Natalya #2
Kasien goes still. “He gave you a motorcycle.”
“Yes,” I state proudly, trying to force attitude even though I know my face is swollen from crying. “I call her Your Worst Nightmare.”
“Of course you do.” He sighs, dragging a hand down his face like he’s reconsidering every life choice that led him here.
?
The tech room looks like some testosterone den completely devoid of any sense of color, and it smells like cigarettes and energy drinks.
One side of the room is swallowed by desks and glowing screens, cables hanging everywhere, while the other side has a sofa pointed toward a wall with a PlayStation, because of course it does.
I roll my eyes and stand up from the sofa, my boot accidentally kicking an empty energy drink can that rolls across the floor with an annoying metallic clatter. Ugh.
I walk toward the three men sitting in perfect silence, typing like their lives depend on it. Their faces are washed in the cold blue glow of monitors, the light flickering over their tired eyes, and I start pacing behind them like a caged animal.
Kasien sits among them like a statue carved out of pure irritation, his elbows resting on the desk, fingers tapping a slow, rhythmic beat against the wood while his pupils jump from one screen to another.
I don’t think he’s blinked in… what, an hour?
Kiara is perched sideways on his lap, headphones on, one leg loosely hooked over the arm of the chair. One hand is holding her phone while she listens to the police radio feed, her brows furrowed in concentration.
She’s a genius with this stuff. Being an investigative reporter apparently means she actually understands the rapid-fire code and jargon pouring from the radio.
Unlike me.
I stop behind a young guy with glasses who looks like he barely turned eighteen yesterday.
“What is that?” I nod toward his screen, leaning over his shoulder.
He flinches slightly when I appear behind him, and I smile internally at how adorably nervous that makes him.
“Uh—that’s the CAD system,” he says quietly without turning to me.
Okay, thanks for nothing.
I lean closer to his ear, my hair cascading down his arms.
“I don’t know what that means, silly,” I say playfully, tilting my head like I’m the dumbest person in the room, even though I’m fully enjoying the way he’s instantly flushed.
Men are so simple.
“That’s a—” he gulps.
“Jesus, relax,” I murmur. “I don’t bite.”
I do. Just not him.
He throws me a quick sideways look, like he absolutely does not believe that statement, before forcing himself to explain.
“It’s Computer-Aided Dispatch,” he says, nervously pushing his glasses up his nose. “Police logs, arrests, calls, transport records. If he’s in the system, he’ll be here.”
My gaze flicks over the screen full of dry police text, lines of codes and abbreviations that mean absolutely nothing to me. I don’t recognize a single thing.
I let out an impatient breath, feeling utterly powerless.
“You look nervous,” I say.
His neck was sweating even before I came here.
Poor kid. Should I be worried?
He swallows and checks my reaction before choking out, “N-no.” But before he turns back to his screen, his eyes betray him and flick briefly toward Kasien.
I see.
I straighten slowly and walk across the room to him.
“Why is that kid scared of you, my idiotic brother?”
Kasien breaks from his trance and glances over at me to see who I’m talking about, then rolls his eyes.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Eric, I apologized,” he snaps without even looking at the kid. “Get over it.”
“What have you done to him!” I shoot back.
“Nothing. He needs to toughen up,” he mutters, holding Kiara on his lap with one hand while the other continues tapping an impatient rhythm against the desk.
Okay. Whatever.
Every muscle in my body is twitching with a level of nervousness so enormous that if I let it swallow me even for a second, I’ll spiral. I need to keep my senses occupied at all times or I’ll fall straight into that hole.
So I gesture around the room.
“This place is horrifying,” I announce. “A complete testosterone cave. You people need a woman’s touch. And an HR department.”
Kiara pulls one ear of her headphones down. “I agree.”
One of the tech guys tries very hard not to laugh, before Kasien kicks his chair.
Dorian, who’s now sprawled on the sofa like he has absolutely nothing better to do with his life, throws a comment toward my brother.
“So there’s two of them now,” he says irritably before letting out a short laugh. “Great.”
Kiara flips him off, then I realize it’s the one I stole a gun from. Idiot.
“Hey,” I snap at him. “Don’t make me remind you how easy it was to trick and disarm you.”
He stiffens immediately while the others snort quietly behind their screens.
I pace around the room again, then lean over the kid with glasses once more.
“If you don’t find my boyfriend in there”—I point at the screen—“I might actually go nuts.”
The kid suddenly speaks, sounding more confident now.
“I think I found him.”
Kas and Kiara are instantly on their feet. All of us crowd behind his chair, leaning over his shoulder and staring at the screen.
“Show me,” Kas barks.
Eric points to one line in the scrolling text, his hand trembling slightly. And suddenly the whole room falls silent as we all stare at the screen.
NAME:
JOHN DOE
SEX:
MALE
RACE:
WHITE
HEIGHT:
6'5"
HAIR:
brOWN
EYES:
brOWN
STATUS:
IN CUSTODY
CHARGE: MULTIPLE HOMICIDE
LOCATION: 3RD PRECINCT HOLDING
TRANSFER: COUNTY JAIL — 07:40
Kasien’s finger taps the record once. “That’s him.”
“No,” I furrow my eyebrows. “That’s some John Doe,” I say, already disappointed.
Kiara pulls the headphones off her ears and smiles.
“That’s what police call someone who refuses to give their identity,” she explains. “Or someone who doesn’t have one,” she adds casually.
My heart jumps violently. “So that’s him?”
Kasien nods once. “That’s him.”
For a moment I just stare at the screen.
Alive. He’s alive.
The relief hits so fast I have to bite down a smile before it bursts out of me, then I jump on the kid and hug him from behind before smacking a huge kiss onto his cheek.
He turns red as a tomato and Kiara giggles at the scene.
“So,” I start. “What now?”
Kasien has that statue posture, his eyes locked on the screen, brain clearly working at a speed that’s making the rest of us look slow.
The entire room instinctively turns toward him, waiting for whatever he’s about to say.
So I break the silence first.
“Okay,” I say eagerly. “So, logically, transport is the only time we can actually get him, right? That’s a known fact.”
“No,” Kas says calmly. “That’s our last resort.”
“What?” I frown.
“First of all,” he says, finally looking at me, “that would make all of us officially criminals too. Including you.”
I shrug. “Fine by me.”
He ignores that.
“And given that he was arrested for multiple homicide, he will be classified as extremely dangerous.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And?”
“And that’s good and also bad.”
“Explain.”
“Good,” he says, leaning back in his chair, thinking out loud, “is that he’ll be transported alone. No other prisoners.”
“And bad?”
“The bad part is that the transport will have at least two armed officers on him and full dispatch tracking.”
Silence settles over the room.
The first thought that runs through my head is—that’s fine, I have enough female rage in me to take all of them. But that’s probably just really naive and stupid.
“So how can we do it?” I ask quietly, the hope that filled the room only seconds ago already starting to fade.
“I’m thinking how to do it silently,” Kas mutters, more to himself than to any of us.
“You mean you want to do it legally?” Kiara says, drawing quotation marks in the air with her fingers.
He only nods.
“You tampered with so many police records,” she continues. “I saw that during the investigation.”