Next Up

Chapter 31

The trio had found a small office room in the leader's house, the first home they came to when they saw Marlin and Kurt-Adam for the first time. It was a cramped little room with a big wooden desk, a scuffed black leather office chair, and two green file cabinets on either side of the room. An enormous window with the blinds pulled was on the wall, surrounded by portraits of random people they had never seen.

"Alright, so now the easy part: thinking of a plan," Colson mused while pacing back and forth. He'd been so focused on training and helping Zoe that he hadn't spared a thought for how they were actually going to fight those three.

"Element of surprise!" Ivy shouted, jolting Zoe out of her morning sleepiness. She held her hands over her ears. She had slept horribly that last night, tossing and turning while the rest seemed to fall asleep in seconds.

"Nah, that won't work. It's not like we're gonna one-shot 'em. Like, we may be able to get a lucky hit in, but after like a second, they'll realize what's happening. Oh yea, another thing, we don't even know where the door will pop up at."

Ivy thought for a minute, then sighed, slumping onto a nearby office chair. The morning sun streamed through the window blinds, the shadows leaving lines on her face. Zoe's eyes drifted around the room, focusing on the portraits of the different people, some young kids and some old farmer types. She wondered if any of them were still alive or able to escape. Deep in thought, she leaned against the wall, only half-listening to their conversation. She glanced up; Colson leaned on the desk with both his hands. Ivy was slumped, bored in the chair, fidgeting with the drawers on the desk.

'What does this remind me of? Oh yea,' she thought, thinking back to one of her favorite movies. An old black-and-white detective noir. The room looked almost identical to the lead detectives from that movie. As she looked on, she heard the slow saxophone with a melancholy tune and a jazzy rhythm playing.

Colson's blue sweatpants darkened and changed as they morphed into black dress pants, and his tennis shoes changed to dark leather brown loafers. A grey suit vest over a white shirt, with a long striped tie hung down.

"Bah!" He growled, turning to Ivy. "Listen, Captain, we're this close to catching these boys, alright?"

Ivy sighed, taking a long drag from her cigarette with her right hand. She got out of her chair and walked to the window, her empty, seen-it-all eyes staring lazily through the blinds. She reached over with her left hand, absently snapping one of her black suspenders. Attached to her black pants was a brown leather gun holster on her left side, a small black .38 revolver—the handle barely visible in the oversized strap. She tapped her foot with annoyance. She turned around, looking Colson straight in the eyes.

"Hold on, what'd you just say?" Ivy asked, pointing the end of the cigarette at him."

Colson waved his hand in front of his face, dispersing the smoke, "I'm just sayin', chief, that we got these guys right where we want 'em see? Like, I got the perfect plan; if you just sign off on it, me and the boys can—" There was a light knock at the door; both turned to look.

Cahya slowly opened the door, wearing a revealing low-hanging white blouse with bright red lipstick that cut through the darkness that had overtaken the room. She had that wide doe-eyed look on her face, her lips slightly parted, holding her cat-eye glasses to them.

"Oh, it's just awful!" she said in a painfully forced Southern accent. "Truly, it is!"

"Not now, Cahya!"

A slow smile crept across Zoe's face, "I'll be honest with you, Collie, you're too close to this case."

Everyone in the room stopped talking and looked over at Zoe. Colson squinted at her, giving her an odd look, "What the- Zoe, are you good?" He asked with an accusatory tone—The illusion broke, and the whole room shifted back to normal.