Chapter 11 — Insanity Begins

Laurens was lying down on the bunk in the cell, hands clasped across his belly, and was staring at the ceiling. The scratches on his back from yesterday's attack still hurt him, but he was a tough guy and wasn't going to lay on his stomach all the time. Even as a child, he experienced worse torture and pain than this. All in all, the good thing about being here was that he could finally drown calmly in his thoughts. Laurens remembered childhood, then adulthood and wondered how his fate would have turned out if he had a loving mother, a father or met a girl who would really love him. He knew very well that most people would not understand what he was doing. For them, Laurens was a dangerous psychopath who raped his victims, then mutilated and killed them. A Mad Dog who bit off bits of their flesh. It did not matter what sentence the court will decide on, the public have already judged him and demanded the most severe punishment. But was the public so full of hatred in every case of this type? Laurens tried to remember and couldn't think of anything, which was why he found such a huge movement of the public strangely suspicious. Maybe these Scarlet Angels could somehow influence people? Maybe, but Laurens didn't expect to find an answer to that question. As well as to why he was attacked at night, since the police caught him after all, and he guessed that's what the Scarlet Angels were caring about—justice, right? Suddenly Laurens remembered something he had noticed when the creatures were standing above him in the living room of this woman's apartment. The female angel wanted to take care of him personally, she seemed to distrust people about justice, while this male angel assured her that people would punish him well and they had to go before anyone come in and notice them. Maybe that female angel attacked Laurens that night? If wanted to punish him personally, she certainly wasn't pleased that the police had taken him from under her nose.

"Vermeulen! You have a visitor." the guard's voice broke his thoughts.

"Is that detective Moore?" Laurens got up on the bunk and looked at the man who opened his cell and was preparing the handcuffs.

"No, your public defender came to talk with you." the guard replied, cuffing his wrists and ankles.

Laurens was a bit disappointed, for he hoped that detective Esther Moore would visit him at least in the morning, especially after finding out that he had been attacked by the Scarlet Angels, since she was the only one who believed him and was very interested in them. But maybe she didn't know about it, because detective Evans hadn't mentioned it to her? Laurens would not be surprised if it turns out that dick didn't told her.

"Quick, move." the guard urged him, closing the cell and leading Laurens down the corridor towards the meeting room.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Esther woke up drenched in sweat. In a dream, one of them visited her, one of the Scarlet Angels, the male one. All she remembered was that he had been reminding her to make sure that Mad Dog will be severely punished. It may have been an angel, but something around it made Esther a little bit scared, and feel something like... immense respect? One that made it impossible for her to ignore his command even if she wanted to.

Esther looked at the clock on the phone screen and jumped out of bed like being burned, immediately starting to dress up. She must have forgotten to set the alarm clock yesterday, so didn't even have time to eat breakfast now, just got dressed, picked up the phone, car keys and left the apartment. Esther literally ran down the stairs, putting on a leather jacket, left the building and ran to her car. It was the first car Esther bought with the money raised from work, quite old, but she took a good care of this car and it drove no worse than the newer models. Esther buckled her seatbelt, stuck the key in the ignition, and turned it to wake up the engine, then drove out of the parking lot into the street.

She arrived at the police station at the very last moment—a minute before the start of duty. Of course, Leo was already waiting for her in the office, leaning against his desk so that he could stop her as soon as she walked through the door.

"Esther, we need to talk now." he said the 'magic' words, looking at her with a deadly serious expression.

"I know, Leo... I screwed up totally last night." Esther said, standing in front of him like a naughty student in front of the school principal. "Really sorry. I know what you want to say. I'm a detective in Criminal Investigation Department and should be ready for every call. I promise it won't happen again." she assured, looking at him pleadingly.

"Seriously, Esther, what's going on with you lately?" Leo asked, his serious expression giving way to a clearly concerned one. "It's not just about yesterday's night call anymore. I watch you all the time and from the moment we caught the Mad Dog, instead of taking a breath and relaxing, you seem to have trouble concentrating. It seems like your thoughts are constantly wandering somewhere else." he continued. "Not to mention, you're always busy with something and don't want to tell me with what. But this is the least important, because it's more of my personal disappointment." Leo added at the end and clearly saddened.

"I'll try to improve and focus more on work, okay? I promise." Esther said, putting hand on her heart. "As for what I do after work... I don't want to tell you about that, because it's something your sceptical mind won't accept." she explained shortly.

"What?" Leo looked at her, surprised. "Esther, what the hell are you doing?" he asked, already a bit annoyed.

"I'm looking for information about the Scarlet Angels legend." Esther finally replied, feeling annoyance herself.

"God, don't tell me you believe this Mad Dog crap?" Leo sighed heavily. "Think logically, such things don't exist. This psycho is just playing with us, maybe thinks he will be considered insane after talking about the scary angels who wanted to kill him." he added with a clear mockery in his voice.

"Shut up, Leo." Esther hissed, not knowing where she got so much anger from, but was fed up with his mocking tone. "I happen to know this legend long before that. My grandmother told me about Scarlet Angels, she also said that when my grandfather was murdered by an unknown perpetrator, one night she dreamed of one of these angels, assuring her that the murderer had been punished." she began to blur her words out quickly. "And let me tell you, I don't think Laurens Vermeulen is making it all up. First of all, when we found him in that apartment, he really looked scared, before that we heard clearly how he screamed like someone was skinning him... And you felt the strong gust of wind yourself before we got to the living room, right? It was so strong that blew the windows out. Plus, Laurens isn't even from Wales, and he described the legend so good." Esther said in one breath.

"Wind is no evidence, one of the windows might have been opened and there was a draft. The Mad Dog was screaming because he had hallucinations, and was terrified to see us, because knew he will go to jail for a long time. And just because this guy is not from Wales, doesn't mean he couldn't find a forum or different site with urban legends online." Leo explained in his sceptical tone, which sometimes really pissed her off. The worst part, however, was that his explanations really made sense, which completely refuted her arguments.

"What about my grandmother then?" Esther asked angrily, measuring him with her eyes.

"You mentioned it to me once... And from what I recall, your grandma told you about it because you were afraid of the serial killer who was terrorizing your town. No offense, but it was probably a fairy tale to calm you down." Leo replied, looking at her coldly.

"One of them was in my dream at night." Esther burst out suddenly, clutching to it like a last hope to convince him. "One of the Scarlet Angels." she explained more precisely, seeing his questioning gaze. "It was a male angel, he reminded me to make sure that Mad Dog will be severely punished." she added.

Leo looked at her as if she had spoken to him in a foreign language. For a long moment he just stared at her in disbelief, not knowing what to say. Finally, Leo lowered his head, running a hand over his face, and took a deep breath.

"Esther..." he said finally, slowly looking up at her. "Do you know there's such a thing as an auto-suggestion?" Leo asked, clearly trying to make his voice sound as calm as possible. "You listened to the nonsense of this psycho which reminded you of this legend and that's why you dreamed about this little angel." at this point he couldn't contain the little bit of sarcasm that was clearly audible. "Look, instead of bothering yourself with fantasies, you should focus on your work, Esther. I remind you that you're a detective, not a fantasy novelist." Leo added, then circled his desk and sat down on the swivel chair next to it.

Esther's hands clenched into fists, her eyes focused on the floor. As Leo walked past, sitting down at his desk, she too went to her desk and sat without a word. And so Esther didn't say a word to Leo for the rest of the day.