External Narrator
Rob awakens with a gasp. He opens his eyes only to close them again immediately. Rain was pouring down onto his face and body, which laid on the very damp sidewalk. He looks around after clearing enough water away from his face. It was fully dark now. The streetlights were on, however they were far enough apart where there was a section of darkness on the streets before they could once again be luminated.
Faces peaked from between the shadows of buildings, some peeking out from windows. They were all surprised to see this man alive. Rob himself was surprised after the beating he took.
He groans as he pushes himself off the ground. A glance at his watch lets him know that it is extremely late. He also notes that it’s time for him to go back the way he came from, because the child in his care should be long gone from the place where they have been residing. If she wasn’t at their rendezvous point, he would raise hell to find her.
A step forward has him groaning again. His hip was killing him. Rob was no longer qualified to be a field agent, instead being helpful behind screens and in some cases, being as far away from the action at the other side of the country. Keeping Cammie safe was no exception. It was his job, his duty to keep her safe. If he didn’t, then he would have broken code.
His first step has him contorting his face to pain and muffling yet another groan. The next step comes with a limp. He holds his left arm close to his chest. However, the next step has something crinkling underneath his shoe. He glances down. Nothing is on the ground. He looks around. The curious faces, now realizing that they have been caught, once more disappear into the shadows.
All but one.
The young boy, who can no older than eight years old, timidly walks to the older man who is limping down the street. He flinches at the thought of the scolding his mother will surely give him later, but he would not leave this man alone. Not after what he saw those other men do, the men who were like his father.
“Excuse me, mister,” he whispered.
Rob stops and turns rigid. Slowly, while slipping his right hand - his shooting hand - into the pocket of his jacket, he turns. A young boy with red curly hair that comes to his shoulders and freckles lining every inch of his face stares at him with hesitant big, green eyes.
“Excuse me,” he says again. “D-do you want help? I saw what those men did to you. I-I want to help you if you’d let me sir.”
The young boy made sure to include as many manners as he could, made sure to directly address Rob as sir various times, and made sure that Rob had the power of any outcome he would so desire. That was what his mother always told him. Never command, but rather offer everything you could.
Squinting his eyes at the young boy standing with no supervision in the dark rain, Rob notices that his shirt was completely soaked and dirty, his pants worked more like shorts based off of how many holes they contained, and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. He frowned. It was kids like this boy that were the reason Rob did what he did for a living. He takes a limp forward towards the boy.
When he walks forward, his shadow moves and Rob notices something else on the boy: a bruise. Not only one, but various bruises. They line his arms, his face, his neck. A lot of black and purple is visible and almost no creamy color of the boy’s complexion is seen - even less with the darkness around him.
With a frown and a sigh, Rob takes his gun and moves it to the back waistband of his jeans. He then proceeds to take off his jacket, making sure the two hundred dollars he was carrying were still in there. He offers his jacket to the boy.
The boy stared up at Rob with wonder in his big round eyes. “Are-is that for me, sir?”
“Of course,” Rob smiles sadly. “Take it. Go on.”
Without a word of complaint, the boy eagerly takes the jacket and runs off into the night. Rob frowns long after he’s outside of his vision. Now, it was time for him to search for Cameron, if she really did leave, like he told her to.
------
By the time Rob reached their meeting place, it was almost midnight. The clouds were still covering the sky, however the rain had been going on and off throughout the night. The little cafe sign has a letter light that had pulled its fuse a long time ago, so it now reads ‘afe’. The door was closed, however the cafe was clearly opened as the word ‘open’ illuminated quite prominently.
The door opening rings a bell and Rob flinches as the sound cuts through the silence as the rain takes a moment of rest. The walls of the cafe bore different shades of brown and were quite welcoming. The inside smelled like coffee and Rob wrinkled his nose. He hated the taste and smell of the ever popular drink.
“Diana?” He calls out, hoping the kind, older woman would be in the back with Cameron. Unfortunately for him, when the older lady walked out of the back room, she was alone.
“Robert!” She exclaimed when she saw him. He walks up to her as she swings her arms around him.
“Diana, how have you been?” Rob asks, however despite his attempts of being polite, his heart was pounding as he kept hopping for Cammie to appear from the back room.
“She’s not here,” Diana pulls back with a frown, having noticed his stiff stance.
“Dammit!” He shouts as turns around to slam his fists into the nearest table, almost as though he were the child and were throwing a tantrum.
“What’s going on?” The old woman whispers with wide eyes filled with fear and worry.
“I-I have to call Riley,” Rob murmurs as he pulls out his cell phone. The phone dials and rings, rings, rings Riley’s number, but she never picks up. Again, Rob dials, but again, no one answers.
Rob stomps his foot infrustration and once again, he hears a crinkle. He stares in confusion to the floor and up to Diana who is also staring at where the noise came from.
“Take off your shoe,” She orders and he complies.
There, on a soaking wet piece of paper, are the barely visible words:
The girl will be returned in exchange for Riley Smith.
----
Helen stares wide eyed at the phone once the call is abruptly ended. Steven stares at her with confusion in his eyes.
“What was that about?” He asks as he slowly takes the phone out of the hands of his motionless sister.
“The Lunar Praise. Who are they and what do we know about them?” Helen asks with fear in her voice. The unknown is something that a lot of people tend to fear, the two siblings included.
“The Lunar Praise,” Steven murmurs as he types rapidly on his laptop. He spends around ten minutes typing and hacking and reading and researching before he is able to come to a conclusion. He stares up at Helen with wide eyes as he motions to his screen.
