Chapter 8
Lincoln
Thirteen Years Ago
In the two years I’ve been following Quinnly Adams, I’ve gotten a good sense of who she is, and patient is not a word I would use to describe her.
Cicero and I are standing on the ledge of a building, watching two men torture another man they had been following. They’re a team, a duet he called them. The two males stalked and waited until the perfect moment to make their move.
The alley they’d chosen for their kill was secluded, only used for trash and drunks to piss. Though it was too early in the day for that, the timing was ideal. Cicero still hasn’t informed me why we’re stalking the men, usually we have details, or he lets me figure them out. This time’s different.
Cicero, more recently, has been deemed “The Shadow”.
The press are calling him this in place of his name since no one has ever caught him. He’s the stuff of legends, nightmares, and chills. I’m nothing but a nursery rhyme compared. His moniker is barely whispered in homes, revered in cautionary tales to young ones about staying vigilant.
The boogeyman come to life.
I’m not sure in all the years I’ve known him that I’ve ever seen him ill tempered. I figure if I had, I wouldn’t be standing next to him today.
“See how they move?” His unusually deep and strangled voice jars me from my thoughts. “So in sync with one another. When one goes right, the other covers left. There’s no way their prey gets away. No holes.”
“They’re twins,” I observe.
He nods and slides his eyes my way, “Indeed. Mirror twins, if I had to guess.”
“Biologically in sync with one another,” I’m not sure what he wants me to say, or observe, other than this fact.
Sure they’re efficient, not necessarily creative, but they’ve done their job well so far.
Nothing too messy that will involve the public, no one except us around to hear anything worth reporting.
They’ve done their homework, a solid kill with no help, so I can’t understand why he’s still looking at me like I missed something.
Just then, neon colors catch my attention from the back of the alley and I groan. “Fucking Quinnly”
Cicero nods, placing his hand on my lower arm to stop me from intervening, “They thought they were alone, still do.”
Quinnly’s laying down on her stomach, legs kicked up in the air kicking and smiling while watching the three of them. “Has she been there the whole time?”
I shouldn’t have asked that, I should have known, should have seen.
“We need to get down there. Deal with the situation,” I say, it comes out more like a question instead of a statement. I’m unsure what he wants me to do, if I were here alone I would have moved down the building to the bright spot and had my knife to her throat before she could open their mouth.
Especially since almost two years have passed since I first laid eyes on her and watched her unusualness.
I’ve watched her kill someone who smiled at her, and she smiled back.
“Let’s see what they do,” his voice jolts me back to reality as he turns back to the twins below us where they’re wrapping up the body of a man who didn’t stand a chance.
They still haven’t glanced in her direction, how could they miss this?
My muscles tense as I prepare for Quinnly to do something irrational.
Instead her feet move faster and she whispers, like a piece of paper on the wind, her voice is small, barely making much noise, but I hear her.
Singing.
Cicero sighs beside me and shakes his head, “That girl.”
“Why is she down there?”
“I’d guess she followed them here,” he chuckles, “or she stumbled upon them.”
“What do you mean ‘stumbled upon them’? Quinnly doesn’t know how to stumble. She rockets, or stomps, but she never stumbles.”
Silently he moves, keeping to the shadows. His movements are fluid, you wouldn’t think the man was in his late sixties with the way his body moves and accommodates his muscles. When his feet hit the pavement I see her shift, and the twins spin on him.
“Well hell,” I mutter and make my way down. Keeping to the shadows I watch Cicero standing between the killer twins and Quinnly. He makes no move to turn around so the twins can see him, so they don’t attack him unknowingly.
But maybe this too is a test.
The one that blocked earlier for the other lunges forward, right for Cicero’s hamstring. Smart on his part, Cicero is tall, much taller than the twins, so if he gets the cut right it will give him a better chance at winning this fight without much fuss.
The knife doesn’t land where it’s intended, and stepping to the side Cicero reveals Quinnly.
She’s changed, grown. Her eyes are still the palest of blue, almost glowing in a way that makes me want to remove them from her head and put them in a jar.
Her skin is like fresh snow fallen on the highest mountain, pure save for the new tattoos polka-dotting her skin.
Her hair is braided from the crown to her waist in a bright yellow and baby blue combination that looks ridiculous. She smiles, the joyful kind that wrinkles at the corners and squinches your eyes. My heart does a double beat, he’s going to let her get stabbed.
Something shiny pulls my gaze from her face to her hands. Silver reflects the setting sun’s rays blinding the twin who’s getting closer with every breath. He stops, shielding his eyes and that’s when she moves. There’s no method, no training or combat style that tells me anything about her.
Her laugh starts slow, and builds as every strike against the twins hits home. Blood sprays the brick walls of the alley, maniacal laughter reverberates… It’s a mad house and Cicero does nothing but watch with his arms crossed over his chest, practically leaning against the dumpster, smirking.
He pushes himself off the metal and approaches her, throwing an order over his shoulder at me–to clean the area as if no one existed.
I’m left standing there, with two bodies at my feet, as the pair of them walk off together. The way she handled her scissors… it’s something I’ll never forget. The marks she left on the bodies… It will be next to impossible to figure out what caused such destruction.
Even for the best forensic scientist.
Pulling out my phone, I find the contact Cicero gave me that I’ve never used. All of my texts are encrypted, so there’s no chance she’ll be able to trace my phone. Still, my fingers threaten to shake as I type out my first message to her.
Me: Can’t find your own prey, Menace?
Menace: Better luck next time