The Little Dove #3 ✔️

36. Who Are You, Edmund Creed?

"We do, but some students are weaker than others and don't last long in these fights. Down there, is our best and brightest line, with Sampson Seer as the head of that particular group. They're known as our brightest Warriors." She informs me, I make sure my phone is pressed on record as I look at the six men, that shock me when I see their faces.

That picture of the eight figures from Edmund's wallet, that included Talon. Those other six, unknown males, are here.

I furrow my eyebrows, "How old are those men?" I ask her, gesturing with my glove to Sampson, the one who had been sending me information through a loophole in one of their internet connections that I couldn't locate so easily, yet I managed to get his name and details.

Sampson Seer. Family was unknown, he was in his mid-twenties, pitch black curls and dark blue eyes, he was currently half naked, bleeding along his cheeks and temples with his fists up against a tanner opponent, who looked far worse in his state. Both were equally muscular though.

"They have been here since their mid-teens, now they're in their mid-twenties. It is not uncommon that many treat the elder ones under a rehabilitation unit, instead of a general foster home." She says, gesturing back to the door, I look quickly to the VIP, watching and trying to understand just who they are, focusing on faces, rather than anything else.

She must have thought I was a trusted detective within the New York PD, a stranger couldn't possibly learn this much, especially with the way she watches each opponent hurt the other, like an outside victor of her own. It was sickening to see when I cool my expression as she turns to the door, "There was a specific file you were looking for?" She questions.

Here was the hard part... "Edmund Tiberius." I say his name as stoically as possible.

Her eyes flash, "The PD are still on that case. He died over three years ago, has there been a connection?" She asks me, I think fast.

"Possibly, which is why I need to know all the details of the case. How long had he been here before he passed?" I ask her, knowing enough of the possible facts to make her think I was who I said I was.

She straightens her jacket, "Please, let's discuss this case in my office, it is highly confidential." She says, a worried eyebrow raised as she basically struts down the hall and towards a set of stairs. She opens the double doors and steps inside, I follow after her, looking around the room of highly adapted punishment tools, rulers, whips, books of large quantities as well. My nostrils flare, she doesn't notice as she moves behind her desk, using a key to unlock a specific cabinet.

She shakily sighs, "Edmund was a troublesome child. Quiet when Oswald first brought him in, that was his biological father, but Oswald was no father to his son, Edmund had already been abused when he attended the institute. Oswald dropped him off at the age of ten or eleven. He was a large boy, most foster kids were lanky from starvation, but this one, eleven years old and he already had muscle. He started the fights when he was twelve years old, one year with us and he learned the ways of discipline quickly. His group was wit the Warriors, in fact." She says to me, placing a file in front of me, I make sure that the chair was positioned in a way where my peripheral vision could see the door, and her, clearly.

I open the first file, and am horrified when I see sharpened silver eyes staring back at me, the boy, supposedly eleven years old, was Edmund with a cast on his arm, a black eye and eerily short pitch black hair.

I look up to the headmistress in shock, she sighs, nodding, "Oswald wasn't the best parent role model. He used his son as a whacking boy for the employees who disobeyed him in his oil manufacturing company. Oswald didn't explicitly say, but we knew Edmund was born from a low life woman in her teens, someone Oswald had a one night stand with, or so the rumours here say. Edmund was his only child. One he didn't know about until nine years later when the orphanage created an online website. Oswald was a great investor for the institute, we took Edmund under our wing when hospitals began filing reports of the abuse that was suspected." She whispers, showing me another file, a picture of their graves when she opens it.