The Cooper family home wasn't anything out of the ordinary. From the outside looking in, it was a bit messier than most places, with a more muck and grime than one would expect of an upper middle-class "family" man, his wife and their child to dwell in. The place smelled of straight funk with no real discernable odors within, just plain old back of the cereal box funk. Jacob Gheller cringed when he and Daeni snuck in through the garage. The smell hit them hard.

They found Chris Cooper trading anomalous stocks on his computer in his office on the ground floor. Apparently he hadn't heard the garage door opening, because he was caught completely off guard by the two Vaporizers. The man's eyes went wide as Jacob grabbed him from behind and threw him to the ground, stepping on his ankle as to incapacitate him. As Jacob applied more weight on the joint, the bones in Chris Cooper's ankle started to splinter and fragment, before they outright broke. 

Only Jacob wasn't quite done yet. No, it was not enough for Chris Cooper to have a broken ankle, it needed to be severed. Jacob glanced over at Daeni when the man started to scream. Her face was alight with joy. He could only imagine the fear and pain that Chris was in at this moment. Not that it mattered at all to him, all Jacob cared about was making a fresh corpse to feed his own urges. 

But Daeni cautioned him to take it slowly, to really enjoy the buildup as much as the climax. The sweet release onto Chris Cooper's freshly eviscerated intestines would come, but only later. For now, Jacob put his full weight into his foot and, assisted by Substance 9, completely stepped through the ankle of Chris Cooper. The man's foot didn't stray too far from his body; the force only sent it sliding toward a nearby wall. Chris's blood collected in a shallow pool at the stump, and he reached for the severed limb, clutching the stump in both hands. 

He let out a scream that got Jacob excited. Oh, how he missed hearing people scream. It was so long since he took his time with a body. He looked at the man, no, the meal in front of him. He observed the deep rise and fall of Chris's chest as he sucked in as much breath as his lungs could muster. Jacob couldn't hold back his smile as his eyes locked with Chris's, and he could see Chris's pupils dilated to twice their size. 

He picked the man up by his collar and, using his other hand, grabbed Chris Cooper's right wrist and twisted. The man screamed again as Jacob felt the bones in his wrist begin to fracture and split. Blood coalesced and seeped through the tears of his skin, collecting on Jacob's hand. Jacob pulled Chris Cooper's hand laterally, toward the floor, until the tendons severed and the meat tore.

Jacob kept pulling until the arm was torn off, severed at the elbow, then he dropped Chris Cooper to the floor and kicked him hard. The impact sent the man sliding along the floor, into his desk where he collided with one of the legs with his back and kept going until he hit the wall. Chris Cooper let out something of a wheeze, a mix between a cough and a cry. 

"Okay," Daeni said, a satisfied smile on her face, "Now."

Jacob nodded and started walking towards Chris Cooper, cracking his knuckles as he did so. Chris Cooper coughed and tried to crawl away and Jacob let him, a predator stalking wounded prey. He grabbed Chris Cooper by the shoulders, hoisting him up once again, and then started pulling his shoulders in opposite directions. The meat in his neck started to break, spraying Jacob's face with blood. There was viscera spilling out of an ever-growing crevice that formed on Chris Cooper's body in-between Jacob's hands. Then, just as quickly as it began to form, the crevice expanded. 

"Do you feel that? The tearing of your skin, your muscles being exposed to fresh air as the sinew holding them together snap? This is what you fucking deserve, pedophile. I hope your burn slowly, eternally, in hell."

Jacob called on Substance 9 for its strength, fully ripping Chris Cooper in half, bisecting him down the middle. The tear sprayed the room with blood and organs, coating both Jacob and Daeni with Chris Cooper's insides. Jacob looked back at Daeni, with both halves of the man's body still in his hands. She was smiling as a chunks of viscera slowly slid down her face, leaving ripples in the trails of blood they left behind. Chris Cooper's face was contorted into something unrecognizable, an emotion Jacob had never seen before in any of his previous victims. 

But what Jacob had seen in his previous victims was the sloppy, sloshing mess of human anatomy spilling out on the floor at his feet. He could feel the blood rushing, feel his own excitement growing at the chance to defile yet another corpse. And it was registered too! He didn't even have to phone this one in until he was done, and Daeni heavily encouraged him to take his time. He looked at her, eyes flitting between the body and holding eye contact with Daeni.

