He wasn’t dead—not yet. A drop of blood clung to his left nostril until the man with the large wrench took another swing. Bone cracked, and blood spattered against the rough-cut lumber partition inside the room. The victim sat in a metal chair—not the folding kind, but a heavy tulip chair manufactured during the 1970s. His hands were bound behind his back with a pair of zip-ties. His elbows were tied to the chair’s arms with a thin, pliable rope. His reaction to the blow was merely a wince. His energy to resist or cry out was depleted. He’d accepted his deadly fate hours ago. This is where he was likely to die.
     “Still awake?” The man with the wrench asked with a muffled voice.
       The assailant let the weapon fall from his hands, clanging loudly on the concrete floor. He didn’t want to kill the man in the chair. The blows were only hard enough to hurt like hell but soft enough to keep the prisoner alive. He chose a seventeen-millimeter Craftsman because it was the largest in his tool set. Initially, the beating started with bare knuckles, but the bruises and abrasions starting to form would be evidence of his crime. He needed to ensure no one would suspect him. 
       The man in the chair faded out of consciousness—the seventh time in two days. A broken tooth fell from his mouth and bounced across the floor.
     Cody Savage watched the brutality of it all, helpless to intervene or save the man in the chair. He was an observer and nothing more. He tried to take mental notes: the size and shape of the room, the lack of windows, and the style of shoes the men were wearing. Any little detail that could help him identify the individuals. The light was dim, and the details were vague.
       But there was little to view in the dark room. The only light source came from a window—no larger than a pillow—six feet above the concrete floor. A single beam of sunlight cut through the darkness and reflected off the coarse floor, and it was just enough to illuminate the figure in the chair. The hard shadows it created made it impossible for Cody to identify the bludgeoned man. There was, however, something familiar about his face. Cody was sure they’d never met unless it were a random passing on the street or in a local store.      Perhaps he’d seen the man in prison. Hundreds of faces came and went during his four-year stay at Dalton County Correctional Facility, and Cody had a knack for remembering most of them. Maybe this guy was a short-timer who'd spent a month or less living in prison, scared shitless before becoming accustomed to the concrete view.
       Everything Cody was witnessing was a mere vision in his mind—a psychic episode of an event unfolding somewhere near Cain Lake. He’d had this clairvoyant ability for over a month and still lacked the skill to control it. Maybe he’d never be able to handle it.
Though he couldn’t control his psychic power, he learned to provoke it. Water was always a catalyst for the vision, but fortunately, few people were in danger lately, which made Cody glad.
       Cody knew the man in the chair was in danger, just like Darcy Poole had been the previous month. Cody had found the missing girl with his psychic ability, but that was because he could see more clearly where the young girl was being held captive. And it didn’t hurt that his dead wife pushed him in the right direction.
       Now, he struggled to see. He pushed the sound of the unconscious man’s breathing out of his mind and tried to focus on the environment. He remembered Daisy’s advice. His girlfriend urged him to focus on more senses than just vision. She encouraged him to listen, smell, and try touching the walls. Cody closed his eyes, although he wasn’t physically present, and the darkness swallowed him momentarily. His olfactory senses took over, and he could smell urine and blood mixed with acrylic. The odor was more potent when he stepped closer to the chair.
       He paused and listened for audible clues that might reveal their location. A Bon Jovi song played faintly over a radio. His ears picked up a chime somewhere outside the building—a sound similar to a wrench tapping a metal pipe. The noise lacked rhythm—not an intentional sound but happening accidentally.
       The man dishing out the beating was a silhouette against the soft glow of intruding streetlight. He did not speak nor push his victim for information. The assault was occurring without reason or motivation. That was clear to Cody.
       After several minutes of no activity, the chair-bound victim lifted his head and spoke what might be his last words, “Who are you?”
The antagonist dishing out the pain, stepped entirely into the shadows. Darkness enveloped him as he spoke with a soft, muffled voice, “I’m nobody. Just a sinner like everyone else in this friggin town.”
       The vision waned, and Cody departed the nightmare. He found himself back at the beach—back at Cain Lake. Daisy held his head above water as he lay on his back, floating in the calm water. He was grounded to the sandy bottom, his toes sunk into the soft lakebed while she balanced his torso.
       Her eyes were as wet as his, “It’s okay. I’m here.”
       The couple stood in waist-deep water. Daisy helped Cody stand straight, causing gravity to pull blood from his nose and run down his upper lip. The tinnitus in his ears made it difficult to hear his girlfriend’s words. It sounded like he was still underwater, and she was shouting from the surface. A migraine wrapped around the left side of Cody’s head, making the summer sun scorch his retinas. A trickle of blood spilled from his nose, which Daisy wiped away with her thumb and then rinsed in the lake water. 
       Cody’s left arm was numb, held down by the weight of a wet bandage at the end of his wrist where his hand used to be.
They trudged through the cool water until he collapsed on his hands and knees.
     “What the hell was that?” Daisy asked.
       Cody coughed water from his lungs. Full of water, his sinuses started to drain through his nose, diluting blood as the mixture dripped from his chin. Watery droplets of blood fell to the ground, absorbed by the tiny sand grains. Even with the sun beating down on him, he trembled with icy chills as his muscles convulsed. He tried to compose himself to answer her. He’d never had a vision this powerful—this painful—and hoped he never would again. He thought about Jesse Lewis, the Sin-Eater, and wondered if this was how he felt when he sensed a sinner.
        Cody turned toward the water and sat with his knees bent. His arms wrapped around his legs, keeping his torso upright rather than collapsing on his back. 
       Daisy sat behind him, wrapping herself around his body like a blanket. She squeezed him with both arms in an attempt to transfer her body heat. “Are you okay?”
       Cody wasn’t sure what the answer should be. He explained what he'd seen in his vision. She listened and bit her lip.

       “Do you think it’s really happening? Do you believe it’s occurring right now?”
     “I’m not sure. It doesn’t make sense.”
       She squeezed him tighter.
     “I’ve got to find him, Daisy, if it ain’t too late. I’ve got to stop the sonovabitch that’s doing this.”