"THE BANSHEE HAS STRUCK AGAIN, KILLING A MAN IN THE BAR KNOWN AS 'TEMPTATIONS'"
Liam stared blankly at the screen shoved in front of his face, courtesy of Kate, who'd brought up the subject matter a few minutes ago, and was surprised when her fluffy-haired friend had absolutely no idea what she was talking about; clearly not up to date with the latest bit of news that was being pumped out to the masses.
"When...when did this happen?" He stuttered out, a mixture of surprise and horror strewn across his face as she scrolled through the crime-scene photos, which he was surprised that they would just openly put out given how incredibly graphic and disturbing they were, almost in disbelief by what he was seeing.
The other murders were just as graphic, leaving Liam in a state of confusion as to why this photo bothered him so much. Maybe it was because he hadn't seen anything this graphic in quite a while, or because it was the day after he and Layla had told each other that the Banshee wouldn't get away with this anymore, that he and her would put a stop to his killings.
He wasn't entirely sure which one it was.
"Just last night, I think? It's totally bonkers though, right Lemmy? I mean- this is like a few miles away from my apartment!" exclaimed Kate in a dramatic fashion. She wasn't entirely wrong, the Temptations bar wasn't too far away from where she and her father lived together in a two-bedroom apartment, in supposedly a 'not high-crime area' guess that wasn't true anymore.
"...Yeah, that's crazy. Did the police say anything about finding any clues, or?"
Kate raised her brow, leaning forward just a few inches away from Liam's reddening face, asking curiously "You wouldn't happen to be the Banshee, would you, Lemmy? Sounding awfully suspicious and concerned about them finding stuff..."
Liam stammered to find the words to refute her ridiculous claim, only to be saved by Kate suddenly bursting out laughing, nearly falling out of her chair as she swung her legs and arms around, nearly hitting Liam in the process who ducked around her legs, tears beginning to swell in her eyes from how hard she'd been laughing.
"Just messin' with you! Oh man, you should've seen your face, Lemmy!" Kate laughed aloud.
With a blank stare, Liam shook his head with a soft sigh. "Yeah yeah, whatever you say. But seriously, is there anything that they found out?" In all honesty, he didn't believe that the police were going to do anything. Not after he heard about how corrupt the police were, allowing the Midknight Riders to go by with little problems, so he doubted they'd care in this case either.
"Nah, they haven't found anything, said they searched the entire thing like, hundreds of times and there was nothing there. Cleanest crime scene they'd ever seen." Kate replied.
There wasn't much time for him to say anything, as the teacher stepped into the room announcing his presence with a war cry, adding to the man's already large reputation of being the weirdest teacher in the school— if not the country, but that was probably an exaggeration. The ones who sleep with students are probably just a little bit weirder.
Liam wanted to leave the room and get to what he considered to be actually important, such as solving the crimes of the man terrorizing the citizens of New York with a consistent murder spree, but he knew that wouldn't result in anything good for him, considering his already incredibly long streak of skipping school, and honestly, he was surprised that he hadn't been expelled from school yet, which he figured was a result of his parents stopping the principal who he was aware didn't particularly like him anyway.
He sat through the boring class, practically falling asleep, though he wouldn't dare— as he actually wanted to somewhat pass the class, even if it was completely useless for him to learn. Because seriously who cares about Math? At least the other useless classes have hot teachers, which encourage you to pay attention, for example being Ms. Coral the Sex-Ed teacher is an absolute bombshell, which prompts sexual jokes from the degenerates, but above all captures everyone's attention.
Usually, teacher and student relationships are gross, and should 100% result in the teacher being punished however the law sees fit, unless it was him and Ms. Coral, then it wouldn't be so bad; but that was definitely biased talking. Not that he really minded bias in this specific situation.
But unfortunately, he's stuck with the Math teacher weirdo, who is most likely grooming an 8-year-old over Discord, and calling them his "kitten", which, if that were true, wouldn't surprise anyone in the slightest. Everyone who took his class was practically betting on it, which sounds like a joke, but it really isn't.
An hour passed and the class had finally wrapped up, a mentally exhausted Liam dragged his feet through the classroom door, his once fully functioning brain now that of a coma patient in a vegetative state, his shoulders hung low, his head dropped between his shoulder blades.
