Blood and Bone | 1

2 | 4

      I sat in the living room with a few of my teammates after I got home. Apparently Riley and Gigi hadn't found anything on their gang member when they'd been out earlier.

      The silence in the room was suddenly broken by a commotion in the entryway. I marched over to find out what had happened.

     Arlo was being supported by Jaxon, with blood trickling out of his wavy hair and down his pale face. Gigi came out of nowhere with fear written all over her face when she saw the state Arlo was in.

     I watched from the doorway as she waved a hand over the source of the bleeding as Arlo laid on the couch.

     "He fell off of a roof," Jaxon informed me, suddenly appearing beside me as I stood in the entryway. I wondered why Jaxon was even with Arlo in the first place, but I didn't ask.

     While half of my team stayed behind to watch over Arlo with his head injury, I slipped outside to go to Dmitri Orozco again. I never completely felt like I belonged with my teammates, and I felt even more so now.

      They weren't like me and I wasn't like them, no matter how much I wanted to be. What had unfortunately become normal to me wasn't normal for them, and I'd realized that now. They seemed so blissfully innocent compared to me, and it only made me wonder if I could ever go back to the way I was.

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     Raindrops appeared on the windshield of my car as I drove to Orozco's home the next day. It seemed like I only went out in the night to spy on the man. And tonight, there was a buzz of anticipation for the unexpected in the air.

I parked my car in a new place, not wanting to give Orozco any reason to suspect my arrival, and walked the last few blocks to his house.

     I'd barely turned the corner onto his street before I realized, with my heart giving a jump, that Orozco was walking down the same sidewalk towards me. Knowing it was too late to hide in the bushes until he was gone, I continued walking as if nothing had happened.

     I murmured a 'good evening' to him as we passed, but he didn't respond. There was no way he could have recognized me from the bar. Then, my face was heavily altered by dark makeup and skimpy clothes. I'd purposely gone out of my way to look the opposite tonight if, by some chance, I did run into him.

      When he had walked about fifty feet in the opposite direction, I spun around and began to follow him, wreathed in shadows. Though my combat boots had a heel, I made no sound. My existence there was quieter than a whisper.

      I was grateful for the fact that he didn't cross any major streets, which would alert him to my presence much easier. Orozco stayed on abandoned, unlit roads with houses and shops that were barely better off than his own dirty and broken down home.

      It was easy to keep him in sight, even through the downpour of rain. He was the only person around these parts but me. Though he wore dark colors, my eyes were sharp from staring down the scopes of sniper rifles for so long.

      It hardly surprised me when he made a sudden turn into an alleyway behind the shabby shops. It seemed like whenever I ran into trouble, it was in an alleyway, so I suppose it was especially appropriate for tonight.

      I could practically smell the danger I was getting myself into. Or maybe it was just the smell of sewage and rotting food in the alley.