The Adventures Of Ivory Arrow & Jackson Bale

Chapter V

We were still in our little daze when they arrived, late on a hot summer afternoon. Identical twin brothers were on our doorstep bashing our doorbell, eventually breaking it. They came in and plopped down on our couch, with no respect for it's old body. The younger one carried a puppy, at first I thought it was stuffed, but it squirmed in his massive arms more than once.
Hastily, they started. "I am Tyler, and this is Tyron. We are hunters, just like you are." They smiled sadly. "Both of us are married with kids"
"And... what significance does that have? Can you two just tell us why you're here so we can get whatever it is for you, and get you out of here." Jackson said impatiently. I sushed him so they could continue.
"Our wives were taken." I raised an eyebrow. "Yes. We are excellent trackers, and yet somehow we lost them. Our children were kidnapped not to long after. We need to find them, the only lead we have is this note." When did we become investigative police officers? Seriously, we need to rethink our job description. But I took the note nonetheless, it was a generic note with newspaper clippings for the letters. It read.
GET ALL THE HELP YOU NEED. IF THE ORDERS ARE NOT OBEYED. A TRAGEDY BEYOND YOUR BELIEF WILL OCCUR.
I was obviously shaken by this note. It wasn't something to take lightly. Jackson grabbed it and read it after me. "Where did you find this?" He asked before I could. The twins had to think for a while.
When they looked at each other, the younger of the two seemed uneasy but the eldest answered, "we found this note, in the hands of our dying mother. She passed away just last week, due to natural reasons though. We need to find everyone. I... We won't be able sleep without knowing they're safe." The older brother, Tyler, held the hand of Tyron.
I already came to a conclusion but was confused by it. So I decided to wait and investigate further. Jackson basically shoved the brothers out our door. "Come back never. We'll send your families back to you later." And he slammed the door after them. "Okay," he turned to face me, "what do you think? I have a feeling you have a hypothesis." His feeling was correct because of course.
"I think they're lovers." I flat out admitted. It made Jackson jump back in astonishment. "I mean, they were holding hands while coming up to our door, which I saw through a window. The way they look at each other too is a dead give away." I fell back on a bean bag chair, in deep thought.
"If that's the case. I think we'll need to investigate they're properties to see if there were unhappy marriages, or unwanted children." Jackson insisted that he'd do that on his own, so I stayed behind to make coffee and pastries. I do that when I get left behind, and ONLY then.
A loud bang came from the door, at the same time when I put on Jackson's frilly pink apron. I answered it in that very same apron, to the astonishment of my bruised partner. His right cheek was a deep shade of blue and purple, and his left eye was pitch black. "Oh My God Jackson! What happened to you?" I frantically carried him to the bathroom to fix up his face, I also noticed his lip was split open as well. "Did those boys do this to you? Am I going to have to pay them a visit?!" I stopped my rambling after he rested his hand on my shoulder.
He sat on the toilet while I fixed his lip. Then to the bruises, I prescribed a perfectly iced bag of spinach, however due to Jackson's pickyness, I gave him a bag of peas. "No, they live with four other women besides their wives apparently. They attacked me when I wasn't looking and made sure I couldn't move before they beat me to a pulp." He chuckled, using his middle and forefinger to trace the side of his face. He moved his 'ice pack' to his ribs. "They got me good, I'll give 'em that." I sighed and nonchalantly left the bathroom to get to the front door. "You're not going Ivory. I said I'd handle this, so I will, have faith."
"It's not about my faith in you," I told him. "It's about those hot heads thinking they can go and beat up MY partner!" I growled. He got up and went to the door too. He opened it and motioned for me to follow. By now it's the 18:00 hour. Getting pretty dark. But Jackson drove us to a small run down home. The twins lived here, Jackson got out, so I did too and followed his lead to the door. I knocked, Tyron answered it.
"Ah, you're back, I'm sorry about what they did earlier, they were just playing with you." He reasoned the woman's attacks. "Well, come, in come in." He smiled slyly at us, it gave me chills.
Tyler walked into the room and spoke to Tyron in Italian, he must have said something about us because the whole time, they were stealing glances at me and Jackson, who was searching the room for clues. So I decided to play their game, I waved to get Jackson's attention.
I lost my hearing on one of the missions for a brief period of time, so we took up sign language. I signed to him, asking if he found anything. He shook his head and signed something on the order of, No But I Have Found Out Earlier That The Women Here All Believe They're These Brothers' Wives. I was astounded at this new intel. The brothers stood up from where they were sitting and walked into the kitchen quietly, just after, two young ladies came into the room.
"Here again for another beating. We said you don't belong here." The lady closest to us scowled, but her gaze shifted to me quickly and she glared. "Leave, of we'll have to make you." I stood up, glaring at them, I needed to match their level of hatred to seem somewhat threatening. It worked and they backed off.
"You must forgive their rudeness. They love their men so much, everybody who visits seem like threats to them." An older lady came down the small wooden staircase, running her hand down the railing gracefully. "My name is Luella May, the mother of these girls and those two boys you came to visit. You are welcome to stay for a while." She laughed softly, pointing to our coats and shoes that we forgot to remove at the door, so we did as she suggested. Luella May waked up to Jackson examining his injured face. "Who did this to you? Did my boys have a hand in this?" Her facial expressions showed a mix between pride and disappointment. I couldn't tell which emotion she wanted me to see.