On the screen is a mugshot of a middle aged man with a double chin and a horrible shade of balding brown hair on top of his head. His eyes have bags underneath and his gray pupils look empty - no emotion or regret in them. Below him is his name and further down, the list of crimes he has committed:
Murder
Killing for a gang
Killing of a federal officer
Gang Involvement
Taking Minors across state borders
Taking part in the escape of a highly wanted gang leader
Ect.
The image also states that he is sentenced for life in a Minnesota Prison for the killing of Abigail Smith, a former FBI agent. It also reads about his involvement in the Lunar Praise, and how a few years ago he helped their leader, Quil Skyler escape from a Minnesota Prison right before he was transported by helicopter to a Texas prison where he would await his execution date.
“Abigail Smith,” Helen murmurs.
“Riley Smith,” Steven connects the dots for her. “This person killed Abigail Smith, Riley’s mother. The question would be why. However, that’s all right here in the mission report write up.”
Steven changes the screen and there is now a bundle of words taking the place of the image of the murderer. The file is titled Mission MNXQS0417. It was written by a man named Robert Wilson.
The mission had been a success. Unfortunately, the success didn’t last very long. At 0041 hours, Abigail Smith had been pronounced dead. She was shot two times, once in the stomach, and other hitting the middle of her chest. Various sources say that Riley Smith, Abigail’s daughter was found at the scene covered in sprinkles of her mother’s blood and terror in her eyes. When briefed about the circumstances that led to the death, all she did was stare at the table murmuring about how she broke code. Her father relays that various times Riley and Abigail would communicate in coded words, like trained field agents are required.
Outside sources such as neighbors report that they saw two men escape through the window once our agents arrived on the scene. Afterward, at 0322 hours, Quil Skyler was escorted to the helicopter for his transportation from Minnesota to Texas. At 0325, the extraction team was terminated, and Skyler escaped. The mission was a fail.
The two men located Skyler through the information they had been provided from Abigail Smith. It is believed that Abigail died saving her daughter, and in doing so, had to relay the very sensitive information to protect her child’s life. The men attacked Smith as she had been reported through various of their sources to have been the one to capture and arrest Skyler. Based on our sources, we can confirm this true. Her daughter is now in our care, and her father has requested that she remain with us.
At 1109 hours, this mission statement was completed. The mission is branded as a fail.
-Robert Wilson
“What did you find on Quil Skyler? Who is Lunar Praise, and why did the FBI get involved?” Helen orders the information from Steven.
He shrugs. “The information has been encrypted so that not even I can hack. It seems as though the Pentagon doesn’t want anyone to find any more information on Quil or the Lunar Praise. I was, however, able to find more information on Robert Wilson and Abigail Smith.”
The computer flickers as the contents on the screen once again change. On the screen are images of Rob in LA through various angles and different locations and scenarios. In two of five, Rob shows up with a little girl with brown hair. A close up shows that she has blue eyes.
“Robert Wilson lives on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and it appears as though he has adopted a child. However, further research shows that the child under his care is a part of an ongoing mission. The files which are also too far encrypted for my skills. Moving on,” Steven murmurs as he switches his screen and next are two different face angles on Abigail Smith.
Abigail Smith, having been dead for a little over five years, has no current pictures. However, the two provided were from government profiles.
“The woman has not a single scratch on record. She was a spy for the FBI, involving herself in various cases to bring down gang connections throughout the country. A lot of the gangs were small, with a little over a hundred members, and afterwards she was immediately extracted from the situation. Her husband was pronounced dead a few months after she was. However, he was a result of a gang member initiation process, which required the killing of a civilian. That left her only daughter, Riley, an orphan.” Steven reads. “Her last mission, against the Lunar Praise, lasted the longest - years in fact. When she finally had enough information to incriminate Quil Skyler, she was successful. Unfortunately for her, her success was short lived, and Quil was only in jail for less than 72 hours.”
“Less than 72 hours is very impressive,” Helen murmurs. “Who are the Lunar Praise, and other than Riley, what reason would they have for attacking the Black Knights - at a gathering in which various gangs from around Minnesota are attending!”
“That’s the thing,” Steven says, barely glancing up from rapid typing on his keyboard. “There is no gang in Minnesota history to have the resources, or be as strong as this gang has had to be in order to free their leader. The Lunar Praise are not from here, they’re from somewhere else.”
“From New York?” Helen asks as she mentally lists any gang that could have potentially been this powerful from her state.
“Not likely, it appears as though their icon is an upturned wolf howling up to the sky.”
Helen snorts. “Well, at least their symbol makes sense. A wolf praises the moon. Whereas ours, for a gang of our reputation, is quite weak.”
“Exactly. There can be no repeats in the symbols, therefore this gang has to be one of the originals, from when the country was first forming.”
“One of the originals. There aren’t very many left,” Helen trails off.
“And we’ve never heard of them before - during the Roarin’ 20s, the opposing sides consisted of mostly allies between us and the Black Knights.” Steven adds.
“But if they’re one of the originals, that means they must reside in one of the former 13 colonies.”
“Regardless of where they are located, for the FBI to risk the lives of their agents to bring them down, and for them to go through all the trouble of keeping them hidden,” Helen mutters.
“Then there is no guaranteeing the survival of any of the gangs at Alexander’s party.”
Hey guys! 👋
So ... I've updated 😁
Eh ... so, how does it feel not paying attention to details and not realizing how Quil and Riley were connected 🤨
I'll update this sometime in the next week (knowing me, in two weeks)
I would appreciate if you would check out my entry to the Open Novella Contest! It's science fiction, so something new for me. It'll have a lot more romance than this book has had so far, that's for sure! 😉 It's called the Dead Century (it has zombiiies! (No, her love interest is NOT a zombie))
As always, I'll see yall later.
Bye! 👋