My Thorns (Jenna Ortega X Emma Myers)

Chapter three

"I don't care about him or his fucking art pieces, but we have to solve this case."

"Why though? I mean, we're already doing everything we can, and a lot of cases like this end up unsolved, it's not a big deal if we tried."

"It is."

Jenna knew she couldn't afford failing, not when her captain was looking for any reason possible to bring her down, make her feel worthless. If she started messing up her job he'd get rid of her without a second thought, and Jenna would end up with nothing at all.

She wouldn't survive that.

Her head started spinning, the headache growing too strong to ignore anymore, and she felt her breathing getting shallow. Why wasn't she able to figure this case out ?!

God, get yourself together Ortega.

"You okay?" Her partner asked, voice laced with concern, and she nodded before excusing herself. She needed to get out of there. She couldn't breath.

She quickly made her way up to the rooftop, and as soon as she was out, she collapsed on her knees, feeling her exhaustion finally get to her. She was a mess, feeling the pain getting too intense. She used to be so good at holding everything back, what happened?

Jenna sat against the wall, trying to focus on evening her breathing, regain a normal state. She couldn't allow herself to be so weak in her workplace. She had to forget about everything, work on herself, or she didn't know how long she'd manage to keep on holding on.

After a few minutes, she managed to regain a somewhat acceptable state. She still felt awful on the inside, but at least her coworkers wouldn't know. The worst thing that could happen to her was to appear weak in front of them. Jenna despised more than anything feeling vulnerable.

She made her way back inside reluctantly, getting ready to get back to work. When she got in, though, instead of finding her partner sitting in front of his desk, working, like she expected him to, she saw him talking to another detective, along with Olivia and Hunter. Tilting her head to her side in confusion, she joined them, hoping they wouldn't comment on her sudden disappearance.

They all had frowns on their faces, Hunter was livid. What happened ?

"Oh, hey Jen," Olivia greeted her as soon as she noticed her, and Jenna only nodded at her friend.

"Are you feeling better?" Hunter asked and she gave him a small smile,

"Yeah, sorry about that by the way. What's up?" She quickly changed the topic, not wanting the focus to be on her, and her partner glanced at Hunter quickly before looking back at her.

"They found another body this morning, same exact setting than the one Jack was working on a few days ago, one hand bonded to a table or something, and it looks like he's been poisoned."

Jenna furrowed her eyebrows at that,

"Didn't you say the last one was a suicide?" Hunter looked away at that, and Hunter nodded, his smile fading.

"Yeah, he did. I mean I don't know the details, but from the report, absolutely nothing indicates murder, so..."

"He took the pill himself." Hunter sighed,

"We have evidence of that, I-"

"Maybe he was forced to do it, though?" Olivia intervened, and Hunter shook his head.

"It makes no sense... There's absolutely no trace of fight, not even one wound on the victim, the first one at least has no known enemy, it's so weird..."