger sister named Blue. She was 12 years old, and she was the life of the party. She was too young to run around with us. But what did we care? We didn’t see the harm we were doing. Straight from the beginning she was kind of the odd one out, a skinny brunette with fierce strange blue eyes. That’s why we nicknamed her Blue. She looked like a doll she was so adorable. And Blue was kind too.

That’s probably why she went missing that one night. I couldn’t imagine her ever turning down some one asking for help finding their lost dog. Maybe she’d even been threatened right off the bat. It’s something we never got an answer too. But one night indeed, Blue went missing. We hadn’t even noticed until the next morning, when Ice called us all up in a frantic frenzy.

Of course we searched high and low. But we never found her. Or at least… Not alive.
Because Blue did show up eventually. Water logged, beaten and paler than a ghost, it wasn’t enough that she was found either. Ice and I, and the rest of the crew, we had to see her. We had to join a search party, and we just had to be the ones to find her.

We saw everything.

Blue’d been taken by a predator and killed.
The crew didn’t speak to each other for months. We were all too sick with ourselves. We let our bad habits get the better of us, and as a result Blue paid our prices. It wasn’t until I called Ice up one night, that the crew slowly came back together, and only some of us did. But Ice and I were the ones who came up with the plan. The plan for vengeance. After all how hard was it, to catch a predator?

Well, it was awhile before we actually perfected our plans, but we’d actually managed to catch a few. And now it had been three years since we’d started ‘Hunting’ as we call it. We don’t kill. But we do use brutal methods.
I couldn’t help but think back over the past. Every once in a while it came back to haunt me. Therapy and everything had taken a lot of the weight off my shoulders, but there would always be a certain amount of guilt we couldn’t shake off. Not until we’d taken out Blue’s murderer. As long as he was still free, we’d continue to risk our lives in her name.

‘Well, you’re the profiler. What’s our killer like? And what was our victim like?’

I text back quickly and keep my phone clutched in my hand, waiting for a text back very soon. Ice never wasted time on these matters. He’d changed the most over the three years.
But our tactics usually worked. Ice profiled, nearly like an FBI profiler. We didn’t have the psychology to back up our profiles, but we did have the knowledge of the streets. First we examine the way the victim was killed, then we look at our victim and what they’re like.
We slowly piece together a plan based on that.

“What a drag. We’ve got another upcoming hunt Jayla. We’ll need your help of course.” I sigh and roll over on to my side bringing one of my knees up close to my chest, my arms resting out in front of me. My pillow still smells like strawberry citrus. Personally I think it smells like a gum flavour and not shampoo, but at least it smells good. I can smell something else in the air, it’s kind of salty and spicey, with a hint of… tomato. Maybe chilli or spaghetti sauce. My mom was obviously making something. My sister and I always joke around saying I can smell better than I can see, because my sense of smell is oddly sharp.

Finally my phone peeps in my hand and I read through the rather large message Ice had left me.
‘Our target is a middle aged man. White, dark hair and balding, facial hair, and medium build. He’s violent and seems like be holding in a lot of anger, he kinda proved it by stabbing a 15 year old to death, and then chopping him into pieces. His anger makes him easy to spot though. He’d probably have angry outbursts, if someone even cut him off in line. I spoke to Smirks, he used his dad’s computer to get this info. Anyway, the victim is actually male. He’s blonde, brown eyes and kind of the shy boy type. If you ask me, Steel is our best bait for this one. The kid’s name is Daniel, and he lives by the Etobicoke Go Station. So, what are our plans, City?’

The weird name’s we all have is part of our team. After Blue, we all changed our names when we formed The Hunters. If we’re ever on a hunt, we don’t use each other’s real names in fear of getting caught by the police. There’s only 6 of us, James who we call Smirks, Thomas who’s Ice, Kira ended up being called Crystal, Aaron and his nick name is Steel, Blood’s real name is Skylar. Finally that leaves me, real name Reivun and street name City. Crystal and I are the only females in the group, unless you put aside species and count Jayla too. We keep our identity a secret, we kind of have too. Usually we were bandanas over our face, and keep our hoods up.
I type up a quick text to Ice. He didn’t give me much to go on but sometimes information was scarce.

‘Steel sounds perfect to play bait, I’d say you should do it, but I know you won’t so Steel’s our next best bet. Smirks and Blood will come with me. I want you to wait at the closest park, we’ll bring the party to you. Anyway I’m going to go for a walk with Jayla, I’ll catch you later.’
I hit send, snap my phone shut and toss it in my pocket. I’m still a little self-conscious about wearing dresses in public. Sure I’ve got the figure I want now, but I didn’t a few years ago. And once someone calls you fat, you never really forget it. I decide against changing into some black capris and stick to my dress instead. The hot sunny beach is way too warm for my boots, so I throw on a pair of black flip flops instead. They have skulls on the bottom.

I don’t bother throwing Jayla on a leash because she’ll stick right by my side unless I tell her to do otherwise. Even the beach guards know that. I throw open the door to the backyard and stroll out. My mom wouldn’t care that I was gone at this hour, the sun was still high in the sky and it couldn’t have been much later than 5. Passing the side garden of the house I grab the Frisbee I’d left on the air conditioner and pass through the front gate. Jayla follows after me, her black paw pads making a quiet fleshy thud against the cement of our drive way.
It was nice living so close to the beach, it was literally only a 5 minute walk away. In the summer time the beach was always booming, and tourists from the states always crossed over. Crystal Beach wasn’t that far from Niagra Falls either, and the Falls were a fun place to go explore and hang out. It was a bit of a chore going all the way out to places like Etobicoke, London, Toronto and all those other close by cities. But Blood always drove us where ever our destination was and we all enjoyed the road trip. We’d always drink warm soda and eat foot long hot dogs or chicken fingers from the beach food stands before we hit the road. Saturday would be no different. Sure we’d all get a little nervous before a hunt, but we also enjoyed the little jobs we did. Honouring Blue, and having a good time with each other. We were just average pot head trouble makers until she died. Now we’re good people and we care about each other like a family.

Which, I have to say… Is a huge improvement.