The Collective(21)
The campus was close to empty for break. But there were still some students wandering around, and I could have sworn I saw him from a distance, laughing it up with a group of friends, just around twenty feet away from where he’d left an unconscious Emily five years ago.
If it wasn’t him, it was someone just like him, because the world is full of young men just like him—unremarkable in every regard, except for the ridiculous privilege with which they were born.
How I longed to lean into the accelerator and head straight for him. Even when I realized it wasn’t Harris Blanchard, I still had to stop myself from doing it. And really, would the world be that much worse of a place if I hadn’t stopped myself?
4566 asks if I’m still in the chat. I respond that I am. And then I type out everything that’s on my mind.
0417: I don’t just want him killed off. I want his soul destroyed, his memory ripped to shreds, just like he and his family and their lawyers did to my daughter. After he’s dead, I want the whole world to see him for what he truly was. I want his parents to have to live for the rest of their lives knowing what a mistake it was to bring him into the world.
I take a breath and read my words as the rest of the chat room reads them. “That’s it,” I whisper. “That’s what I want.”
And then, like an answer, a box appears on the lower right corner of my screen. A private message from 0001. The administrator of Kaya. Did I say something wrong? I thought there was no judgment here.
0001: Did you mean it?
Instantly the message vanishes, a feature of this site I was unaware of—disappearing private messages—0001’s words existing only in my memory. Did you mean it?
I type a question mark on the screen and hit send. It disappears too, but 0001 replies with a screenshot:
0417: I want him dead. For real. I don’t care how.
My own words glare at me, then vanish.
Another screenshot appears. The words I typed moments ago:
0417: I don’t just want him killed off. I want his soul destroyed, his memory ripped to shreds, just like he and his family and their lawyers did to my daughter. After he’s dead, I want the whole world to see him for what he truly was. I want his parents to have to live for the rest of their lives knowing what a mistake it was to bring him into the world.
I type a reply and send it.
0417: Yes. I meant it.
It disappears, ellipses stepping in.
0001 is typing . . .
0001: What if I told you that we could make that happen?
“What?” I say it out loud, as though I expect her to hear me. “Are you serious?”
I gape at the blank space where 0001’s words were, and a chill runs up my back as it dawns on me—what this oasis on the dark web, this place to vent our most destructive thoughts, could potentially be. I remember my last conversation with Matt—how he had said, You doing websites for hit men, now? Matt, always smarter than he sounds.
Hit men. I feel as though I’m in free fall, both my chair and the floor pulled out from under me, nothing to hang on to, not anymore. Is that what Kaya is? A murder-for-hire site that specializes in grieving mothers, luring us in with kind words and secrecy and flowers for our dead children, allowing us the irresistible luxury of voicing our rage without judgment, before hitting us with the sales pitch . . .
0417: I am not interested.
After the sentence disappears, 0001 sends me a question mark. And so I type more.
0417: I’m not going to hire you to “make it happen.” If I wanted to do something like that, I’d have done it already. What I meant, what I WANT, is the same thing the other women on the chat want: justice for my child. I’m not some Texas cheerleader mom emptying out her Christmas savings so she can pay a big, bad man to snuff out her kid’s rival. I want my daughter’s murderer to get what he deserves and I want the power to “make it happen” myself. It’s something we all want more than anything and will never have. Shame on you for trying to exploit our pain for money.
Several seconds elapse, the private messages box still and quiet. I guess that’s it, then. I push my chair back. Stand up, my head swimming a little.
Another message appears. After I read it, I sit back down again.
0001: When I said “we could make that happen,” I meant all of us. Including you.
0417: ?
0001: I’m a grieving mother too. We all are. We are a collective.
My mouth feels dry. My head light. I’m not sure what to say, and so I stay focused on the blank box, the italics on the bottom:
0001 is typing . . .
And then, finally, the next message appears:
0001: Each one of us is a working part in a great machine. The machine that we are produces justice. We’ve been doing this for more than three years, and we have been successful. But in order for us to achieve continued success, each part of this great machine must 1) commit fully to our cause, and 2) tell no one about it.
My jaw drops, my eyes salty from not blinking. A collective of wronged mothers. Each one contributing to the murders of our tormentors . . . This can’t be real. I don’t think it’s real.
0417: Is this some type of game?