Chapter 208Mote of Truth

The man sipped his coffee again, his other hand resting by his notepad. I didn't really think about it before but he was, apparently, left-handed. Not many people I knew wrote with their left hand. I took a deep breath and prepared to tell him the truth, mostly. I knew I had to tactfully leave out as much as possible on the nature of the assailant.

"With the sister I came across it accidentally. I heard her voice first, which made me look for her in a small alley. A boy, perhaps a few years older than me, was attacking her, taunting her with words and driving her in a corner. Then, before I could do anything, he bit in her neck or something. I ran there to pull him off her. He disappeared after that while I was looking at the girl..."

It did hurt a little to remember. "She died in my arms..."

The man stopped writing for a moment and nodded in understanding. "I'm sorry."

"After that I took her mobile phone and called the police, hoping they'd use the phone to find her. Panicked I ran away after that and didn't stop until I got home."

He finished scribbling on his notepad and looked down at what he'd written. He paused for another few seconds to, probably, make sure I was finished.

He looked up. "Just one male attacker?"

I nodded. "Yes."

He frowned. "Did you see any dental work done on him?"

"Eh... I didn't really have the chance to look at his teeth."

He smiled. "Of course, but I had to ask."

He underlined something before he looked up again. "And the parents?"

I sighed. "I wanted to come over, but when I got there I found them. But they must have been dead many hours by then."

He frowned. "Why do you say that?"

Drat... I tried to turn my nerves into a blush. "Oh, biology lessons about blood and stuff. It was all brown and flaky."

He smiled, it had worked. "Very aptly noticed, young lady."

I continued. "After seeing both her parents I wanted to leave. It took us a while to find a public phone without a camera around it, but we called as soon as we did."

He tapped with his pen on the notepad. "Why didn't you just call from their house?"

I blushed, honestly this time. "I don't know, I didn't think of it I guess."

He grinned a little. "Why all this trouble to stay unknown then?"

Now I had to do something I wasn't really able to. Lie. Telling most of the truth, knowing that their conclusions would be different than the actual truth was easy enough. But lying wasn't. Even as a child I was never able to lie and had to answer truthfully to any directly asked question. Of course, leave it to professional detectives to ask the right questions.

"I..." Don't know? "I'm not sure how to say this, but I didn't want to get involved with questioning and such."

He nodded. "Many people are unjustly afraid to talk to the police. But I think this was all. I've got a few more questions but you don't have to answer them if you don't want to. Mainly I'm curious to your thoughts as you seem an attentive little lady."

This surprised me. "I am?"

"Yes, I wondered if you think the death of the parents was a form of retaliation and if there was only one or multiple attackers."

Unfortunately, my curiosity and my brain got the better of me, I answered without thinking. "Retaliation seems the only possible explanation for such violent crimes so close to each other. And it must have been more than one person."

The last thought surprised me, why did I say that? Perhaps because I was thinking about how much force you'd need to rip off someones arms and legs. I wasn't sure I was even able to do it myself and I presumed the former friends of Kryss were much weaker than I was. Of course there were no clear indications of multiple people having walked in the house.

The man looked surprised as well. "I agree with the first but I'm not sure at the second. We only found one set of footprints inside the house and only in one room."

"Yes, but isn't the damage on the body too great? It seems unlikely a single person being able to do the things they did to her parents."

Almost proud he nodded. "Very well. I will arrange your release, not that we were planning to really keep you here to begin with. There is one other thing."

He looked up. "Off record."

It probably meant no camera's would record what he would say next. Though, I presumed, some people were still watching. But who watches the watchers?

It didn't really worry me, there was little he could do. The only thing that scared me is when they'd find out.

"Miss Taylor, I'm not sure if I should tell you this. But it looks like the ones who attacked the sister or her parents aren't completely human anymore. We presume the use of performance enhancing drugs but no traces of anything was found at the scenes nearby. Of course the bruises on the bodies suggested no weapons were used. Maybe some form of ritual?"

I just nodded and stayed silent. This man, though not close to the real conclusion, was putting a lot of information together.

Protecting those killers wasn't my job...

But protecting my friends and myself was.

So I let him talk.