"Oh, would you come on here, Lemmy?" With an annoyed sigh at his slow-moving pace, Kate grabbed him by the shoulder and drug him through the hallways, and to their destination, his locker where Edward awaited with a smug grin.
"Oh, have the two peasants finally arrived?" said Edward, practically begging to bring out Kate's wrath.
"...What happened now?"
"'Ya boy got the number of one of the prettiest girls in school!" He boasted loudly and proudly, puffing his chest out at his friends who looked more disturbed than they did impressed. "Did you hold her hostage?" "Or kidnap her family until she gave up her number?"
Edward rolled his eyes at his friend's antics, "See? Of course, you guys would hate on me, neither of you is well-versed in getting women, so why would you or 'Lemmy' understand how difficult such a task is, I completed it with flying colors!"
Liam just looked confused, hardly understanding anything that his friend was saying. "What?"
"No clue," sighed Kate. "Just gotta play along with his delusion."
"Delusion? You know what, I won't entertain this any longer. Keep hating on me while I get the bag."
"..."
"You're an idiot."
"Hater. Keep hating because you're jealous that Liam doesn't-" Kate clamped the palm of her hand onto Edwards's mouth, jabbing her elbow into his stomach, momentarily stunning him— stopping the boy from speaking as the wind had been knocked out of him. "Shut up!" She hissed viciously.
"Liam doesn't what?" asked Liam himself, confused about whatever Edward was talking about, which was so important that Kate would intentionally hurt him.
"Nothing, you don't nothing," Kate replied with an annoyed stare.
Clearly confused, Liam didn't bother to press the issue any further, instead turning his attention to the now recovering Edward who wasn't exactly happy with the actions of Kate but wouldn't dare say anything about it, which gave Liam the impression that he was more than likely in the wrong, seeing as Kate's behavior was very out of the ordinary.
They resumed the conversation as normal, or whatever was normal for them at the least, until classes resumed- the trio going to their separate classes.
Their classes were normal as per usual, with nothing particularly interesting or noteworthy happening, which Liam wasn't too surprised about. Once school was over Liam decided against conversing with his friends, instead deciding to head straight to the usual meet-up spot with Phoenix, or Layla rather.
He climbed up the fire escape to the rooftop where Layla awaited, and was surprised to see her dressed in what could be considered normal clothes, a pair of basketball shorts that hung just short of her kneecaps, her hair tied in a messy bun, a red workout shirt loosely hanging from her shoulder, and some red sneakers to match with the shirt.
His surprise came from never seeing her outside of her vigilante outfit, which he was almost starting to believe was the only thing that she ever wore. "Hey, how long have you been waiting up here?"
"Not long, only..." She paused for a moment to take a look at the time on her phone, reading the time through the many cracks on her phone screen, placing it back down to it's previous position, right beside her right thigh. "...Twenty minutes. Only 'cause I had to quickly stop a few muggings and all, keeping the city safe without you, as per usual."
Liam raised his brow in suspicion, "But you can't seem to do that with actual threats?"
Layla scoffed, a look of offense crossing her face. "What do you mean by that? I literally saved your butt against Terrabyte!" Liam laughed aloud at her witty remark, shaking his head. "You barely did anything, what'dya mean? I mean yeah you blinded him and stuff, but I could've done that myself. Had to give you something to do."
"Sexism."
"Wha-what's sexism?"
"This conversation is one-hundred-percent sexism."
"How's it sexism then?" asked Liam, placing his hands on his hips.
"So anyway!" Layla quickly changed the topic of the conversation, which didn't go unnoticed by Liam, but he decided against saying anything about it, allowing her to shift the topic onto the actual topic at hand. "So anyway, I think the first order of business should be investigating the newest crime scene."
"Agreed. Supposedly the cops checked them, but how do we even know that they did a good job, after finding out that they're basically corrupt, and easily swayed by a little bit of money?"
"Yeah, so I think that we should investigate the newest crime-scene, and then get to the previous ones, and the ones from before," Layla suggested, and Liam was quick to agree, nodding his head in agreement. "Got your suit on you, Lay?"
