Page 8 of Kane

I guess that’s one thing we have in common.—an unwavering dedication to finding my dad and putting him away for good.

Six feet under, preferably.

I don’t waste a second as I slip my shoes on, grab my coat, and hurry out into the hallway. With shaking fingers, I tap the notification; my heart in my throat as I wait to see the results of the match. It’s not a strong match—only thirty percent of shared DNA, but it’s more than I thought it would be. I stare at the profile—which has no photo, just a random username likely generated upon someone’s registration that they haven’t bothered to change yet. The only details available are their age—thirty-six, a year younger than me—and their sex, which they’ve listed as “rather not say”.

It’s nothing.

But still… it’s something.

It’s more than I thought I’d ever find after I went behind Jasper’s back and sent my DNA in to be tested.

I close out of the app, sliding the phone into my pocket as I make my way towards the subway, feeling a spark of hope.

Because somewhere out there is Unknown, and I’m going to find them if it is the last thing I do.

Chapter Three

Kane

The subway is always sparsely populated at this time of day, though the closer you get to the city, the crowd gets thicker. It’s one of the reasons I chose a place outside the city when I moved here. I don’t mind the quiet. Sometimes it helps me think, helps me relax, process things. Other times, it’s a demanding silence, one that unearths everything I try to keep buried, no matter how hard I try. Aside from Mrs. Burnside and her Cat-topia, not much happens out here, and I like it that way.

Most of the time.

I don’t remember a lot about my childhood because several therapists have said I purposefully blocked it out. But I remember bits and pieces. Moments.

Like walking up and down the street and looking at homes like mine, making up stories about who lives there. Mama was always doing stuff like that. Imagining things. Creating stories. Sometimes I think they were fantasies—things she wished she could have had instead of what she did.

She wanted tall ceilings and potted plants on the stoop. She wanted soft pillows and sunrooms, and what she got was a tuna can in Queens that barely fit the three of us.

I never questioned it, though. It was my life.

I didn’t know we should have had more, didn’t know I was missing out on anything. Not until Jasper fostered me, and I went to school—a private school, nonetheless—for the first time ever.

The shadows dance across the worn, dirty floor of the subway; mimicking the bars of a prison, and I can’t help but wonder sometimes if he did this, too. My father, the Rose Red Killer.

How many times did he ride this very subway, watching from the shadows; studying the people on it like prey while they looked on in ignorance? Is that how he found his roses? It would be easy, I think. If one comes at the right time, it would be hard to notice anyone specifically. One could slip in and out easily with the crowd, and no one would be the wiser.

Though no one knows for certain how he chose his victims, or where he did it, or why, because my father didn’t keep detailed logs like some killers do. At least, not in our home. Aside from the preserved bodies downstairs—bodies encased naked in glass coffins, like preserved goddesses; save for the blood-drawn roses on their abdomens, there was nothing substantial. No journals, no photographs, no video.

Just some medical equipment and embalming chemicals, which wasn’t strange enough to raise the alarm because my father, Cydney Rose, was a registered mortician.

Plenty of people theorize that he picked his victims randomly because they were all so different. Different ethnicities, different socio-economical backgrounds. Jasper says serial killers tend to have a type, a fixation, if you will. But my father’s victims were all so drastically different, which has been a bone of contention in his case for years.

Of course, I have a theory, but I’ve never actually shared it with anyone, not even Jasper. Because anything I say to him has to be factual. And the only fact he’s interested in is the one thing I can’t remember—exactly what happened the night my mother died.

Jasper says my father’s release is because he didn’t have enough damning evidence to keep him caged beyond circumstantial.

As if the dead bodies encased in glass coffins were somehow not good enough; the entirety of my father’s sentence was—and maybe even still is—on me.

Because I was the only witness to my mother’s murder, the only witness to see the monster he truly was, and I can’t remember.

Yes, I know I was there, but when I try to recall what happened, things are… Fractured. Confusing.

My therapist thinks my inability to remember what happened is a form of self-preservation. Like my brain is somehow forbidding me from remembering what happened because it’s too bad, too traumatic, and reliving it would be akin to reliving the trauma itself that’s shaped who I am.

My former therapists said the same thing, but lawyers and detectives don’t care about how your trauma affects you. All they care about is exploiting it.

But I don’t want to think about such things. Certainly not right now, of all times. Because I have therapy, and then group afterwards this evening, and I need to keep a clear, steady focus. I need to be as present as I can be; not for me, but for the others who come here. To talk, to listen. To be the support they need.