M-13

A "Pleasurable" Experience

Atticus' POV:

I want to kill my boss, so I keep repeating Lincoln's familiar reassurances that killing people won't solve problems in order to keep myself calm.

But, oh my god!

This bastard really sent a search warrant for Silas?!

Why would Silas blow up his home after we dismissed him?!

Answer: HE WOULDN'T!

But did asshole Darrel wait for Jared and I before sending out that message to the fucking news?

Of course he didn't!

He was so quick to blame Silas, who has been at mine and Lincoln's house all night, but of course I couldn't tell him that.

Darrel would not have listened and he would then know exactly where Silas was, and I know for a fact that Silas would want to run and that Lincoln would attempt to protect him, so both of them would be in danger.

I will not let that happen, so I stayed quiet when I saw the news and was given the details at work.

"Isn't he at your place?" Jared asked me when we got to our shared car to go patrol. "Silas?"

Jared is one of my best friends, and I know I can trust him with anything.

"Silas didn't do anything," I tell him, and Jared nods. "I guarantee the person who tried to kill him did that and of course because Silas is an easy choice, Darrel pins everything on him so the killer can go and cross off more people with the malfunction."

"Thank god you heeded my warning to keep the fact that he's staying with you under wraps," Jared says, patting his own back like he's some kind of god.

"Heeded?" I ask, raising my eyebrows. "Are we in the nineteen hundreds?"

Jared shrugs. "I was right, wasn't I?"

"Yeah, congrats badass, you made one good suggestion in your nine years of working for this place," I tell him, rolling my eyes. "So what do we do? Darrel has the entire city looking for Silas, so I know for a fact that he isn't going to look for the actual culprit."

"Yeah, you're right... we're going to have to find our own way to get the actual culprit," Jared says, pulling out his computer and clicking the keys while I drive. "I still have my connection at the Hillsboro database."

I roll my eyes. "Jared, the girl who you fucked and then both cried to each other after because you both realized you were gay does not count as a connection."

"She helps me out, doesn't she?" Jared asks as I pull onto Highway 26 toward the city of Hillsboro. "And she doesn't hate the Mistacesemia people."

"That's always a plus," I say in agreement as we head down the highway.

The database building is manned by Jared's coming out buddy, Aviana. She got the job when she was eighteen and has been there for the last eight years, filing everything that has to do with the police stations in the four most populated counties, as well as its own section that keeps files on all of the people with Mistacesemia. There are times, like in the case of the boy who was murdered, where Lincoln has to send a copy of his report to the database.

We walk into the building and the security guards make us go through their scanner and check us, but before they have a chance to make us turn over our weapons, Aviana shows up.

"What are you doing here?" she asks Jared, walking up to us and hugging him. "Don't worry about them, Rich, they're with me. They work at the Mistacesemia unit out in Portland."