"That was great for me, pookie," She said, smearing the blood across her face haphazardly, like she was trying to make sure it got everywhere, "The fear... the emotion... God I've never felt so good in my life. We should do this more often, you and me."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Jacob said impatiently, "Do you mind...?"

Daeni shrugged, "I'll be in the other room, don't make too much noise."

Jacob gave her a soldier's salute and nodded fervently. Daeni left with a bounce in her step, like she was a kid who'd just gotten the present they've been waiting all year for. Jacob looked at the remains of Chris Cooper, contemplating where to begin. He picked up the man's liver, sniffing it.

Good a place to start as any.

About an hour and a half passed before Jacob was done with the body. Daeni sat in the living room the entire time, playing on her phone. It was some mobile game about cookies running a kingdom or something like that, Jacob wasn't really paying attention. On his own phone, he dialed Maxine.

"Woman," He said when she finally answered.

"Gheller," She replied dryly, "Report."

"Well I, for one, am extremely satisfied with this Vaporization."

"You're actually sick, you know that? Of all the paraphilia to choose from, you just had to become a necrophiliac."

"Hey, I didn't choose this. Besides, it's just pedophiles. It's not like I'm hurting anyone. Nobody cares if you kill them."

Maxine groaned, a long and drawn out thing, "I don't have the mental fortitude for this right now, Gheller. The Boss is breathing down my neck about numbers, your numbers specifically. I can't keep covering for you."

A smile grew across Jacob's face, "Aw, you do care!"

"A clean up crew will be heading to your location shortly."

That was the last thing she said before the line died. Jacob looked at his phone, staring at his reflection as the phone screen went black. He looked as good as he felt.

"Was that Maxine?" Daeni called from the living room, "I love fucking Maxine."

"Yeah, I love Max too," Jacob said.

"Not what I meant pookie." She called out, almost sing-songy.

Jacob raised an eyebrow but shook the thought from his head. He stepped over the wet mass of flesh and bone that used to call itself Chris Cooper and examined the man's computer. It was still unlocked, open to some random anomalous stock trading website where Jacob watched Chris's lack of activity result in the loss of nearly all his money. On another tab was child porn, trading and communicating with other future bodies. Jacob felt a sense of elation, the hunt wasn't over just yet. 

There was someone in Chris Cooper's personal messages that was waiting for a response, leaving the conversation with an ellipses followed by a question mark. Above them was an image of someone that looked remarkably like a younger version of his child, Violet Cooper. Jacob figured as much because they looked exactly like that in his mind. They had gone to elementary school together for a time, and Vii always had this look on their face that was hard to figure out, even harder to forget. It was the kind of look that sticks with you as a child because you knew something was wrong but didn't have the words nor wherewithal to figure out what exactly it was. 

Jacob heard Daeni's voice echoing in his head, the torture and abuse she told him that Chris Cooper subjected Vii to. The evidence of it was all in front of him, still being traded and sold on the internet for other pedophiles to use for their pleasure. The sight of it all made him sick to his stomach, but the future bodies that he could make once he got a hold of these people excited him. He wished someone would put a Vaporization on them sooner than later. They had to be stopped, after all.

Daeni came into the room shortly after, whistling a tune. Jacob ignored her and focused on the previous messages instead, reading Chris and this other predator's conversations.

"Hey, meet at the usual spot?" The other user, Loverboy69 wrote.

"Yeah, you got the stuff?" Chris Cooper said behind the alias "Mid_tier_god".

"Of course I do, what do you take me for? Just bring the thumb drive and Little Mouse."

There was no reply from Chris, probably because he was being eviscerated at this point.

"Hey? We still on for tonight?"

"Hey?"

"???"

"If you don't do this, you're out."

"...?"

Who the fuck is Little Mouse? Jacob thought to himself. He stroked his chin and mentally ran through the possibilities, all zero of them. Vii was far too old, and as far as Jacob was aware they were an only child. 

"Hey pookie," Jacob said, looking over his shoulder and inclining his head toward the computer, "Any idea who 'Little Mouse' could be?"

