"What happened to your face!" Brian yelled as I walked into the warehouse, my navy blue book bag on my back. (Justin Bieber reference # 1.) "I ran into a pole," I said dully, throwing my bag onto a chair and unloading my bomb stuff. "Sure you did. Julia get a little rough in bed?" I sent him a deadly look. I really wasn't in the mood. "She has the flu. I ran into a pole." "Is that what you kids are calling it these days?" My control broke and I stepped forward, slamming his back into the wall by his throat.
"I. Ran. Into. A. Pole. Got it?" He choked and nodded. I relinquished my hold and he slumped against the wall, rubbing his neck. "Geez, Jason. What crawled up your ass and died?" I ignored him and kept unloading my stuff, my sore back stiff. "Fine. Ignore me." I did just that.
The letter from Danielle burned in my back pocket as I finished dumping my stuff on the table. I threw the bag into a corner and glared at Brian. "You touch any of that, you die."
The truck rumbled to life as I twisted the keys, keeping my back as straight as possible. I had a huge black bruise spread out across the entire middle of my back, a dull throb resounding from it every time I moved.
I shoved the Starbucks glass door open angrily, walking up to the counter and ordering a hot chocolate, throwing casual glances over my shoulder to find Danielle. I finally found her, sitting at a round table in the very corner of the building, in front of the window. I grabbed my drink and headed towards her, hating everything I was about to do.
I didn't want to talk to her, didn't want to see her, didn't want anything to do with her, and here I was; fraternizing with the enemy.
"Hi," she said, glancing up from the manila folder she was flipping through, flicking her side braid over her shoulder. I grunted in reply and sat down across from her, curling my long fingers around my Styrofoam cup. "You know why I wanted to meet you here, right?" Her eyes flicked back down to the folder open on her lap, leaning against the edge of the table.
"Yup. We're blowing up the entire precinct," I said bluntly, not even caring about her opinion. "Too obvious. They'd find us straight away." "Not if they're all dead." "No. We can think of something better than that." I huffed and took a long swig out of my cup, burning my tongue.
"So," I said after a minute of silence. "Do you know who killed my brother?" She nodded and turned the folder around, showing me a portrait of a man in a cop uniform. He looked familiar...
"Nick Stokes." Hate burned in the name as it fell from her lips, and my skin crawled. "Stokes," I mumbled. "Stokes. Why does that sound so familiar?" She shrugged and started pulling papers out from behind the picture, opening her mouth to start talking when I remembered.
"That's the guy who led us down to Alex's body," I said slowly, staring at the picture, hate starting to bubble in my stomach. "I creeped and found a whole ton of information on him," she said, handing me papers with a birth date, address, previous addresses, past girlfriends, everything.
I scanned my eyes over the pages, aware of her green eyes watching my every move.
"You know, the way you're watching me, makes me think you're staring at my utter hotness," I said, not raising my gaze to look at her.
"Please." Was all she said, and I rolled my eyes.
"How long has he been a cop?" "Six years, and Alex is the third guy he's shot. The first two got lucky with minor injuries, both cases a shot to the leg." "So basically he was aiming to kill with Alex?" She nodded.
"Is it okay if I take this?" I asked, holding up the folder. She nodded. "I have a copy at home." "Good." I shoved my chair back and stood, shaking my hair out of my eyes. "Same time next week?" She nodded, pulling a newspaper out from her bag and unrolling it. I took that as my long awaited queue to leave.
