Page 213 of I Will Break You
Targeting Harlan was easy. Once we discovered his sickening affinity for young boys, it was he who arranged this meetup.
“Jenson thirteen?” he asks.
Camila turns her head. “Momo,” she says, her voice trembling. “Is that you?”
Harlan’s username is Momotaro Blue. His profile says he’s a fourteen-year-old boy who enjoys manga, anime, and painting his nails. We cloned his phone when I slid my handset across the table to show him my portfolio. Once we discovered his favorite social media platform, we sent hundreds of profiles his way and waited for him to take the bait.
“That’s right,” Harlan says. “Turn around.”
Camila twists on the bench and shoots her tranquilizer gun into his chest. Harlan drops his bag, which bursts open to reveal a gag, a tube of lubricant, and a roll of duct tape. The syringe in his hand disappears under the weight of his body, and I mutter a curse.
If he managed to inject himself with what he planned on using to subdue the boy, then we’re screwed. Two doses of sedatives will make him more difficult to rouse. That’s more time spent away from my sweet little ghost.
Sure enough, it takes an hour to get Harlan into a state lucid enough for questioning. After I dragged him to an ambulance we converted into a mobile interrogation unit, we drove to an underground parking lot and waited.
Harlan sits naked with a hood over his head, chained to a metal chair bolted to the vehicle’s floor. Electrodes encircle his fingers, monitoring his vital signs, while a pneumograph and cardio cuff detect changes in his sweat production and blood pressure.
We’ve rigged these devices to a polygraph machine. At the first sign of lies, it will deliver an electric current to the crocodile clips on his nipples and the steel probe in his urethra. I would have added a metal cap, but I ran out of time.
His breathing changes, indicating he’s feigning unconsciousness.
I turn to Camila in the ambulance’s work area. “Jenson thirteen, override the lie detector and alert Mr. Stills.”
Camila taps a command into the laptop. Harlan jolts, his muscles stiffening as he screams.
“Where am I?” he cries. “Who is this?”
“I’m asking the questions,” I answer. “Tell me your nationality.”
“What’s this about?” he asks.
“Jenson.”
Camila delivers another electric shock that makes Harlan thrash in his seat. I lean against the wall, my fingers twitching toward my phone. I can’t watch my little ghost sleep anymore. I didn’t think to install cameras in the crawlspace because it never occurred to me that I’d have to take her into my lair. Her mother’s eviction was a wrench in my plans even I hadn’t foreseen.
“I’m American,” Harlan screams.
“Good boy,” I say. “We’ll get along much better if you just answer my questions.”
“Alright. What else do you want to know?”
“Where were you born?”
“Beaumont City, New Alderney. Anything else?”
I continue asking Harlan a stream of innocuous questions until Camila raises her thumb to tell me she’s calibrated the polygraph machine.
“What’s your occupation?” I ask.
“Content manager,” he replies.
When the machine’s reader doesn’t waver, I raise a brow. His exact job title doesn’t matter, even though we originally thought he was a recruiter. “And your employer?”
He hesitates. “An adult entertainment company.”
“Its name,” I snarl.
His chest rises and falls with rapid breaths, making me wonder if he thought he’d been captured by a vigilante organization formed to catch predators.