Daeni walked over, wrapping her arm around Jacob and staring at the screen. She shrugged, "No idea, why don't you ask Chris?"

They looked at the body, then at each other. Daeni snickered, covering her mouth with her hand to try to stop a full laugh from escaping. 

Daeni cleared her throat before she spoke again, "No, let's be serious for a second, pookie. Little Mouse is a codename obviously, but where in this house could Chris Cooper keep another child?"

"Maybe they're not in the house." Jacob said, gently freeing himself from Daeni's grasp, "Maybe they're in a storage unit or something?"

Daeni shook her head, "Too risky. What if someone heard something? No, she's around here somewhere."

It was then that Jacob heard something, a very small and faint something, like a book being knocked over a shelf upstairs. It was quiet like whoever knocked that thing over was trying to remain undetected. Jacob left the garage and headed toward the staircase, peering up the steps and trying to get a glimpse of what was up there. He motioned for Daeni to join him silently and she did, wrapping her arm around his shoulder and looking up the stairs with him. They exchanged a look and a nod with one another, then Jacob led them upward.

The upstairs of the Cooper home was much like the downstairs; dirty and disheveled. There was laundry all over the place, on the floor or hanging off the back of doors. From the smell, Jacob surmised that most of the clothes were dirty. That, or something had died up their recently. Jacob held his breath and Daeni did the same.

As they rounded a corner, Jacob noticed the bathroom door was left slightly ajar. He put one foot in the door and inched it open, trying his best to peer inside without fully opening it. Before he could get further in, they heard another noise coming from one of the bedrooms, followed by a yelp. Jacob raised an eyebrow and stalked over to what he assumed was the master bedroom. He opened the door and stepped one foot inside.

Within the master bedroom, barely hiding underneath the bed, was a single, small foot. Had Jacob not been paying more attention, he might have missed it within the clutter. He strolled around to the side of the bed and knelt down on the floor, looking underneath.

Jacob's eyes widened when he saw who the foot belonged to. It was a little blonde girl, maybe eight or nine, with piercing blue eyes and a huge bruise on her neck that stretched up into her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and studying, like a prey animal caught by surprise by a predator. She was frozen in place like a statue, unmoving, just watching Jacob. He called to Daeni and she too knelt down on the floor and looked at her, gasping.

They had found Little Mouse.

"Hey kiddo," Jacob said, reaching a hand out, "Why don't you come with us?"

The girl shook her head and covered her eyes with her hands. Jacob looked at his own hands and realized they were still covered in Chris Cooper's blood. He took his hand back and looked at Daeni, then inclined his head to the girl.

"You're Little Mouse, right? That's what the bad guys call you?" She said in a motherly tone Jacob didn't think she was capable of.

The girl nodded.

"What's your real name, sweetie?"

The girl shook her head, "I'm not supposed to say."

Daeni smiled warmly at her, "It's okay, the bad man is gone now. You're safe with us."

"No," The girl whispered, "Not safe, I'll never be safe."

Daeni whispered to Jacob, "She's traumatized. She's so scared and paranoid right now. Go wash that shit waoff, let me handle this."

"Are you sure pookie?"

Daeni raised an eyebrow, "You're really asking me that?"

Jacob shrugged, "I guess not. Okay, good luck with her, I'll be downstairs if you need me."

As Jacob made his way downstairs, he glanced back at the way he came. He could hear Daeni talking to the kid, but not exactly what she was saying. In his mind, he hoped that whatever it was worked, and that the kid would come out from under that bed and go with them. As he strolled into the living room, clearing debris from the couch to make a space for himself, he wondered where exactly they would bring her. Back to HQ maybe? Would the Boss know what to do with a child, or would he even care about her wellbeing at all? They could bring her to the GSA, but would they really take care of her? He thought of the bad men that she mentioned, who they could be, who the fuck Loverboy69 was, and how warm their insides would feel wrapped around his—

A car pulled up to the house, interrupting Jacob's train of thought. He got up from his seat and peered out the front door peephole. It was a black Nissan Altima with tinted windows and paper license plates that Jacob couldn't read all the details of. He eyed the people who got out of the car carefully; there were four of them in total, each toting an automatic weapon of some kind that was barely concealed in suspiciously thick bouquets of flowers. They were wearing sunglasses and walked in tandem exactly like freaky, murderous lemmings. They wore no identifying markings or insignias, perhaps they were men that worked for the Company. Either that or...

