𝓣𝓻𝓾𝓵𝔂 𝓨𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓼

❁ Chapter One - Prologue

You know how most stories start with beginnings of life? And others start with ends of life? Well, this is one of those stories. It starts with a death. A death and a detective.

But, of course, that detective has a partner.

"What have we got here?"

My whole body stiffened at the sound of his voice, my eyes getting drawn towards him and narrowing into slits.

And it just so happened for him to be the detective.

"Caucasian male, mid twenties-"

He cut me off before I could finish, staring at the tattoo on his neck. The two guns, above which a red ribbon with one words that ended with a snake S, was inked. "That's a Vipers tattoo."

And for me to be the partner.

No fucking shit, I rolled my eyes, Sherlock. Not that it was bad he was observant. God have mercy on the detective who wasn't observant. What was bad was the fact that he so simply cut my sentence short. A little politeness wouldn't hurt, now would it?

My eyes darted to the man laying lifeless, naked, on his belly, in a puddle of dirty water. "I suspect the victim has suffered of an opiates overdose." I said, watching him bent his knees to take a closer look as he flipped on a glove on his rough hand.

Pupils contracted, nose covered in powder, bluish skin, pale figure. Reaching down to shift his forearm with the gloved hand, he found only black veins from the amount of drugs the man must have used. The fingertips were almost black, comparing to his blue skin tone. Yeah, I did take a look at the dead guy earlier before Know-it-all showed up.

"Clear opiates overdose," he agreed.

"Mind if I do my magic, detective?" Sonya, the photographer, asked pointing at the dead man.

He shook his head, raising up to straighten his posture and let Sonya do her thing. "Carlos will have to take a look to guarantee it."

His thick arms crossed, flexing under his blazer just so they could put on a show as his eyes took in the scene. My gaze was all over him, on the other hand. "This is the fifth overdose from the Vipers." He stated in that guttural, firm tone that sent shivers down my spine.

Dammit, Piper, I mentally slapped myself, you don't need a distraction right now! Snap out of it!

I started chewing my lip, a custom I developed by spending time with my very first partner. Which was now... one... two... three... yep! Five months! Five months of me crushing over my partner. Five months of me pretending I had no feelings for the bastard. And precisely, five months since I realized he clearly had no eyes for me. Hot as hell, serious as fuck, rude as the son of a bitch he was, he obviously had no eyes for me. Besides the fact that he was six years older than me, he also seemed to have an eye for blondes. And I was far from blonde or his age range. Not to mention, he disliked me a bit. It was just a matter of time till my young ass realized it. I was twenty one, though, it was normal for me to be horny, mostly since I wasn't like that in my teenage years.

Tearing my eyes away from his delightful sight, I looked down over the scene again. My eyes drifted away from the body to its surroundings. A little plastic bag glistened in the water, getting driven farther and farther away from the body because of the wind.

That got my attention.

A loud sigh came from him. I didn't give it attention as I gazed the direction that dust bag was heading to. "Call the coroners, this scene is done with, PB."

"Mhm," I mumbled, staring at the bag that came to a stop just at the touch of a... was that a finger?!?

"This is so fucked-"

"We have a body," I announced, feeling my breath hitch at the sight of the finger that belonged to a body hidden in the shadows between boxed and trash bins. God, it was so carefully hidden you couldn't even see it!

"Yeah, I know that, PB-"

I immediately pulled out my lantern and directed it to the supposed to be body. Just then as I shoved the bins and the boxes from the way, I came to the realization that it wasn't a body.

I revealed a still breathing man with bruises covering his whole bluish colored soon-to-be corpse. His eyes were closed, his nostrils flared as he barely breathed. Blood poured from a wound in his leg and his fingers twitched.

Fuck, it definitely wasn't a body.

"Somebody call an ambulance!" I shouted, leaning closer to check the pulse. When I heard nothing, not even a muffled sound of someone searching for a phone, I looked over my shoulder.

He was just standing there, staring at me with wide eyes, frozen in place, like everybody else. "Was I fucking stuttering?"

He snapped out of it with a shook of his head, pulling out his phone. The words he said on the phone were oblivious to me, what had my full attention was the dying man.

I rubbed my knuckles over his chest bone to check responsiveness. His pulse was weak and his breathing barely hearable. He would have died in the following minutes. But he was alive and he responded by inhaling a deep breath.

I gripped his chin and lifted it, tilting his head and pinching his nose. Sealing his lips, I leaned in and gave him two quick breaths. After that, every five seconds I had to give him a long breath to have performed rescue breathing. Normally, Naloxone would have sealed the deal by reversing the depressive effect of the opiates, but I didn't have that and I could keep up with the breathing. At least till the ambulance showed up.

In less than ten minutes, an ambulance made its appearance. I didn't get involved with the paramedics, seeing that wasn't my field, so I just stood back and watched them take the poor junky away. He was out cold, probably not to be up for the following hours. As soon as they were gone, I returned to the crime scene where detective dick "waited" for me.

He was kneeled down beside the puddle, checking out the bag of white powder I had earlier seen. What I hadn't seen was the logo on the bag. Approaching him, he rose to his feet, showing it to me.

"You think they sell these around here?" He asked, all business, as usual.

I stared at the bag, at the logo, and thought. A yellow filled circle with a red snake biting its own tail. There was one guy whom I saw selling these. One guy who just happened to be in only one club on a Friday night at this hour.

"I know where they got these from."