"Pffftt, my body is my suit, Li." She told him with a smirk as her clothes began to ignite, molding into her vigilante gear, even creating a pair of sunglasses that hid away her beautiful eyes. At least in the opinion of Liam. Not that he would ever tell her that, in case of increasing her already growing ego.
"Showoff," He laughed playfully.
Layla stepped forward, getting as close as the reddening Liam would allow her to, ruffling his hair. "Only for you," She flirted, her red lips curving into a sly grin.
"I-I-I-uhm, I," Liam stammered out- his face turning beet red, visibly flustered.
"You're super cute when you're flustered," She stated boldly.
"What's with all of the flirting all of a sudden?" He asked, trying his hardest to ignore her flirtatious words. "I see something I want, so I'm making what I want obvious." He couldn't argue with that logic, in fact, he was in no position to be arguing either, the girl making it incredibly obvious that she could make him putty in her hands if she really wanted to.
And she was definitely going to use that to her advantage, in order to get what she wanted; with that being Liam himself.
"I...we should focus on the mission first, don't you think?" Layla rolled her eyes, leaning backward, and shrugging her shoulders. "Whatever you say, Liam."
"Uhm...yeah, yeah, I wasn't able to bring all of my stuff but I have my mask, so that should be fine regardless, since we're just snooping and not actually, you know, trying to pick fights or anything."
"Speak for yourself."
Liam dug his hand into his right pants pocket and pulled out a bandana, wrapping it around his mouth, just over his nose, and tied it to the back of his head. "Come on, let's get going," He told her as he crouched down, electricity swarming him and merging to create a board of electricity that hovered in the air for him to get on top of.
Layla did the same to achieve virtually the same result, the only difference being her board consisted of raging flames that constantly shifted and fought against each other, the wind being the girl's ally as it served to increase the volume of the fire. She pumps her fist into the air, crying out "Let's ride out!"
Liam let out a small chuckle at her seemingly endless reservoir of cheerfulness, even after everything that she'd been through, she somehow managed to still be herself. He almost wished that he could be like that. "Right." He said in agreement, his electric board crackling as it zoomed forward, with Layla protesting as she hurried to catch up to him.
While keeping their eyes peeled for any sort of crime that could be happening, they took turn after turn, almost neck-and-neck, with Liam edging her out in terms of speed though Layla continued to get closer and closer, using her skills in order to close the incredibly obvious gap in raw speed.
Liam arrived at their shared destination moments before Layla, who only rolled her eyes when she saw his smug grin once he pulled his bandana down for a few seconds, before pulling it back up. "Finally here," He said with a cocky smile underneath the fabric that covered his face.
"Yeah yeah, whatever you say, just pay attention," said Layla, cracking a small smile.
The entrances were sealed off with cautionary tape and police officers, in conjunction with CSI on the scene, worked together and examined every bit of the scene that they could, in an attempt to use their combined efforts to find any slight thing that could point them in the direction of the killer, aka the Banshee.
"We've been at this all day, and yet we haven't found a single thing that could be actually useful," One of the officers complained, placing the unused end of his cigarette into his mouth.
"Because there's nothing to find. All of the crime scenes that this guy leaves behind? There's nothing, no DNA evidence, no physical evidence, no digital evidence, nothing. It's like he's some kind of ghost or something, but we keep bothering going through all of this. No one here wants to do this, so it's not like they're really looking anyway," Another one of them replied.
Liam couldn't disagree with anything that the officer was saying. No one felt like investigating any of the crime scenes, except for him and Layla, because of the number of times that they've gone to one of them left behind by the Banshee, only to turn up with absolutely no evidence. He didn't know how it felt, but he assumed that it'd be pretty disheartening, and un-motivating.
But he and Layla were different than that; they planned on scouring the entire premise just to try and find even a scrap of evidence in the building.
Liam motioned for her to move forward, him and her slowly going straight ahead, careful not to make even the slightest bit of noise that could get the cop's attention, fearing that they'd turn from investigating to trying to arrest the two of them, considering they were currently operating under illegal circumstances.
Although it killed the pace that the impatient duo was trying to operate under, they made their way onto the rooftop with no difficulties, Liam spotted an open air duct almost immediately, its top swung off to the side, allowing everything in the air to blow directly into the metal container as if it were begging for the two of them to enter.
