Unheard Voices

Chapter 3: He Hears You

Year 2018

It had been quiet for years.

Not peace. Not guilt. Just quiet.

After the girl dead in Dallas the one they called Ashley he stopped. Not out of fear. Not because he felt watched. It just... no longer served a purpose. There was no thrill in routine. He already knew how the story ended.

They never caught him.

They never came close.

The task force was a mess. Faces changed. Files shuffled. Interest died faster than the girls did.

So he faded.

New name. New job. New walls to hide behind.

But even in stillness, he listened.

Sometimes, in motel rooms or long stretches of highway, he’d scroll through newsfeeds or crime forums. Quiet curiosity. Nothing more. He liked seeing how far they'd drifted from the truth.

But one night, sometime in late 2018, the algorithm offered something new.

A podcast.

Unheard Voices.

The name alone made his jaw twitch.

He didn’t click right away. He let the title episode sit in his mind like an itch beneath the skin.

That name.

He remembered.

Not her face. Not what she wore. Just her name, caught in the back of his mind like something under a fingernail.

"Cassandra Serna".

She had been one of the early ones. Before the task force. Before people started to notice.

He hadn't heard her name in years.

He closed his eyes and let the voice continue. It was near perfect recounting, some facts off, some pieces missing—but it was enough.

Someone was looking.

Someone was talking about her.

That... hadn’t happened before.

He felt it behind his ribs not fear, not thrill, just the slow tightening of a thread he thought had unraveled; Something woke up in him.

He went back to his car.

Didn’t sleep.

By morning, he had a plan.

Her name was Regina McClain.

She wasn’t important. Not personally. Not like Cassandra. Not like any of them.

But she was near. She was easy.

She would be enough.

He watched her from a distance for three days. She had patterns. She walked alone. Laughed with her phone against her cheek. Ate dinner late. Always tipped well.

The night he followed her, the air was cool. She didn’t scream.

It was never about chaos.

It was about control.

By dawn, she was gone.

Crime Scene Log — Mesquite, TX – 2018

"Found torn scrap of paper in victim’s jacket pocket. Handwriting: unknown. Says only: ‘He hears you.’”

He folded the note himself. Took his time.

It didn’t matter who found it.

What mattered was that it had been left.

Not for Regina.

For the voice.

The one speaking for them.