The S.O.L.O.ists

Chapter 49

Annica's Point Of View

"Hey, you alright?" I sit down beside Kenton in my pajamas in his dim room. Yesterday we solved the issue with the mechanical bats and the evil French woman to put it bluntly. But something that bothered us even more was that after we were just about to leave, something caught Kenton's eye inside the mechanisms of one of the stolen technology pieces (which were the bats) and decided to investigate.  Turns out it was another portrait made with the same type of ink that has to be burned in order to be seen.  This time it was a picture of the criminal herself. I found that really odd since all of the other drawings that we'd accumulated were of dead people.  Perhaps putting her in jail was a favour.

"Huh?" he looks at me weird, a bit dazed. "Um, sure."

He doesn't sound all that sure to me.  "Are you 100 percent?"   He strokes the paper between his fingers contemplatively, "Okay, okay.  No I'm not entirely sure.  This picture is like an effin' gender bend of me."  I look down at the picture, the eyes of the auburn haired woman.  And what creeps me out the most is that she's staring back almost as if she could see us. 

And at this is where Kenton puts it on the side of his bed ever so carefully and sighs, "What if you were right?"  The statement surprises me, "Wait so you're agreeing with my assumption, 'cause I don't wanna intrude on your life . . ."

"I'm serious, " he interjects, "ever since you said it it's been at the back of my head.  I feel like I need to make some sort of move to see how I'm associated with her.  Like this Edwin Blackthorne guy that you were mentioning, he could possibly be following us around this entire time."  

There's a moment of silence between us but abruptly an idea springs in my mind.  "I know. Why don't we try searching these people up and erase any shape or form of clue that could possibly lead back to us? Have you thought of that?"  The snort noise that comes out of his throat seems a bit rude.  "Well Captain Obvious.  Of course I thought about it.  It's just . . . " 

"You're nervous that you're not going to like what you find," I finish for him.  "But if we're going to save this place we're going to have to dig deep and find the reason why we're so involved in this.  'Cause somewhere there is this psychopath that's stringing us along and if we don't fix it the city's going to pay."  

Kenton takes a deep breath and closes his weary eyes, the sunken part of his cheeks more prominent than usual.  "Okay," he gives in, "let's do it." 

===

"So you desire to seek for details about this Edwin Blackthorne character." Carter says without a single word coming out of our mouths, sitting himself erect on the dusty stainless steel bench in our hideout.  

"I managed to get some crime records on people associated with him but not necessarily anything full on having to do with him," Kenton says, the contents of the screen reflecting off of the gigantic glass lenses.  My brother walks over and takes away the hologram from Kenton, scanning the text at inhuman speed.  

"Here we are," he promptly states, sitting back to display what he just done in a matter of seconds. Kenton and I lean in to see and not so surprisingly, there is 10 pieces of evidence that's arrayed.  My brother's finger goes down on the first piece of evidence which is a decently old photograph of somebody's police report.  The picture is of a rather handsome Caucasian man.  Some part of him seemed a bit old yet young at the same time and when I look at his age I'm not astonished when I see the number 19.  But the name doesn't ring a bell and I frown.

"Bobbi Frickman," Carter reads out, "convicted of arsenal, drug dealing and manslaughter. He doesn't look familiar does he?" Carter looks at me sternly.  I shake my head, "Nope.  Of course not it's not the same person."