"You got in through the air duct," He commanded with authority, "Find whatever you can, and see if you can grab one of the cameras so we can find out if any of them picked anything up that might be of use." Layla nodded her head and took a few steps before diving into the air duct, disappearing into the metal duct.
Liam turned around and looked the opposite way, deciding his best choice of action would be on the lookout.
Meanwhile, Layla crawled through the air duct with great haste, taking appreciation in how clean the metal duct was, quietly remarking about how whoever cleaned it so thoroughly definitely needed a raise; not a single cobweb or speck of dust in sight.
Police officers were spread out in every single room, CSI swabbing the walls and the floors, but none stepping foot in any of the actual rooms, nor the bathroom itself, which wasn't hard for her to notice. "How are they going to investigate a crime scene, but not actually be inside of where the crime took place to begin with" She inquired to no one in particular, and continued on.
There were cameras in each individual corner of the room, even one placed right outside of the bathroom, all flashing a red light every few seconds, signaling they were currently on.
She spent what felt like hours inside of the vents, finding absolutely nothing of value, and was beginning to think there was no point in being here, figuring they would simply come back whenever the police weren't here and see if they could find anything if there even was anything to find in the first place.
But her eyes were caught by a large metal door in the corner of the room, one that the police seemed to be avoiding, which struck her as suspicious.
Moving as fast as she could, Layla snuck over through the air duct, ignoring the sweat that dribbled down her forehead with each movement that she made, beginning to feel hot air blowing straight into her face, making her already difficult task harder than it already was, but luckily for Layla the distance between her and the door wasn't too great.
She made it towards where the door would be, moving a bit further and was now hovering over the room, able to peer inside of the room through the cracks in the ceiling, seeing a desk with multiple monitors pushed up against the wall which she assumed were connected to all of the cameras, judging from what she could see on the screens.
This changed everything; but that left her wondering, why weren't the police here, and checking these cameras? Why were they so discouraged and saying that they couldn't find anything out when there was clearly a system in place to keep a watchful eye out on the place, and footage to review? Something wasn't adding up here.
And she, along with Liam, was going to get to the bottom of this.
Layla dug into the pockets of her shorts, pulled out her phone, and quickly texted Liam, saying "There's a security camera room thingy in here, and I'd bet that we could find something here that could give us at least a visual on the killer. Wanna join me in the vent?" Adding the last part for extra measure.
Liam quickly replied saying "In which room? We can return at night, and then resume our investigation? And it's way too cramped in there for the both of us." Layla rolled her eyes at his response, either not getting her clear hint, or simply ignoring it, but either way was a disappointment.
She turned herself around and began to head back, and only a few minutes later she was popping her head out of the air duct, the rest of her body following suit before she was fully out and back with Liam who patiently waited at the top of the roof, turning his body around to greet her with a smile, saying "Hey, welcome back."
"What should we do while we wait?"
"I have a pretty good idea."
____________________________________________________________________
-A few hours later, at Midnight
Hours went by, and the police eventually left, Liam and Layla returning back to the scene of the crime once they were sure everyone had cleared out.
Rather than return back through the air duct, they instead carefully removed one of the windows, after thirty minutes of messing around trying to get it to open, which it wouldn't for whatever reason, and entered that way but were careful enough not to leave any prints behind, wearing gloves that would ensure their fingertips would be nowhere on the scene.
Liam allowed Layla to lead him to the room she was talking about, using her Super-Strength to 'carefully' remove the door from its hinges, and open it just enough for them to enter, not bothering to close it behind them, seeing as there was no one else there but the two of them.
The security camera room was far less of a mess than the rest of the bar, almost as if it were completely untouched by the police, without a speck of yellow caution tape which became almost an eye-sore, as it was seen from around practically every corner, being rather simple in design.
In order to prevent the room from being totally bland, the walls were decorated a bright blue with many different paintings along the wall, a desk, a chair, a keyboard and mouse, a few monitors belonging to the cameras pushed up against the back wall and a computer monitor in the middle which didn't appear to belong to any specific camera.
