Mimi stood in the very middle of the alley between Tenth and Eleventh Streets with her eyes closed.
During her time at the orphanage, she had learned that she could see things better without using her eyes. It was difficult to explain, but it was something that her group of friends- well, not really friends, but the equivalent- called Shepard Sight.
Since she was the smallest of the group (a bunch of her friends had followed when she and Finch had left the orphanage) and the only one with an ostentatious appearance (blond hair was, indeed, a rarity due to the trait being a genetically recessive one), not to mention that she was a girl, she was the bait.
She could practically feel Finch shifting from foot to foot in an alcove further down the alley and Curt Weisman fiddling with the knife that he’d found in the trash. She needed to push them from her mind as she searched and waited for an anomaly.
Five minutes later she felt it.
At the end of the alley, on the eleventh street side, she knew that there was a potential threat entering. Turning around slowly so that she faced him, she pulled anxiously on her hair and stumbled forward (thankful, for once, for her limp and seemingly weak appearance). When the kid- probably a little older than Finch- started walking down the alley, she forced a few tears from her eyes as she stumbled towards him.
“Help,” she rasped out, forcing an extra stumble into her walk. “Please.”
The boy stopped and eyed her with a half-smirk that informed her that he would never help her- even had she actually needed it. Her hand twitched a little, but she hid it by pulling a little on her blond hair in apparent fear and nervousness.
“Stop where you are,” he ordered.
Mimi knew that she had to let him think that he was in control. She fought the urge to reach for the knife in her back pocket, and halted. She looked up at him with wide, seemingly innocent eyes.
She could feel Finch, Curt, Frank, and Jordan (the only other four she allowed on the mission, the others were back at their base) begin to bristle with anticipation, and held a flattened hand down to make sure that they stayed steady and waited for her signal.
“What’s your name, Blondie?” he demanded, walking closer to her until he was uncomfortably in her space.
Fighting the urge to strike out, she kept her voice meek as she murmured, “JoJo. Please, I just need help.”
He ghosted his hand down her left cheek and leaned forward. Clinching her fists at her side, she waited until he looked back down at her. His blood-shot, brown eyes eyed her as he brought his hands back to his side.
This was it.
This was going to be the move.
The next few minutes would change everything forever.
Mimi knew, without a doubt, that he was going for a knife that was stashed in the back of his pants- if not a gun- and she didn’t consider his life (or anyone’s, really) more important than hers. She just needed something to eat- whether he provided the money or just a candy bar, he was going to help.
She refused to signal for the guys.
This was something that she had to do to prove her dominance- to secure her leadership.
This was no longer the little leagues at the orphanage- these were matters of life or death and they needed to know that she wouldn’t blink in the sight of danger.
The guy in front of her lunged out with his knife. It might even have been harmful had she not anticipated it and used her own knife to stab into his outstretched arm. He stared at her, surprised, as his knife fell to the ground. Jerking her knee upward, she caught him squarely in his unprotected testicles and allowed him to drop to the ground.
Smiling the patented Shepard Smirk, she circled him, letting the light glisten on the metal and his blood. Finally, as her boys all came from their respected shadows, she knelt down beside the guy and wiped his blood onto his shirt.
She could see the respect in their eyes.
There would be no questioning her authority from then on out.
“What’s your name?” she demanded. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her as he struggled for breath. “Come now,” she purred, “you don’t want to force me to make you tell me, do you?”
“Aaron,” he gasped out, grasping to cover the knife wound.
Mimi nodded before standing up. She gestured for her boys to come forward. “Clean him out. Let him live,” she ordered.
As she began to walk away, back towards Tenth Street, Aaron gasped out, “Who are you?”
This was also another defining moment.
Mimi was now the unquestioning leader of her little band of misfits. She knew that they needed a name.
A name that was so innocuous as to keep law officers from getting too suspicious, but something that represented them.
She paused long enough to say, over her shoulder, “The Tenth Street Reds,” before continuing on her way- not even looking back as she heard her boys begin their search and seizure.
