Horrified
HARDIN’S POV
The footage was corrupted.
Wiped clean.
Someone had gone to great lengths to make sure we didn’t see what happened the moment Ariana disappeared. And that silence… that deliberate absence of truth—it screamed louder than any gunshot ever could.
I sat in the back of Ronny’s van, staring at the laptop screen like it might suddenly give us answers if I glared hard enough. His tech guy—Dimitri—was hunched beside me, frowning behind thick glasses as code and surveillance footage flickered and glitched across the monitors.
“We’ve extracted fragments,” he muttered, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “Whoever wiped this knew what they were doing, but they didn’t cover every trace. I’m trying to recover the data from the buffer cache.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, barely recognizing my own voice. It sounded hollow.
“It means we might still be able to see something—maybe not the whole thing, but... fragments. Images. Faces.”
Images. Faces.
I clung to those words like a drowning man to driftwood.
Ronny stood over us, arms crossed, jaw clenched like he hadn’t relaxed in a decade. “Work faster.”
“I’m trying,” Dimitri snapped, the tension wrapping around all of us like a noose.
The van was silent except for the hum of machinery and the occasional static pop from the external comms. Outside, the forest still swarmed with search teams, their flashlights bobbing like will-o’-the-wisps. The rain had finally stopped, but the ground was soaked, the sky still dark and unforgiving.
Ariana had been missing for five hours.
Every minute felt like a goddamn eternity.
I couldn’t breathe in there anymore.
I shoved the laptop aside and stood abruptly, the walls closing in around me like they wanted to crush every last shred of hope left in my chest.
“I need air,” I muttered.
Ronny didn’t stop me.
Didn’t even glance up.
I pushed the van door open and stepped out into the night. The storm had passed, but the air still smelled of rain and rot, thick with moss and something colder—something metallic. Like blood. Like fear.
I walked a few feet away from the van, hands on my hips, trying to inhale without choking on panic. My lungs felt tight, my chest aching with a pressure I couldn’t explain. I leaned forward, bracing my palms on my knees like I’d just run ten miles.
Where is she?
My eyes scanned the forest again.
Every damn leaf looked like it was mocking me.
I should’ve protected her. I should’ve known. I should’ve felt it when something went wrong.
The gravel crunched behind me.
At first, I didn’t turn.
It was probably one of the guards, or another officer asking for a statement.
But then I heard the voice.
High.
Desperate.
Ragged with grief.
“Where’s my daughter?!”
My head snapped up.
A woman was pushing her way through the trees, flanked by two patrol officers who were clearly trying—and failing—to calm her down.
Ariana’s mother.
What the hell was she doing here? How do I explain to her that I had no idea where her daughter was?
Her grief was thick in her voice. It was the mirror image of the dread gnawing at my gut.
“Where is she?!” she screamed again, her eyes wild, her chest heaving. “Where is my daughter?! Where is Ariana?!”
“Mrs Miller—” one of the officers began gently.
But I was already moving.
I crossed the clearing in three long strides and stopped in front of her.
She froze.
Her eyes locked on mine.
Recognition flashed—then terror.
Guilt?
Her hands trembled at her sides, nails digging into her palms like she was trying to stay grounded in a nightmare.
“I…” she whispered. Her lips quivered. “No. No, no, no…”
I stepped forward. “Mrs Miller—”
She flinched.
Like I’d hit her.
Like my presence physically hurt.
Then, she looked at me—really looked at me—and gasped.
“I told her to stop,” she muttered, her voice almost childlike. “I told her. I told her it wasn’t safe. She didn’t listen—I called her but she didn't stop.”
“Mrs Miller,” I said, more firmly now. “What are you talking about?”
She looked around like she was just realizing where she was.
Then her gaze settled on the SUV, on the search lights flashing through the trees. On the officers combing the woods.
And her face crumpled.
“Oh my God,” she sobbed. “It happened. He did it. He finally—”
“Who?” I demanded, grabbing her shoulders. “Who the hell are you talking about?!”
She looked at me like she’d seen a ghost.
Then she whispered it.
One word.
One name.
And it detonated inside my chest like a bomb.
“Garry.”
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