As Defne's blood spread rapidly on the cold concrete of the parking lot, police sirens from outside tore through the silence of the night. Aylin slowly released the pressure she was applying to the horrific wound on the woman's neck. There was nothing left to do; that flawless swan had taken her last breath right before Aylin's eyes.
A single teardrop escaping from Aylin's sleep-deprived, bruised eyes was replaced by a pure, primal fury. Ignoring the warm blood on her hands, she sprang to her feet. Her eyes locked onto the open sewer cover just below the dark ventilation shaft. On the edge of the cover were fresh blood drops left by the killer as he escaped.
She grabbed her radio. "Ambulance is too late for the victim... Suspect entered the storm drain channels under the parking lot. I'm going after him, secure all sewer and infrastructure exits around the channel building!"
Without waiting for an answer, she clipped the radio to her belt, chambered a round in her gun, and plunged into that dark, foul-smelling hole without a second thought.
Izmir's underground labyrinth; it was pitch black, echoing, and filled with a heavy smell of methane gas. As Aylin's flashlight swept over knee-deep murky water and rusty pipes, she heard the splashing of water from up ahead.
"Police! Stop, or I'll shoot!" she shouted. Her voice echoed repeatedly within the tunnel.
Fifty meters ahead, Yekta was struggling through the water in the darkness. The blood seeping from the stitches on his neck was mixing with his sweat and the filthy water of the tunnel. He was on the verge of physical exhaustion, but this was his kingdom. He knew Izmir's veins better than both the police and the mayor.
When Yekta reached that narrow junction where the tunnel split in two, he stopped. On the wall to his left was a massive, rusty discharge valve that pumped the Alsancak region's rainwater into the sea. If he opened that valve, this tunnel, which was below sea level, would fill with water in seconds, drowning that stubborn detective chasing him.
He pulled the heavy, iron "T-wrench" (that massive tool municipality workers use to open valves) from his tool belt. He placed it on the rusty wheel of the valve and pulled with all his might. The wounded muscles in his neck screamed in pain. Gritting his teeth, he turned the valve.
A loud metallic screech and then a terrifying roar of water echoed through the tunnel. Pressurized water began to pour into the dark tunnel like a waterfall.
When Aylin saw the wave of foaming, filthy water rushing toward her, she tried to run back, but the force of the water brought her to her knees. Her flashlight flew from her hand, sinking into the water and going out. In the pitch black, swept away in the freezing water, she desperately clung to the rusty iron bars on the wall with all her strength to keep from losing her gun.
In that moment of panic as Yekta opened the valve all the way, his hands were bloody and slippery, causing him to drop the heavy T-wrench. The wrench sank into the murky water with a loud splash. He had no time to look for it. As the waters rose, he had already started climbing the exit stairs of the tunnel on the right, pushing open a cover that led to another dark street of Izmir and blending back onto the surface.
Aylin, however, narrowly escaped drowning, clinging to the wall until the waters slowed down. When the tunnel was illuminated (probably by the light of a patrol officer shining down from above), Aylin saw that heavy piece of iron gleaming in the water. She bent down and picked it up.
This was no ordinary tool. It was a heavy, industrial T-wrench, and the letters engraved right in the middle of its handle gleamed like a slap to Aylin's arrogance: "I.M.M. PARKS AND GARDENS DEPT."
As Aylin looked at that rusty wrench, she remembered locker number 42 in the logistics depot, that miserable, sluggish worker smelling of rust remover with his neck bandaged. Lightning struck in her brain. That "elite surgeon" had been laughing at her from behind a yellow vest this entire time.
The next morning, İnciraltı Nursery.
As the sun glared on the glass of the greenhouses, Yekta sat like a corpse on a plastic chair among the misaligned lockers in the changing room. The bags under his eyes were pitch black. The savage scuffle in the parking lot, the underground escape, and the throbbing wound on his neck had consumed him. He barely made it home last night, burned his bloody clothes, but passed out from exhaustion before he had the chance to clean his tool bag and the "bloody trophy" inside it.
"Brother Yekta, Master Rıza's radio is broken again, I'm taking the spare battery from your bag!"
Yekta barely found the strength to lift his head from between his hands. His vision was blurred. "Don't take it, Cem... leave that bag..." he mumbled, but his voice was so weak that Cem, at the other end of the depot, didn't even hear him.
Cem reached into that black, worn-out tool bag—the one Yekta always kept locked but had forgotten unzipped in his exhaustion last night. As his fingers searched for the battery, they hit a hardened cloth bundle at the bottom of the bag. Out of curiosity, he pulled the cloth out.
The cloth fell open.
Cem's breath caught in his throat. Inside the cloth; unwashed, with a thick layer of dried, browned blood on it, sat that crescent-tipped pruning knife. And right next to the knife... attached to a torn piece of flesh, its tip bloody, gleamed an elegant pearl earring.
Cem's mind stopped. The morning news he had watched on his phone just half an hour ago echoed in his brain: "Famous reporter Defne Arslan was brutally murdered last night. It was learned that the killer tore the pearl earring from the victim's ear..."
Cem couldn't swallow. His hands began to shake, his heart pounding as if it would shatter his ribcage. His eyes slowly drifted to the mirror on the locker.
In the reflection of the mirror, he saw Yekta standing right behind him.
Yekta's tired, collapsed "unlucky laborer" mask had completely fallen. His facial muscles were dead. There was neither exhaustion nor pain in his eyes; only that bottomless, cold, and perfect darkness stared back. That dirty bandage on his neck no longer looked like a pitiful wound, but like a demonic seal.
"That earring..." whispered Yekta, his voice echoing like a hissing snake in the silence of the depot. "It looked more beautiful on Defne's ear than I thought, Cem."
Cem turned around in terror, dropping the bloody cloth and the knife to the floor. Stumbling backward, he crashed into the metal lockers. "Brother... you... on the television..." His vocal cords had failed; he couldn't put the words together. The admiration in the eyes of that naive boy who saw him as a father figure had morphed into pure terror in seconds.
Yekta looked at the bloody knife on the floor. Then he slowly bent down and picked it up. He caressed the dried blood on the steel with his thumb.
Outside, from the greenhouses, Master Rıza's voice echoed: "Cem! Couldn't you find that battery, man, what's taking you so long!"
With the knife in his hand, Yekta took a single step toward Cem. His eyes were locked on the boy's jugular. The only "weed" he shouldn't have to clean up had infiltrated his flawless ritual.
"I only prune the weeds, Cem," Yekta said softly. "But sometimes... you have to prevent certain saplings from growing.''50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgXsG2V6LLB
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