When Paths Collide

Elizabeth Shepherd

"Here to tell me I'm making a mistake?"

I heard Andrew chuckle before the scraping of a chair echoed in the silence.

"No, do what you want Violet. Kill some people if you want. Live a little." I turned and saw him sitting in a chair I had overturned, a smirk plastered on his face. "Bloodthirsty looks good on you."

"Flattery won't get you anywhere," I growled. "What do you want?"

"What I want is to help you."

"What do you want in return?"

"We're criminals at heart, you want to kill someone, I want to help you find them." I raised an eyebrow at his words. "What? Is it so hard to believe that someone's supporting you with this plan?"

I shook my head. "It's not hard to believe if it's you. You win either way."

"Before that, Lily asked me to convince you to stop."

I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand, feeling the sting as they dug into the cuts from the glass.

"Are you going to stop?"

"No."

"Are you willing to throw what you have left in your life away?"

"Yes."

"Well then, I tried. I failed. Let's begin."

————————————————————————

"The bunny, look at its back."

We had been in my office for a few hours at this point looking through the information we had.

Glancing at Hoppers I noticed that the back of it seemed as though it was stitched together in a rush. As if it was previously ripped open and hastily closed back up.

"I've noticed. I just never had the heart to rip it open." I flicked my gaze from Hoppers to Andrew. "Would you like to do the honors?"

Andrew nodded, making his way over to the stuffed bunny and pulling out a pocket knife. At my mildly questioning gaze, seeing as at this point it wasn't really strange, he smirked.

"What? You never know when you might need one."

Rolling my eyes I gestured towards Hoppers. Andrew proceeded to bring the knife to its back and cut it open.

I watched, and it seemed for a moment as if the bunny ripped and Jaxson merely had to sew it back together.

But on closer inspection that didn't make sense. Jaxson dealt with fashion as his mother was one of the top leaders of the fashion industry, he knew how to sew. And of course, there was a folded piece of paper that just barely made itself visible through the stuffing.

I walked over to Hoppers and pulled the paper out, noticing that it was folded multiple times, but they weren't clean folds.

They were the types of folds someone would make when rushing.

Opening it my heart nearly stopped.

There on the paper was a name I had never thought I'd see again.

乇ﾚﾉ乙ﾑ乃乇ｲん 丂ん乇ｱん乇尺り

Oh god.

"Elizabeth Shepherd? Who's Elizabeth Shepherd?"

"She...She was an old friend of ours. Before we met Lily."

"And what does she have against you?"

"Nothing, at least, nothing I know about."

"What about your family?"

"I remember she had to move, apparently her father was having trouble finding a job." I closed my eyes. "I don't remember much as it was when I was around five, but I could've sworn that her father worked alongside mine. That's how we met and became friends in the first place."

"Well, this just got interesting."

————————————————————————

A/N: When Paths Collide is almost finished.

I hope you enjoyed!

(The font was the closest I could get to messy handwriting)