Secretly Powerful

Taking Risks, Leaps, & Bounds: Part 2

    Aubrey woke to the ring of her alarm clock. She groggily pulled the string that snoozed it and groaned. She didn't want to get up. But, she knew she had to get up to turn the alarm clock off before it started beeping again. She'd set that in place a long time ago to make sure she actually got up. And she also had to go to the police station to start her new job. Or at least, see how it would be. How did Mack talk me into this again? She thought.
She sat up, crouched albeit, and let her legs dangle off the side of her loft bed. She peered down to see both her cats still sleeping. Trixie on her pillow and Ringo sprawled out on the rug.
    Aubrey sighed. She slid off the side of the bed, and landed firmly on the floor. She sleepily went over to the night stand, and after turning off her alarm clock, she checked the time. 7:30. She had to be at the police station by 8:15. So she had 45 minutes. Good thing I took a shower last night.
As she got ready, she started to think about why she'd even accepted to do this in the first place. Sure, Makenzie had kind of peer pressured her into taking the job. Although it wouldn't be full time, and there would probably be a probationary period... But Aubrey didn't even know that much about forensics. If that's what she'd be doing. And sure, Makenzie wasn't wrong, Aubrey hadn't had a steady job in a little over a year. So really, she should be happy that her friend got her a job. With steady pay. But, it was at the police station. So she'd be working with law enforcement. Which wouldn't be good for her superhero identity. Or her introverted-ness. But regardless, she told Makenzie she'd go, at least "test it out". So, she would go.
   After she was done getting dressed, she grabbed a backpack from under her bed and put some things she thought she'd need in it.
She slipped it on, filled her cats' food bowls, and walked out of her apartment, quickly locking the door behind her.

