Curse of the Crystals

Chapter 4: The murder Investigation - part 2

Luna's question confused Itzal a lot, but she sounded genuine.

She continued before he could question her. "I've don't have any family here, and my only friends here are the people I know from work, so I can't get them involved. I know you're doing all sorts of shady stuff, I'm not a fool. There must be something you can do to help me."

Itzal sighed. This was definitely not something he could use right now, but sending her away might only make things worse, as she could start telling others about his hideout. He figured he'd play along for now. "Alright, I'll check again to see if anyone has followed you or if anyone is near us. I don't want to screw up keeping that place hidden a second time... If everything is clear, I'll give you a signal so you can enter . We'll go through what happened there."
"Thank you." Luna seemed to suddenly breathe again, after having seemingly held her breath during the entire conversation so far. Itzal wasn't sure what he had done for her to trust him so much, but it was clear that she was putting her life in his hands right now. He wasn't planning to let that trust be in vain, despite the fact that he only knew her as a source of information. He hadn't even thought of her as a friend before, yet now he might get involved into covering up her crime, despite already being into some pretty big drama of his own making. Was he really that stupid? He shook his head. At least this kind of stuff kept his life exciting.

After a few checks, he gave the signal to enter the hide-out. After a final check, he started to climb up as well. He had only barely finished climbing inside when he just had to speak up, as he was too confused to wait for answers. "Tell me exactly what happened."

Luna seemed a bit hesitant for a moment, but after a stern look, she spoke up. "One of these so-called Liberators came again. He finally acted like a normal customer, but after we were done, he told me to join them. I already refused to do so multiple times, so I figured I'd just tell him off once more. He suddenly got really angry and started cursing, after which he grabbed me by the neck, trying to suffocate me. I managed to dig my fingers into his eyeballs, which made him lose his grip, but then the tried to grab me again. I managed to back away a bit, but he started to drag me back by my legs, so I panicked and tried to reach for something to hit him with. I got a hold of a candleholder and just struck him as hard as I could, hoping to knock him out, but I think I hit him too hard and killed him. It sounded like his skull just broke and he was bleeding from his head... I even tried to check his breath and heart-beat, but there was nothing."

Itzal sighed. That sounded even worse than he feared. "What did you do afterwards?"

"I panicked, so I just ran away. I was already a few streets away when I started to calm down enough to figure I should come here and to make sure that nobody was following me."

Although Itzal respected her ability to think straight after such an event, he was afraid she'd still be in a lot of trouble. "There's no way you're going to avoid being seen as a murderer at this rate. If we're really lucky, we can prove that he is one of those Liberators. Killing a rebel in self-defence is something you might just get away with."

"Do you really think so?" She sounded hopeful.
"Yes, the Liberators are fairly hated by the guards. The problem lies in proving he really was a Liberator, and the other Liberators might try to avenge him as well. Do you know if he tried to convince others, like your colleagues? That'd at least help us convince the guards."

"No, I think he had some sort of weird crush on me, as he always asked for me."

"That is problematic. Considering he wouldn't wish to be caught, I doubt he had anything on him that would identify him as a Liberator..." Itzal shook his head, that defence wouldn't hold very well. "Is there at least someone that might've heard or seen him attack you, or that will testify they did? We might have a shot if someone wants to back you up on the fact that it was self-defence."