Shit. Jacob thought.

One of them rang the doorbell and Jacob jumped back, half expecting them to gun down the door. When that didn't happen, he sped walked to the stairs and called out to Daeni, "How's it going up there, pookie?"

It took Daeni an agonizingly long second to respond, "It's going well, how are you, pookie?"

"Uh, doing good. Might make some noise, but don't worry about it, okay?"

"Noise?" Daeni said, a hint of confusion in her voice.

"Yeah, just tell the kid to cover her ears for a while." Jacob said, leaving the stairs and walking back toward the door.

There was a voice coming through the other side of the door, saying, "Chris, we just want to talk to Little Mouse. Bring her out here now."

Thinking on his feet, Jacob walked to Chris Cooper's body and ripped his head off, bringing the thing back with him to the door. He inched it open as far as the chain locking it would allow, then poked his face out through the opening.

"Hello, this is the Cooper residence. Chris isn't really available right now, he's uh, occupied."

"And who the fuck are you?" Said the guy closest to the door.

Jacob cleared his throat, closed the door and undid the chain lock. He put Chris Cooper's head behind his back and opened the door with his free hand.

"If you're looking for that girl, she's not here." He said, his tone even and level.

The guy closest to him shook his head and pulled out a device from his pocket, "She's here." Then he jerked his head towards the house, and the other three men tried to make their way inside. 

Jacob held up a hand, stepping fully in the door frame, saying, "I'd rather do this quietly. You're gonna scare the kid."

"This has nothing to do with you. Move out of the way or we will gun you down."

It was at that moment that Jacob pulled Chris Cooper's head out from behind his back, cradling the thing like one would hold a baby. He shushed the head, then stared back at the four men in front of him, smiling. Then he gripped the head in both hands and pressed them together, squeezing either side of it until Chris Cooper's brain was thoroughly sandwiched between his fingers. The man's skull exploded into tiny pieces that scattered both on Jacob and the guy closest to him, covering them both in grey matter and skull fragments. 

"Last chance, boys," He said, licking the blood off his fingers, "For the record, I really do not want to do this."

"Oh, but I do." Said the first guy. Then he pointed the bouquet of flowers at Jacob and shot him in the head.

Jacob fell backwards through the doorframe and landed on the floor. The pain that surged through his body was intense, not as bad as the blows he received from Santa Claus, but definitely worse than a lot of other pains from Exploits he'd felt before. Getting shot was a whole new experience, and not a very pleasant one. 

The men stepped over Jacob while he was still gaining control of his faculties. By the time the last one was stepping over him, Jacob had regained full control of his body again. He grabbed the fourth man by the ankle and pulled upward, sending the man crashing into the floor. Jacob scrambled to his feet and, using both hands, grabbed the fourth man by the the ankles and swung him sideways into the door frame. 

The man's spine cracked, a deafening noise, and he folded in half the wrong way, wrapping around the door frame. Rivers of blood spilled out of the man's eyes, soaking the walls. Jacob acted fast, yanking the body through the door frame and hurling it at another man. 

"Open fire," Said the first guy, the apparent leader of this little group. 

The body collided with one of the two standing guys, knocking him to the floor. The other one did as he was instructed, however, dropping his bouquet of flowers and revealing the automatic assault rifle that was concealed within. He pulled the trigger, spraying Jacob with bullets. Jacob instinctually blocked by holding his forearms in front of his face. He cringed as the bullets pierced through his clothes and tore through his flesh. It wasn't anything he couldn't recover from, but it hurt all the same. 

The second guy rose to his feet, throwing the body of the fourth man off of him. He joined his compatriot in laying fire on Jacob. Their leader nodded at them and started heading up the stairs towards Daeni and the little girl. Jacob glanced at him, then turned his attention to the other two firing at him. He took a single step forward, then another, then another. He walked through the hellfire until he reached the second man. Jacob could see the man's mouth moving but couldn't make out any words over the noise of the gunfire.

