𝖳he Horde (On Hold...)

For Kevin || part one

Eight in the morning. A gray sky had settled in and the police station was teeming with life.

And while Lieutenant O'Connor was staring at his computer screen, one hand on the keyboard, his hazel green eyes were reading word after word the file of a civilian. That of Casey Cooke. Until Lance suddenly hides the screen with a newspaper. With his available hand placed near his lips, Roman just looked up at his superior, an arched eyebrow as he looked exasperated.

"Are you still reading those rags ?" He ends up asking.

"Read the headlines." Lance says.

Without moving, Roman then laid his eyes on this journal with more attention.

There, a picture grabs his attention. A picture of The Beast, taken from one of the videos that Elijah uploaded. The headline of the paper was "The Wild Beast Releases The Hostages".

The Lieutenant frowned immediately. He took the piece of paper between his fingers without taking his eyes off it.

"The media were quick to circulate the information." Lance said with a sigh.

"Obviously." Roman continues, annoyed. "It makes no sense..."

His boss raised his eyebrows briefly, as he leaned against the Lieutenant's desk.

"He did save lives last night." He contradicts.

Roman turns to him, frowning all the more.

"You're defending him ?" He asks, as if he felt personally attacked.

"No, of course not. But I'm a cop. My job is to establish the facts and the fact is that The Beast saved a lot of people." Lance defends himself with good arguments. "Hes a criminal, and obviously he needs to be tried, but for some reason, he decided to change sides."

"For how long, that remains to be seen." He replies, exasperated. " 'Does he have a heart ? ', pfff... They dont even bother to think about the victims' families for a second." Roman gets angry by reading the subtitles, before throwing the newspaper on his desk.

"You know drama is their livelihood." Lance said, as pissed off as he was.

After a moment, Lance turned to O'Connors computer. Then with the backs of his index and middle fingers, he pushed the edge of the screen slightly towards him to take a look at what Roman was looking for. There, he sees Caseys file, while he joins his hands again to put them against his thighs.

"The first miraculous girl ?" He notices out loud, before looking at Roman. "What do you have against her ?"

"She's hiding something." He replies. "The last victim of The Horde says she didn't look at her long enough to remember her face but... I'm pretty sure she was the one who helped her escape that day..."

"And what makes you say that ?" He asks dubiously.

"According to Miss Bailey, this girl is in the same age range as Casey Cooke. And we already know that this girl helped The Horde to escape, maybe this time..." He explains, determined. "Maybe she..." He losts his words, trying to find some good reason to justify his suspicions.

"Roman. There are 18-year-old brunettes everywhere. And how can you claim that she helped The Horde escape ? All we know is that she failed to stop The Beast -- it's written in black and white in the Raven Hill Memorial case file." He contradicts. "This kid had nothing but trouble since she was born, so please leave her alone."

"You know what else is written ? Once Crumb was interned at Raven Hill Memorial, she wished to visit him. Who would visit his tormentor ?" He replied.