Chapter 221: Zoey's Disappearance

Chapter 221 Zoey's Disappearance

I came up from the hotel lobby, my mind a complete blank. For a moment, I didn't know what to think.

Outside, the rain had started to pour down hard. Cold raindrops snaked down the hotel's massive floor-to-ceiling windows, leaving twisted trails that looked just like the web of the past Kurt had sketched out on an old piece of paper.

The vast, indifferent steel forest of Emerald City was drenched in a wet, gray gloom. The neon lights blurred in the rain, just like everything in my mind at that moment.

Kurt's deep, time-worn voice still echoed in my ears, serious and suffocatingly clear.

"A wrong order from the manager years ago killed the entire village. The eight children who survived grew up with only one path: revenge."

As Kurt said this, his fingers unconsciously rubbed a yellowed comic draft, each stroke a piece of his memory.

A clear, cold, yet brutally logical chain of karma.

The seeds sown by the manager bore bloody fruit. 

I stood by the window, my fingertips touching the cold glass, the chill spreading from my fingers to my heart. At that moment, I felt an almost absurd sense of relief.

So that's it. All the madness and bloodshed were just a long-overdue reckoning, blood for blood. All of us—avengers, investigators, even the innocent souls caught in the crossfire—were just being dragged along by the invisible threads of fate, struggling in a script already written.

Fate is a vast, invisible web, and we are just insects caught in its sticky threads. Who can truly break free? This thought weighed heavily on my heart, bringing a sense of weary fatalism.

The only sound in the room was the monotonous tapping of raindrops on the glass, hollow and continuous.

The sudden sense of relief quickly ebbed, leaving behind a deeper exhaustion and an inescapable sense of emptiness. 

I needed some noise, something familiar to break the suffocating silence. Almost instinctively, I picked up my phone and found that familiar name in my contacts, Zoey.

My finger swiped across the screen, and the dialing tone sounded particularly jarring in the quiet room. 

One ring, two rings... the long wait felt like a stone thrown into a deep pool, only to stir up a void. 

No answer. The sharp busy tone after the automatic hang-up pierced through the oppressive silence like a needle.

I frowned and dialed again. The result was the same. The cold busy tone repeated stubbornly, mocking my futile efforts.

Zoey said she was going to meet a friend, and it was already raining when she left without an umbrella.

"Zoey must be having too much fun," I muttered under my breath, trying to suppress the faint unease creeping into my heart. 

Zoey, though young, was always responsible, especially in a foreign country. I put down my phone and turned to get a glass of water, but my feet felt glued to the carpet.

A thought pierced through my mind without warning, bringing a chilling sense of dread.

A friend in Vesperia?

Where did Zoey get a friend in Vesperia?

I knew all of Zoey's friends. How could there suddenly be a friend in Vesperia?

My head buzzed.

Unable to reach Zoey, I quickly called Kurt.

"She might have gone to see Byron!"

In hindsight, all of Byron's kindness and sincerity might have been a facade. Someone capable of such a heinous crime couldn't possibly be a good person!

The phone rang for what felt like an eternity before Kurt finally picked up. I quickly explained the situation.

Right now, only Kurt could help.

"Byron has an independent studio in Emerald City."

Kurt's voice was low, carrying a complex emotion that made each word seem to struggle out of his mouth. "The address is..."

I held my breath, my fingers gripping the phone so tightly they turned white, engraving the address into my mind. 

It was an old warehouse converted into an art district on the edge of Emerald City. A comic artist's studio, hidden in the city's folds.

"Mr. Lowe," I interrupted, my voice sharp with tension, "Did Zoey meet Byron? Did Byron contact her?"

Countless questions churned in my throat. I remembered Zoey constantly checking her phone during dinner.

The other end of the line fell silent. Only Kurt's heavy, suppressed breathing came through, pounding in my ears like the beat of a dying drum. That breath carried a huge, unspeakable fear and struggle.

Time seemed to freeze, each second stretching into silent agony.

"She..." Kurt finally uttered, his voice hoarse like sandpaper, "She shouldn't have gone."

"Mr. Lowe!" I raised my voice, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it would break my ribs, "Who is Byron?! Where is Zoey now?!"

The answer was a cold, abrupt click.

The call was disconnected.

It felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over me, the bone-chilling cold sweeping through my body. 

Kurt's last words, "She shouldn't have gone," and his strangled fear echoed in my mind, intertwining with the busy tone of Zoey's unanswered call, forming a suffocating web. An intense sense of foreboding, like a cold, slippery snake, coiled around my spine.

No! Something was very wrong!

Zoey suddenly visiting a comic artist she had never mentioned, Kurt's unusual reaction, the fear in that disconnected call, and Byron, Kurt's old friend, at this critical moment, connected to the village massacre!

The invisible web of fate seemed to tighten just when I thought I had seen its pattern! It hadn't spared anyone, not even Zoey, who I thought was uninvolved, was quietly ensnared by its cold threads, dragged into an unknown abyss! 

My previous sense of relief and emptiness was shattered by a more primal, intense emotion—fear, an extreme fear for Zoey's safety!

"Zoey." My voice was dry and rough.

I couldn't wait any longer! Not for another second!

I rushed to the door, my movements clumsy with panic. I almost stumbled as I grabbed the coat draped over the chair and threw it on. The phone screen still displayed the address of "Byron's studio." 

I didn't have time to think more, nor did I care about the pouring rain outside. Every action was driven by one thought: find Zoey! Now! Immediately!

I burst out of the hotel doors, the cold rain instantly drenching my hair and coat, the chill seeping into my bones. 

The rainy night in Emerald City, the neon lights casting twisted, broken reflections on the wet ground, like grotesque faces mocking fate. I ran to the curb, frantically waving for a cab.