The second guy was backing away from him, firing all the while, but Jacob closed the gap easily. He reached for the second guy's face, grabbing either side of his head and twisting, pulling at the same time. The sinew holding the man's head together snapped, and the flesh was torn asunder, separating his head from his body. Jacob pulled hard, summoning all the strength he could muster from Substance 9. The man's head came loose from his body, the spinal cord still connected like a tail from the base of his neck. It was this spinal cord that Jacob grabbed onto and used as a handle to swing the man's head into the face of the other one. 

The other man's head broke open like a watermelon from the impact, splattering his brain matter in a wide spread against the base of the stairs. His body crumpled like wet paper. Jacob huffed and puffed, trying to catch his breath for a split second before jolting for the stairs, where he heard Daeni scream. There was gun fire and the sounds of a struggle. Jacob ran up the stairs as fast as he could, but it still felt too slow. Something was wrong. 

As he approached the master bedroom, he observed the scene before him. On the ground, propped up against a wall underneath a window sat Daeni, her body limp and her chest rising up and down slowly. The leader of these men laid on the ground a little bit away from her, knife wounds all over his body with Daeni's knife lodged squarely in his head. The little girl was laying on top of Daeni's legs, sobbing. She looked at Jacob and ran to him, hugging him at the waist and sobbing into his shirt.

Jacob couldn't take his eyes off Daeni, though. All he could do was observe her breathing, her shallow, short breathing. His eyes went wide as she moved her head to look at him, her eyes bloodshot and swollen. He hugged the little girl back and knelt down to her level, looking her in the eyes, not that it helped her calm down any. He held her hand as he walked over to Daeni. Her normally pristine hair was matted, soaked in her own blood or that of her assailant. Her skin was ghostly white, and she was bleeding from a holes in her neck, arms, legs, and stomach. 

She gurgled as she tried to speak, but Jacob knelt down to her level, grabbing her hand and holding it in his. 

"Shush, pookie," He whispered, holding back tears, "Don't speak, it's gonna be okay. We're gonna get you help, you're gonna make it."

Daeni shook her head and looked at the little girl, drawing Jacob's attention back to her.

"You'll be... safe with him." She said.

The little girl sobbed even harder than she was before, staring hard at Jacob. He swallowed hard and looked back at Daeni, who clasped her other hand over the top of his. 

"You know what's funny?" She said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Tears welled in Jacob's eyes as he choked out, "What?"

"I finally feel..."

Then, as the words escaped her mouth, she stopped, leaving her sentence unfinished.

Jacob shook her gently, "Daeni? Pookie? C-come on. You can't do this to me. Pookie!"

Jacob's heart stopped. His mind raced in a thousand different directions, trying to find some solution to bring Daeni back. He couldn't lose her, not like this, not today. No, this was unfair. It was unjust. These men came into the Cooper household looking to hurt a little girl, and their reward for saving her from that fate was Daeni's death? Who decided that the cards would play out like that?

A waterfall of tears left Jacob's eyes as he watched the life fade from Daeni's. He held her hand tightly, but her grip was non-existent. There was nothing he could do. 

Daeni Hoffman was dead.

Jacob stood silently, wiping the tears from his face before he turned to face the little girl. He smiled at her, rubbing the side of her face with his hand, smearing blood on her cheek. 

"Hey kiddo," He said in his best impersonation of a calm voice, "It's gonna be alright. I need to make a phone call, okay? Will you wait for me while I make a phone call?"

She nodded. Jacob pulled out his phone from his back pocket and dialed Maxine.

For the first time since they started working together, Maxine picked up rather quickly.

"Gheller." She said stoically, "The Supervisor is on the way. Why are you calling me again?"

"Daeni Hoffman's dead," He said plainly.

Maxine was silent for a while before replying with a soft, "How?"

"She was shot. We found out Chris Cooper was involved in some kind of pedophilic trafficking operation, had one of the kids in the house with him. They sent some people after him, found us, attacked. She... gave her life for little miss, um..." He looked to the little girl.

"Claire," She whispered.

"Little miss Claire," Jacob repeated, "I'm sorry, Max."

"I'll... inform the Supervisor and the Boss. Fuck, Gheller. Who were those guys?"

"I don't know."

Maxine sighed, "I'll be on my way. We need to figure out who did this and wipe them off the face of the earth."

Jacob nodded, "I'll see you soon then."

The line disconnected.