The rain had returned to Edevane.
Thick sheets of water danced under the broken street lamps, pooling in alleys and running down gutters like blood trails in a city that had long forgotten how to feel clean. Each drop hitting the cracked pavement carried a memory—a whisper of the past—and as the city wept, so did its ghosts.
Detective Inez Vale lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. His coat collar turned up against the wind, the fabric worn and soaked at the hem. He hadn't slept in two days. Not really. His bed back at the precinct was a joke—stained with old coffee spills and bruised from the weight of cold cases no one dared touch.
But this one?
This one had teeth.
It started with a phone call at 2:47 a.m. A young woman had been found in the basement of an abandoned psychiatric hospital on the north end of Edevane. No ID. Face mutilated. Pinned to the floor with twelve syringes arranged in a perfect circle around her head. A message smeared in blood on the wall read: "The Mind Remembers."
Inez had heard of this place before—the Edevane Asylum. It was shut down in 1974 after reports of unethical experimentation and disappearances. Some claimed the place still echoed with screams. Others said it was cursed. But for Inez, superstition had no place in an investigation. Only facts, motives, and bodies.
His boots sank slightly in the wet dirt as he stepped past the yellow tape. Crime scene techs were murmuring around the corpse. Detective Marla Hurst, his new partner, was already crouched beside the body, flashlight in hand.
"You're late," she said without looking up.
"No. I'm exactly on time," Inez replied, voice flat.
Marla stood and offered him the flashlight. "Take a look. She's been dead less than eight hours. No sign of struggle, no bruises except the ones caused by restraint. But the incisions on her face—those were methodical. Almost surgical."
Inez knelt and examined the face. The skin around the eyes had been flayed, lips sewn shut crudely. The syringe arrangement—it wasn't random. He could feel it. There was meaning in the spacing. A code, maybe. Or a ritual.
"Where's the blood from?" he asked.
"Not hers. DNA came back already—male. Multiple donors."
He stood. "Any ID yet?"
"None. But she's not a vagrant. Her nails are manicured, expensive coat under the tarp. She's from money. Or she was."
He turned toward the wall, staring at the phrase. The Mind Remembers.
Suddenly, something clicked. Inez pulled out his notebook, flipping past dog-eared pages until he stopped at an old entry—one from another case, almost five years ago. A missing professor from the University of Edevane. Last seen near the asylum. The only clue was an anonymous note: THE MIND FORGETS WHAT IT FEARS.
He rubbed his temples. Too much coincidence wasn't coincidence at all.
"We need to pull records," Inez muttered. "All cold cases tied to this place. Every one."
Marla raised a brow. "You thinking a serial?"
"No," he said. "I think this is something worse."
---
Eight years ago.
A younger Inez stood outside a lecture hall, a manila folder clutched to his chest. Inside were photos—twisted ones. Murders that didn't make sense. At least three of them near the old asylum, each staged, each involving bizarre anatomical references. The link? Each victim had once been involved in neurological research.
He'd brought it to his superior back then. Inspector Callahan.
"You're chasing ghosts," Callahan had said. "The asylum's just a carcass now. Let it rot."
But Inez hadn't. He kept the folder. Memorized every detail. Because something about the patterns had screamed.
And now, years later, the screams had returned.
---
Back to Present
By 5 a.m., Inez had two cups of coffee in him and a room full of case files spread across the precinct's floor. Marla joined him, dropping into the chair opposite.
"You were right," she said. "There's a pattern. Three disappearances over the past six years—all near the asylum. All women. All connected to the university."
Inez looked up. "Faculty?"
"No. Test subjects. All part of an old neuroscience experiment led by a Dr. Adrian Locke."
The name sent a jolt through Inez.
"Locke died in a car crash five years ago," he said. "I remember the report. His body was never recovered."
Marla nodded. "What if he didn't die? What if he went underground?"
"And he's continuing his work…"
"Exactly."
Inez stood and grabbed his coat.
"Where are you going?"
"To visit the only person who ever survived Locke's program."
"You think they'll talk?"
He paused at the door.
"I don't think they have a choice."