    When she arrived, she shut off her vespa, and parked it. She gazed up at the intimidating building. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves some, and walked into the lobby.
It was a medium sized rectangle hallway, with a reception desk at the end and doors leading to the two parts of the station, on either side wall. She remembered Makenzie telling her once that the police station was to the right, and the morgue to the left. At the reception desk sat a woman staring at a computer.
    Anxiety washed over her as she shyly walked up to it.
"Can I help you?" the woman said, not looking up from the computer.
    "Uh-Um, yeah. I-I'm supposed to be a new science specialist...here." Aubrey replied awkwardly.
The lady lazily glanced up at her. She studied Aubrey for a moment, then turned back to the computer.
    Aubrey stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do. She decided to look around a bit more. The lobby was practically empty except for the receptionist, her, and some waiting chairs.
    "Are you Aubrey Bridgitte Freeman?"
Aubrey turned back to the receptionist. She cringed when she said her second name.
    "Yes. That's me."
"Can I see your ID please?"
"Um, yeah." She pulled her Kavu around and took out her wallet. She showed her ID to the receptionist lady. The receptionist scrutinized it, scrunching her eyebrows together.
    "Ok, Thank you. Go through those doors over there please." She pointed to the left.
    "Uh, thank you."
She put away her ID, and approached the doors the lady had pointed to. She pulled one open and was greeted by a lot of desks, and lots of police officers. She stared, her anxiety level rising. She thought about turning around and leaving right then. But it was too late. A familiar voice called out to her.
    "Hey!" a voice said to her right. Aubrey turned to find Makenzie striding towards her. She was practically beaming at her. Looking far more happy that Aubrey was there than Aubrey was herself.
Makenzie stopped next to her "I'm glad you came." She said. Aubrey glanced around again and just nodded in response.
   "You'll be fine." Mackenzie rubbed Aubrey's arm in comfort "Now c'mon. Captain needs to see you." She pulled on Aubrey's arm to lead her to wherever they were going.
Makenzie seemed to be leading her to a box shaped room that had almost opaque glass walls, except the door and top windows around the door were clear. It stuck out sorely.
Makenzie lead Aubrey into the room, and let go of her arm once she was in the middle of it.
She gave Makenzie a playful glare and Makenzie returned it as she sat down. Aubrey turned to a woman in front of her. The woman had dark skin and straight black hair that was pulled back into a tight bun. She had a serious, no nonsense face, but Aubrey could sense a motherly air about her. She was holding a file in her hands.
There were two other people in the room with her(other than Makenzie, and the woman in front of Aubrey). Both were men. One had turquoise blue hair, light blue eyes and was wearing a lab coat. He also had a tablet in his hands.
The other had dark brown hair and gray eyes. He seemed...familiar to her though. After a moment It dawned on her that he was the police officer who tried to ask her questions after she fought off those thieves yesterday. He always tried to ask her questions actually. He looked up at her and gave her a questioning look, and Aubrey realized she was staring.
"Miss Freeman." the woman said. Aubrey turned back to the woman. She assumed she was the Captain.
"Um, call me Aubrey please." Aubrey said.
"Alright then, Aubrey. We don't usually hire people in this way but, thank you for coming this morning"
"Mmhmm." Aubrey nodded.
"I'm Gianna Ferguson, the police captain of this unit. You may call me Captain Ferguson. Makenzie came to me the other day, and told me about you, and that you needed a job."
Aubrey cringed internally. Mack did not. She turned to Makenzie and glared at her. Makenzie shrugged and gave her a playful smirk. "She said you went to the St. Louis University of Arts and Sciences, and that you were top of your class. And after looking at your file, I thought I'd offer you the job, seeing as we are low on science specialists."
    "Science specialists?" Aubrey asked.
    "Oh yes, the city implemented the program a couple years ago, Science specialist are like forensic analysts but broader. They deal with science matters...outside of homicides."
    "Oh."
    "Now, He is Christian Porter. He's our other science specialist, you'll be working with him directly." She gestured to the blue haired man. "And he is officer Wyatt Wells."she pointed at the man Aubrey recognized. "And of course you already know Makenzie.
"And I have read and looked over your file, records and medical history. But I do have a couple questions, if you don't mind."
"Uh...sure?"
    "Great. From your job history, it stated after college you worked for a research company. But you left after one year of working there. And you didn't pursue science again. Why is that?"
    Aubrey was caught off guard by the question. She hesitated, not knowing how to answer.
    "Um, uh...I left the company after, um, I was in an accident. Um, I rather not talk about it if that's ok." She glanced away.
"No, that's fine." Aubrey heard the slight concern in her voice. "Um, On your resume, under skills, it has listed Gymnastics, acrobatics, and trapeze arts. How did you learn these skills?"
    "Oh. Uh, my mom was a gymnast and growing up she was apart of a traveling circus so when I was growing up she taught me all she knew." She was starting to feel uncomfortable about all of these questions.
"And, last thing I had a question about. On your medical history, what is it you have an allergy to?"
"Oh, uh. Parsley."
    "What?"
    "I'm allergic to parsley...ma'am."
"Wait, parsley? Like, the herb? Parsley?" Wyatt said unconvinced. Aubrey turned to him, realizing that was the first time he'd spoken.
    "...yes." She said. People were allergic to uncommon things all the time. Why was this such a big deal.
    "Ok, but why parsley?" He asked, still seeming unconvinced. Though she could sense a playfulness in his tone.
    She looked at him quizzically "Uh, I don't know...I don't control my immune system." She  gave him one more confused look, then turned to face the Captain again. But she heard a chuckle from behind her.
"Well. That's all the questions I had. Thank you for clearing those things up for me.
   "Oh um, you're welcome."
    "You will be on a probationary period for 6 to 9 months, for evaluation. So you will unofficially officially work here. If you need to go on scene, or on an investigation  you will report to Detective Wells and Detective Webb."
    "Oh, ok."
"I believe that's all." Captain glanced to all of them, and there was an awkward silence now that the she was done.
    "Why don't you three show Aubrey around? Give her a tour?"
