Shadow

01 | The Arrogant Hoodlum

"Put your hands where I can see them."

"You're catching the wrong-"

"I said put your hands where I can see them!" Genevieve snarled, and her grip on the butt of the gun tightened. She could barely perceive anything in the darkness of the abandoned building, and the only saving grace was the dull light bulb that flickered above her head.

The person in question complied hesitantly, and the string of curses that left his mouth were clearly heard by Genevieve. He got down to his knees, with his arms stretching up hesitantly. His gaze was trained in a particular direction, and it took every cell in his body to not run after the third party.

"That bastard is going to escape." He grunted with vexation, and his jaw clenched due to his suppressed rage. His back was facing Genevieve so he couldn't see her, and vice versa. Not that it mattered, because they wouldn't recognize each other anyway.

"Who's going to escape?"
"..."

He had opened his mouth to reply, but uncertainty stopped the words from coming out. Her trustworthiness was not guaranteed. For all he knew, she could be working with the enemy in secret.

"Shadow."
"Pfft."

That drew a long chuckle out of Genevieve, which only spiked his irritation further.

"We're making up names now, aren't we?" She said amusedly, with her firm grip on the pistol never loosening

"Well then, my name is Assface."

That was the last straw. The man shot up abruptly and spun around, but the gun pointed in his direction stopped him from advancing any further. Frustration was written clearly all across his face, and Genevieve simply raised an eyebrow in response.

"Damn it woman, if you don't let me go this instant-"
"Shut the hell up. You're coming with me."

♣♧♣

A blush of embarrassment coated Genevieve's ears as she stood in the presence of two fuming males. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and a blank expression rested on her face while she brooded in complete silence.

"You weren't sent there to take our very own officer into custody." The commissioner scolded just after tossing a file down onto his desk. An aggravated sigh slipped from him and he ditched his seated spot. Instead, he mirrored her position.

Genevieve raised both her eyebrows at the accusatory statement.

"Sir, how was I supposed to know he was undercover?" She said defensively, before catching a glimpse of the unrecognizable man beside her. He didn't reciprocate. He continued to stare ahead, and even though his expression was hard to decipher, the fury was very much evident in his eyes.

"That's the point."
"Well, I was just following the rules."
"And do the rules state tha-

The commissioner held an open palm up to silence both of them. His stern gaze locked onto Genevieve and upon noticing her astounded face, the glare wavered. He wanted to stay mad at her, he even tried to, but she wasn't at fault and he knew that.

"Ah..." he sighed again, shaking his head in slight distaste.
"I understand that you're not to blame, you wouldn't have known he was undercover. But you could have at least listened to him."

An incredulous look grazed Genevieve's countenance but she masked it up almost instinctively. She tilted her line of sight to glare at the floor instead of the commissioner.

"Take that back, chief. She'll start listening to actual criminals then."

The man beside her spoke again and when he did, it earned him a dirty look from Genevieve. He turned his head to finally return the gaze, and his features clearly displayed the idea that he was far from happy. His dark blue eyes shot daggers into her brown ones, and it didn't take the chief more than two seconds to sense the tension between them

"Enough. Both of you." The staring, or rather, glaring competition between the two broke when Genevieve looked away and redirected her attention back to the commissioner.

"I had spent three months tracking him down." The man began, and he never made an attempt to remove his hate-filled eyes off of her.
"Three months. And when I finally get a location on him, Assface over here decides to arrest me."

Shit, she thought to herself.

Unfortunately for her, the heat lingering on her ears had embarked on a journey where it travelled to her face. It stopped on her cheeks and in a poor attempt to conceal it, Genevieve tipped her head further down. The commissioner didn't catch her flushed complexion, but the man beside her did.

The chief's line of sight darted between the two of them in both contemplation and confusion. He clearly could not understand why the detective referred to her by such a name. Labeling it as nothing too important, he shrugged the thought away and glanced at his wristwatch.

"What's done is done. Besides, it's getting late, you two can go home now. We'll talk more on this tomorrow if required."

Genevieve didn't need to be told twice, because with a nod of acknowledgement towards the commissioner, she sauntered out of the office almost immediately.

"Piece of shit." She grumbled under her breath the second she stepped out, all the while popping open a button or two of the uniform that nearly suffocated her. Or maybe it was just her humiliation. But was she to blame? All she did was follow orders and rush to a deserted building to corner some drug dealers. Then, it turned out that the shady-looking man she detained happened to be some undercover detective. The combination of his unlikable personality, and a black leather jacket was just an added bonus.

"Did you become a cop just so you could follow rules?"

His inquiry seemed to have originated from a safe distance behind Genevieve, which stopped the movement of her feet in an instant. The flatness of his tone made her wonder if he was taunting her, or simply asking a question out of genuine curiosity.

"And did you become one just to break them?" She didn't bother to spin on her heel and face him. With a turn of her head towards the side, she waited for his response. When there wasn't one, she resumed her steps.

Unbeknownst to her, Alec's mouth had quirked up in a silent smirk at her retort.