Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Everywhere.
Anderson grabs my arm and practically drags me through the curtain into the open plan living area of the small apartment. Detective Harris is waiting at the table with another man I don’t recognize. Harris looks up when I walk over and immediately I can tell something has changed. He’s absolutely radiating fury.
Not that Anderson seems to care, he hums as he cracks eggs into a pan. At first I thought he was the nice one, but there’s something really creepy about how he never acknowledges how messed up this is.
“What’s going on?” I ask nervously.
“Good morning, Kaylee. I’m Lieutenant Lancer. I work with the organized crime unit.” He’s tall and thin, with a strange leer that gives me chills.
He flips open the binder, and inside is a whole catalog of men I’d cross the road to avoid at night. Hard, jaded eyes look out at me from the pictures. Some are mug shots, some are grainy like they were pulled from security footage, some are candid, probably taken from a long ways away. Some have names and other information jotted down underneath, but many are blank.
“You want to do the right thing, don’t you, Kaylee?”
“Yeah, um, of course.”
“Good, good… I want you to look through those pictures and see if any of them jog your memory.”
There are hundreds of pictures in the binder, and all of them look like the kinds of guys you could totally believe would be capable violence. I keep my expression flat, not wanting to give anything away when I see first Tank, and then Nitro on another page. Wraith is in there too, along with Eagle-eye and I’m pretty sure the guy who put cherries in my soda.
“What am I looking for?” Is it stupid to feel loyalty towards a bunch of probably dangerous criminals who just happen to be incredibly hot? “None of these are the men I saw shooting people.”
Harris jumps on that like a wild dog on a rotisserie chicken. “But you’ve seen some of them before?”
Reluctantly, I point to Wraith who I already know they have a picture of me with. “I guess him, but he was the man who saved me. He didn’t shoot anyone.”
I keep flipping through the binder, and a face that’s burned into my brain stares back out at me. It’s the scarred guy who nearly found me before Wraith and the others showed up. My hand hesitates.
“What? Who do you see?” Lieutenant Lancer asks sharply.
“Nobody. Nothing… I don’t know. Everyone here is starting to look the same.” Is that guy in the Screaming Eagles? If he isn’t, then telling them would be good, right? But if he is, then… But he did shoot people.
I’m so bad at this.
Lancer and Harris exchange a look. Harris finally stands up and grabs the binder, he rips a half dozen pages out and puts them on the table in front of me. Eagle-eye. One I don’t know. Nitro. A few more I don’t know. He points to each in turn. “These are the men who did the shooting.” It isn’t a question.
“No! I’m sorry I can’t tell you what you want, but I definitely didn’t see any of them there. They aren’t the shooters.”
“Of course they are. You’re clearly confused.”
Anderson comes over with what looks like a single egg, scrambled and still a little runny. He puts it in front of me, but Harris sweeps it off the table in annoyance and the egg goes everywhere.
“Look closer!” he yells, getting right in my face. “I don’t think you fucking understand the situation you’re in. I could have you arrested any time I want. You were identified at the scene of a crime, fled with known criminals and attempted to lie about your whereabouts when confronted. I’m giving you the chance to do some fucking good.”
“By asking me to lie?” It comes out before I can think better of it.
My head snaps sideways and the sting of his slap is already spreading across my face before I understand what’s happened. The only thing that keeps me from falling off the chair is Anderson putting a hand on my shoulder.
Harris looms over me as he rages. “Those are the men responsible for the shooting. Noone else, and you are going to fucking sit here and look at them until I ask you again and your only god damn answer is ‘Yes, Sir’. They are criminals and a blight on this whole fucking city. Do you understand me?”
I clutch my cheek and feel the wetness of tears running over my fingers. “You can’t keep me here! You can’t make me lie!”
Harris reaches into his suit and pulls out a pair of handcuffs. Yanking my arms down he fastens them around my wrist with the table leg between. “Watch me.”
Are the others really going to let him do this? I look to Lancer, who is checking his phone, and then to Anderson who looks more annoyed about the egg on the floor than Harris slapping me. I mean, he’s probably not wrong about the Screaming Eagles being criminals. They are definitely not boy scouts, but this is wrong.