♡Chapter dedicated to RebeccaSmith260♡

"Well I never pray, but tonight I'm on my knees. I need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me." The Verve

Regret left a bitter taste in your mouth.

This was something Michael Ray Stevens realized as he stared at the letter in front of him, the words, etched in Anna Baker's messy scrawl seemed to slither across the page like a venomous snake.

But this was no snake, this poison could not be so easily cured with something as simple as an antidote.

If you had just granted me the money for test subjects all of this could have been avoided.

Bile clung to his throat from emptying his breakfast into his wastepaper basket, the putrid stench of stale vomit filled the office. Salty tears leaked from his eyes, and yet he could not tear them away from the letter.

I may have thrown the grenade; but you were the one who pulled the pin.

He tried to rack his brain, to remember the meeting he had with her, but it had been over a year ago, and his memory was not what it used to be. A blurry image of the dark-haired beauty entered his mind, she had cried when he had refused her, begged him to reconsider. The words 'you will regret this', played repeatedly through his head on a loop. She was right.

He did regret it.

He should have been softer, approached the situation more delicately, taken the time to discuss things properly with her instead of simply dismissing her idea as crazy.

I will be locked up for my 'crimes'.

What had she done? Or what was she going to do? There was no date on the letter, no indication as to when she had written these words that had caused him to be sick.

The serum, the one she had created, the one that made you hallucinate your darkest fears, had she administered it to someone already?

Has anyone actually died from being so terrified they felt as if their lungs would burst and their heads would explode?

It was going to kill someone. She was going to kill someone. And it would be his fault. The weight of their death would be on his shoulders.

He felt the bile rising up again, barely managing to grab the wastepaper basket before it came pouring out of his mouth, retching repeatedly until there was nothing left except for the aching guilt in the pit of his stomach.

A thin layer of sweat covered his brow, whether it was from the vomiting or the fear that was currently taking over his body, he couldn't tell.

Fear is the sweat that drips down your forehead.

The next question was, what did he do now? Did he take this to the police in the hopes that they could stop her in time? Would that implicate him in her crimes? Would he go to jail?

Fear is the panic that clenches around your heart, swallowing it whole.

He managed to get to his feet, his legs wobbling like jelly, his entire body aching. Wiping his forehead and under his eyes with the end of his tie, he made a snap decision.

He couldn't sit and wait for something bad to happen, If he had any chance of preventing it, he would take it. He just hoped he wasn't too late.

The blood is on your hands.

"So the suspect poses as a taxi driver, picks up the kids and drives off? Effectively kidnapping five people at once?" Isaiah mused, staring out the window at the trees passing by.

Jon shifted gear before placing his hand back on the steering wheel, "she must have put sleeping gas in the vents or the aircon, that's why she was wearing a protective mask over her face, so it would knock the kids out cold, but it wouldn't effect her."

"She?" Isaiah questioned, curious as to why Jon seemed so sure it was a female. The mask had obscured most of her face, it was difficult to tell what gender the driver of the taxi had been due to the grainy quality of the surveillance tapes that were now in the backseat of their car.

"My gut tells me it's a she. Her hair was tied up, but the facial features above the mask were definitely feminine."

Isaiah didn't argue with that, after all, Jon's 'gut' had told him that something bad had happened to those kids when Isaiah was still questioning whether or not they were just on a bender. And he had been right.

Arriving at the station, Jon maneuvered the car into a tight parking spot, switching it off and climbing out before turning back to Isaiah, "we need to run those plates, see if we get a hit."

Isaiah nodded, following Jon into the entrance and tapping his note pad that had the registration number for the makeshift taxi scrawled across it in Jon's messy script, "already on it. You got the employee list for Fever?"

They stopped short as they noticed the man at the front desk, waving a piece of paper in the air, desperation in his voice.

The Constable behind the desk, the same one who had dealt with the parents of the missing children earlier this morning, looked like a trapped rat. His eyes were wide, mouth dropped open.

"I'm telling you this is important!" the man seemed to be getting more frantic by the second. "I need to see someone about this!"

Jon resisted the urge to yell at the Constable, who once again seemed out of his depth and unsure how to handle the situation.

The thought of five missing kids as well as the hangover that was still lingering, made him extremely irritable.

Isaiah stepped forward, much better at keeping his impatience hidden, "sir, is there something we can help you with?"

"I got this letter," the dishevelled man thrust the paper into Isaiah's hands, "Anna Baker used to work for me but then she came up with this crazy serum idea and I turned down her funding and now I think shes going to do something insane and I don't know what but I had to tell someone. You have to stop her, you have to!"

"Calm down Sir," Isaiah placed a hand on the man's shoulder and began leading him toward interview room three, which felt alot emptier than it had this morning. "Let's start from the beginning," he gestured to Jon to start taking notes, "what's your name? Where do you work?"

"Micheal Ray Stevens. I'm the general manager at Hillhurst Pharmaceuticals."

Isaiah nodded at the mention of the factory located just outside of Redstone. "And this Anna Baker, she used to work for you?"

"Yes but then she invented this serum, and wanted funding for it and I honestly thought she was bat shit crazy so I turned it down. I mean we are a pharmaceutical company! We would never approve of something that makes you hallucinate your darkest fears! Who would? So I suggested that she take a leave of absence, because as I said she sounded like a -," but Jon cut him off.

"I'm sorry, you said the serum does what?"

Micheal, clearly upset at being interupted, glared at Jon before answering, "hallucinate your darkest fears! Haven't you read the letter yet?"

Jon wanted to ask when exactly he was supposed to have done that when Micheal wouldn't stop talking for five seconds, but Isaiah, always the professional spoke up before Jon could say anything. "When did she approach you for the funding?"

"A little over a year ago. But I only got this letter today, I swear! I brought it straight here." He took a deep breath before asking, "am I going to jail?"

But neither detective answered him, they looked at each other, a silent conversation passing between them.

Was it possible that this Anna Baker was the one responsible for the abduction of the five kids?

The coincidence was too big to ignore, and that only meant one thing.

They had to find Anna Baker. Fast.