The boys walked into the room hold two large books, picture albums. "These are the pictures we hold of our families. You can see our happiness just flies off these photographs." Tyron said pulling up his belt, and fixing the collar of his red flannel shirt. "My wife's name is Jenny. My brother's is Maya. We each have six children, I'll save you the time of remembering all of those names." He laughed again. I looked carefully at them. The brothers were always together in each one, the family looked like they were in the background or photobombing them. Never once have I seen love between them.
A sister of theirs came wondering into the room again. "Julia, didn't I say when we have guests that you keep everyone in their rooms." Luella May scolded, but then a million or so of little kids came running into the room, along with six ladies chasing after them, not one of them could differ from the other. All were identical, and even identical to the women in the pictures.
"Um~ what did you really want us to help you with? Clearly you two aren't married and clearly you have many kids here to deal with, I doubt you'd have any of your own. I think we'll take our leave." Jackson grabbed the hood of my sweatshirt and walked to the door, but was met by a large hand holding the wooden door closed.
"I'm sorry, but those women we need to find, are valuable. So we need them found. My dimwitted sons, who claim to work as you do, can't seem to track them down." Luella May stood up from her chair and gingerly sashayed over to our position. The large hand was attached to an ugly face belonging to the oldest son in the household.
"We don't need to be mixed up in your insane game of house, where the mother is a lunatic." I spat out subconsciously, covering my mouth after sitting on the position we're in. They could very well kill us. I wouldn't care to much if I would have been able to come alone. I glared up and over at Jackson, who surprisingly held a calm demeanor.
"That was rude. Now let's get down to business, those ladies in the picture are my twin daughters, they, along with Tyler and Tyron make identical children. Who I sell to make the money around here. I NEED THOSE WOMEN NOW!" The old hag changed from a calm and dignified lady, to a psychotic witch in the blink of an eye. We took that time to sign a plan, it was funny how I forgot I could do that until now. I guess this is what happens to cornered heroes in the movies that Jackson loves.
We locked arms, he swung he around fast enough for me to use that force when breaking the window. We hopped out without a second thought. After been chased for seven and a half blocks, we lost them and rested in a quiet little cafe. "Well? What do we do. Leave the case and go home?" I wondered out loud, making Jackson shake his head disapprovingly.
"You should know better than that. They know where we live, know how to get to us, and they REALLY can't live without the money from those kids." Jackson said. He sat back, resting his arm on the back and f the chair beside him, and sipped his green tea. He hates it and scrunched up his nose in disgust. "Gross."
"Okay, but if we do help find those women, they would continue to traffic people. HUMAN TRAFFICKING Jackson! That goes against my moral code." I sighed defeated, a waitress came and her with a large trey of pastry desserts, saying it was from a customer on the other side of the cafe. We looked, seeing nobody, but back to our table sat the one and only Jose to the rescue. "Jose!" I gushed, it was great to know that he was healthy, and ready to, "Help Us Jose!" I whined, letting my head fall onto our table.
"Uh oh, what did ya do this time? I swear, never a dull moment with you two around." He sighed, deep down I knew he was happy to help.
"We have a problem with a case. You see, this family specializes in human trafficking. Plus some... other stuff that we wish not to talk about. How do we go about this. We can't abandon them to starve and die. But we can't help them traffic their own kin either. How should we fix this?" Jose scratched his greying stubble in thought.
"You can make sure their income is stable, get those who can work jobs and check up on them every once in a while to know they're all right. If it'll bug you to not know." He glanced at me, I was at first offended, but realized it was true and settled in my seat.
Before we could put our plan in motion, we went home to rest, forgetting about being hunted. They snatched us up like we were nothing and took us back to their house. Standing before our kneeling selves, was Luella May. "So, you want to help us money wise? Not even thinking about this family, you'll go get us jobs and be done with us?" Her voice seemed calm but contradicting that was pure rage.
"No ma'am, we we're going to help you. But also save you from the darkened path you decided to take." When did I start preaching? That was weird.
"Listen here, and listen good. I never have loved these kids, they belong with ones who don't love us, to save them from us. And the only way to do that is to sell them to rich folks who think they're doing good by adopting a poor child." I didn't know what she meant, if it was heartfelt or not, but I knew that I need led to save this family. So I lifted up a piece of paper in her face. It read,
For Hire; waitresses, buss boys and cashiers. A hostess for Nights would be nice too.
"I think you should think of your family for once ma'am. If they really want to be with you. I suggest you rethink your life." I turned my face, getting ready for a bit, but only a hug came of that. And another, and another until twenty little bodies were wrapped around one another that was wrapped around me. Jackson held a proud face and was smiling at me through the crowd.
They got to work the next day, as I instructed. And as soon as the mother excepted the change, from the basement came the missing women we were sent there to find. All they were asking for from the start was help making them a family again. The thing I noticed before about the brothers, was their own little secret.