    "Sure!" Makenzie said with enthusiasm and stood up. The four of them walked out of the Captain's office.
"So Bree, this is my partner, in crime stopping, Wyatt." Makenzie gestured to him.
"Oh, So this is the infamous Wyatt." Aubrey said, looking him over.
"And you're Aubrey. Ya know, Makenzie wouldn't stop talking about you. So it's nice to finally meet you." Wyatt said.
"Yeah..." Aubrey said.
    "Ok, now that you've met, on to the tour!" Makenzie said, a little too enthusiastically for Aubrey.
   Makenzie showed her around the station, pointing out where everything was. From the captain's office, the desks were to the right. And on the left were waiting chairs and processing stations. Makenzie showed her her desk and how she had a good view of the road. Beyond the desks, almost directly behind them was a conference room, and two interrogation rooms. And there were other rooms but Makenzie nor Wyatt told her what they were. In the middle of the station towards the back there was a short set of stairs that led to a lower floor, they seemed to be heading there next.
They went down the stairs, and into a room that was very white, had a lot of science equipment in it, and was a little too big.
"Uh, this is the lab, where I do the science stuff." Christian said. Aubrey realized that was the first time he had spoken. Which was kind of odd, because he'd been with them the entire time. But she also noticed he had an Australian accent.
"And uh, you'll be working down here with me. Kay?"
"Kay."
    "Um, I guess, fun fact, this used to be the morgue. But they decided it was a little small so they built a new one across the hall and relocated there. So now we get this big, very big space, heh."
   Aubrey nodded her head "I see."
"Now C'mon. You have to meet the others." Makenzie said. Once again she pulled on Aubrey's arm for her to follow. Oh geez.
"Geez. Ok, Mack." She chuckled a little.
They went back upstairs to the main floor. Makenzie lead her to an area that looked like a place for lounging. On one wall there were sofa's and a coffee table. On the back wall was a counter, with a coffee maker and a bowl of snacks sitting on it. And on the other wall, there were a couple vending machines. And in the middle there were two tables and some chairs that matched the sofas. Aubrey assumed this was the break room.
    There were three other people in the room, and they were all sitting on one of the sofas. They looked up, and turned directly toward Aubrey.
Makenzie let go of her arm and said,"So, these are the others." She gestured to them."Well, some of the others. I know how you feel about human interaction so I'm not gonna make you meet everyone today. But you will meet every one eventually."
    "Oookay." Aubrey nodded.
"Oh my gosh she's a ginger!" a female voice said. A woman with light brown hair and blue eyes stood up and rushed over to where Aubrey was standing. The woman tried to touch Aubrey's hair, but Aubrey just dodged out of the way.
This went on for about a minute until Aubrey got fed up. She was about to tell her to stop but Wyatt spoke up first.
   "Ok Bella, that's enough." He gently moved Bella's arm away from Aubrey's hair.
    "But she's a ginger!" Bella said pleadingly.
   "I know, you'll be ok." Bella made a pouty face at him, and Wyatt chuckled and patted her shoulder. Aubrey scrunched her eyebrows together in confusion at the two of them.
"Anyway. This is Bella." Makenzie said, giggling at what just happened.
"Uh huh." She didn't know what to say.
"Heh, hi." Bella waved "sorry about that. It's just, I haven't met a lot of red haired people. And  your hair's so vibrant and pretty! But I'm, sorry again."
"Um, thank you? And uh, that's... that's ok." Aubrey wasn't really sure how to respond to that. From this encounter Bella didn't seem like the typical police officer. She seemed very...bubbly and happy.
Makenzie introduced her to the other two men sitting on the sofas. Their names were Hunter, and Jack. They waved and nodded at her in greeting.
Aubrey waved back at them, awkwardly.
"So you're our new science girl." Jack said.
"Yup." She felt a bit awkward.
"It's about time. We've been needing another one around here." Hunter said.
"Hey!" Christian said, defensively. She could see by his facial expression that he'd been offended.
"What happened to the one before me?" Aubrey asked.
"Oh, there were too many near death experiences for him." Wyatt said nonchalantly.
"What." Aubrey glanced at him, slightly alarmed.
"Im kidding" he smiled "He just, quit." He shrugged.
She squinted at him skeptically But that means something happened though...
    "But we do have another science specialist." Christian pointed out.
   "We do?" Jack, Wyatt, Bella, and Hunter said in unison.
   "Uh...yeah."
    "Are they a ghost? Because apparently we don't see them." Wyatt said.
    "...no. He just, works part time. So he's not really here a lot."
    "Oh."
    Aubrey listened to them talk about other things, like past or current cases or what they did over the weekend. Sometimes they'd ask her questions and she'd answer them. Or she'd chime in every once in a while. But she hadn't been at the police station very long and she was already peopled out for the day.
    She didn't really know how she felt about Makenzie's co workers yet. But Christian seemed nice. And Wyatt... she didn't know about him yet.
   Aubrey was brought out of her thoughts when I chill ran up her spine. She shivered. She noticed Wyatt cast her a confused glance. But if he was gonna ask about the shiver he didn't get the chance. Around the station loud dings and alarms on phones went off. Makenzie pulled out her phone and read a notification.
    "There's a report of an armed and dangerous male on 10th street." She said. She and the others shared glances, and they rushed out of the break room. When they entered the main room, Captain Ferguson was barking orders and shouting the names of officers and detectives.
    "Webb! Wells! With me, c'mon!" The captain shouted. Makenzie and Wyatt strode towards her.
    "We usually stay here. We don't go to emergencies like these that much." Christian said. But Aubrey needed to go. She might be able to help.
    She thought it over quickly and approached Makenzie "Mack! I wanna come with you."
    "What?! No.", Makenzie spun around.
    "Please. I won't interfere. And uh, it can a learning experience. So I can see what emergencies are like."
Makenzie stared at her intensely, like they were having a stare down.
    "Fine." Makenzie was annoyed at her. "If I get in trouble, I'm blaming you."
    "Ok." she walked past Makenzie and  into the lobby.

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- So here's the second part of chapter one!!
- Please let me know how you're liking it so far!
- Sorry if this chapter's pretty long compared to the previous one 😅😅. And also sorry that there's not much action. But there will be some in the next part though!
-Anyway, I hope y'all liked this part!
- Vote, comment, and share please.

- Candace 😊