FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Wait, so Daddy Stripe's not the one who...tried to kill me?"

"Nope," I sighed. "I looked through what little he gathered on Becky and her death, and it checks out. Her mother got the surgery money sent from an unknown benefactor, and autopsy confirms the girl died from cyanide. It is the expensive kind."

It was half past nine in the evening, and I returned to find Cherry cleaning up from a late dinner. He was happy to see me at first, asking me a dozen questions what happened and if Desmond Sylvester had confessed. Once I finished explaining everything to him, the ocelot then spent minutes leaning down from his chair, staring down in shock at the floor. He seemed more lost than before. Like me.

"What...do we do now?" he asked a moment later.

I sighed. "We keep looking."

"How though?"

"I'll...figure something out," my shoulders almost slumped, and my tail half-curled in repeat defeat. "Sylvester's notes on the Becky girl aren't half-terrible. We know this person has experience on the Deep Net, and has extensive resources to pay for both two years' worth of rent and a kidney surgery."

"But that isn't much though, is it?" the ocelot pondered aloud, to which I agreed.

Someone with knowledge on the Deep Web and a big checkbook wasn't exactly hard to find. There also happened to be the fact that Becky Mullin and Cherry didn't seem to have anything in common to tie them together. Once more, we were in strange waters with no expertise on how to navigate ourselves to our destination. We were only adrift without a map.

"Can I ask you something?" the ocelot asked, despite not needing to. "Why...didn't you leave them alive? To interrogate?

I perked my ears up. "McKenna and Solomon? Why should I have done that?"

"Because then we could probably know more!" he suddenly erupted, then lowered his voice down to a mumble, "They...They could've told us who did it or maybe some...some clues or something..."

"Cherry, I told you this already." After giving a deep sigh, I explained to him, "We were in a shootout somewhere in Downtown Lakertown. The police would have identified me, and if they didn't trace me back to...Ireland, then they would have no doubt made a profile on me that would connect me to some of my contracts. And you of being a prostitute. They would be less concerned about our attempted murders then, wouldn't they?

"That..." he sighed, exasperated and tired, "...does make some fucking sense..."

"Whatever the police have found at the idiots' place, we would've eventually found out, and they found nothing," I glanced down at my phone. "But that doesn't mean it isn't worth checking into tomorrow. We might find more info by then..."

I stood up and began making my way to my 'hacker den' in the penthouse.

"Wait, Markus?" Cherry suddenly asked, in a cheery, hopeful voice, "Do you wanna watch a few movies with me? I got a few good ones I know you'll enjoy."

"No thanks," I declined, "I'm going to keep searching for anything on the Deep Web." He whimpered slightly behind me. Cherry knew it turned me on, and I couldn't help but laugh shortly. "You keep enjoying your B-movie trash."

He pouted, "Blasphemer! 'Fury Highway' isn't B-movie trash!"

By two in the morning, I found nothing else about the Benefactor. Not a single new clue to help me track down this phantom. There wasn't any talk of a serial killer who held any similar modus operandi, let alone a post on 'killer craigslist' sites asking for assassins to conduct similar acts. Defeated and tired, I eventually joined Cherry in bed to gain a relaxing dreamless sleep.

***

The nightmares never started out calm.

They always began with me awaking in my childhood home, a molding structure held together with straw and weak bricks. I would always jolt awake in my bed. I would then shrivel back against the wall when I heard the heavy, uneven footsteps approach my bedroom door. My eyes would remain locked between the rusting handle and the shadows beneath the crack at the bottom of the door. Minutes would turn into incorporeal hours until the heavy breathing, jagged rasping and growls ceased...

...to be replaced with a booming voice...

...right next to my ears.

" You cannot escape me, boy."

In the oceans of these landlocked dreams, I wouldn't be a man of thirty years' worth of killing and fighting experience; no, I would always be that same scared little cub, unprepared against my father's wrath. And despite not registering the pain in each of his punches, his clawing, or his violent grip on my neck when he pulled me to my footpaws...I always felt their impact. And I was always helpless to them as my father's voice danced around me like echoing shadows in a crypt.

Yet the real torture came from his words.

"Pathetic faggot! No wonder nobody cares."

** "Fuckin' traitor, Markus!"**

** "It's your fault they're all dead!"**

** "Ungrateful mistake!"**

** "You don't fuckin' deserve to live!"**

** "Hell has a special place for murdering furs like us."**

** ** I'd always eventually awaken to two scenarios: either I found myself running into the burnt lockers adoring my high school's hallways, or in my house again, gripping a knife as the dwelling flooded with police to repeatedly shoot me down. Tonight however, my dream found itself on a third path.

I was walking through a maze of city streets and empty alleyways, carrying a Glock in my paws while keeping an eye out for my target. My terror from before suddenly transformed into unnatural glee, which then erupted in euphoria when he walked out of the shadows. I promptly shot him, only to drop my gun and see...it was Cherry.

My Cherry. With a bullet hole gaping between his pleading eyes.

"Why?"

Warm, oozing blood poured from his body until I stood ankle-deep in it. Whatever stoic indifference I felt for gore suddenly became nauseua. I tried vomiting into the pools of crimson liquid surrounding me. Then it continued to rise in a torrential downpour, flooding the streets and painting everything, gagging and drowing me until I tasted the ocelot's bitter plasma forever.

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Why would you hurt me, Markus--"

"AH!" I nearly tumbled over from the bed, heaving and drenched in my own sweat beneath the blanket. It wasn't until I glanced over to see Cherry--nestled on the other end of the bed, safe and sound--that I began to reassure myself, "It's just a nightmare...just another fucking...fucking nightmare..."

These horrible dreams tormented me every several months or so, repeating each night for some time until I could pull myself together. Each time, until they went away once again, I'd normally pack up some essentials and bug out to a remote cabin of mine in Canada, far from civilization or my past. Now with Cherry here, it wasn't like I could leave...

My eyes drifted to the ocelot--still unharmed and breathing slowly--on my bed, who shifted to face me. I carefully sat down to look closely at Cherry's beautiful form beneath the covers. I'd probably felt every single centimeter and inch of it, from his curved hips to his trimmed taint and lithe stomach, his sensitive chest, curling tail and spot patterns. My favorite was one at then nap of his neck, a black and white one perfectly contrasting each other. That zone always made him giggle if I licked or gently nibbled at it.

Then I suddenly imagined myself slicing a knife across it, and I immediately felt the urge to hurl over the side of my penthouse balcony. Except I only dry-heaved for several minutes.

When I returned, Cherry has curled up again, probably trying to feel for me on the mattress. The memory and dream from before still left me extremely unwell.

"Just a nightmare," I told myself, "Hold...Hold yourself together, Markus."

An area of me grew disgusted that I could think such thoughts, yet I knew that if I wanted to, I could ruthlessly murder Cherry and hide his body in a dozen different ways. It was trained into me over the years, but here...it felt unbelievably wrong. It also felt unbelievably wrong that he, an innocent young man, could ever trust a monster like me. I hated how much he trusted me, when I could have a dream and thoughts like that.

Deciding not to get any more sleep, I stumbled into the living room and wallowed myself in some (super) early morning sitcoms. Anything that could help me forget that I wasn't worthy of being his protector. Or his lover.