Liam moved around Layla and stepped forward, leaning over the desk and grabbing hold of the keyboard and mouse sprawled across the desk, clicking on the mouse bringing the computer screen to life, showing it was password protected, the background wallpaper nearly making him chuckle, being a burly man snuggling with presumably his pet dog.
Layla threw her arms into the air, groaning. "Ugghh, we go through all of this trouble, just to have to deal with a password-protected computer? Bet it's something to do with his dog."
"Don't worry about it, just let the master work." Layla scoffed, letting out a small laugh, but stayed quiet afterward to observe what exactly he meant.
And she did exactly that, watching Liam 'work' for almost twenty minutes, trying various different password combinations and nearly locking up the entire computer on his last try. He stepped back and threw his hands into the air with an annoyed groan, throwing his head back. "You've gotta be kidding me!"
"Still haven't cracked it?" She asked with a raise of her eyebrow, having leaned back against the wall, interested in watching his many failed attempts.
"Nope, and honestly, this is impossible. We're never gonna get this."
"Scoot over and let me take a crack at it," She said, but was immediately denied by Liam, who then said, "Nah I can do this, I've got this don't worry your pretty head about it, I can definitely get this I just need to think a little more about it."
Layla pretty much ignored everything that he said, minus the pretty part, taking interest in that and only that out of that entire sentence. "So you think I'm pretty?"
Liam froze, embarrassment flooding his features as he slowly turned around, ready to explain his side, and why he'd called her pretty, but failed to do so and shut down mentally. Layla chuckled, "Cute," she said before pushing him aside and bending over the desk, typing in a random set of words and hitting ENTER, unlocking the computer.
"Wha- how did you even- how did you just unlock it!"
"I read the sticky note that says the password," She grinned, then said, "The one that you completely ignored, and didn't read."
"My fault, my fault, even though you didn't mention it whatsoever until I almost locked up the entire computer, but anyway let's check and see what's on this stupid thing." Layla nodded and move around the keyboard and mouse, looking around at all of the files scattered around the screen, but went straight to the ones that held the previous video recordings, which she found by simply looking at the name of the files.
Neither had to say a thing, communicating through looks alone, Layla went straight to the recording from the previous night, and began scrolling through the twelve-hour-long amount of footage dating back to when they first opened that day, so when they closed, presumably. They scanned it for what felt like hours, not finding a single thing.
That is until Liam noticed something. "Wait- stop it for a moment." Layla complied and stopped the recording, pausing on what looked to be the victim of the crime, and a man whose face was hidden from the camera, but his short brown hair and oily white skin made their way into the cameras lens, heading into the bathroom where the man would later be killed.
"Right there, that's him right there, the victim at least." Liam pointed his finger at the screen.
"So that makes this guy..." She pointed her own finger at the screen as well, making sure it would be pushing up against Liam's, saying "...the murderer correct? Definitely not what I was expecting."
"What were you expecting then?" A curious Liam asked.
"I dunno, an actual Banshee or something."
Liam rolled his eyes, "Go back, and we might just get a good glimpse of the guy's face." Layla nodded, clearly liking his plan and doing exactly that, but no matter how far she'd go back, the man was always perfectly out of sight of the cameras, as if he'd already been there and knew the exact layouts of the cameras and where they hit, and where they didn't, only catching glimpses of what they'd already seen from their first viewing of the man.
Layla groaned aloud, defeatedly. "Ugh, this stinks. I don't think we're ever gonna find this guy's face from this footage."
"Maybe we won't, but that doesn't matter. These people right there—" He points to the group of people that the man had been sitting with, "—are the key to finding who this guy is. From how large of a group they are, we can assume they're coming here as a party, for what I mean we can only guess, but if I had to guess these guys are coworkers, so let's just make the assumption that he works with them. From there we can find out the list of workers, and then we find him."
"Good enough of a plan as any," said Layla. "Only thing is finding out who these people are."
"Oh, that? That's gonna be the easiest part of this entire thing. Come on, I'm gonna introduce you to my sidekick."
"Sidekick?"
____________________________________________________________________
Liam led partner-in-crime Layla to a high-rise apartment building, famous for having multiple celebrities living there such as basketball players and A-list actors, which upped the cost of living there quite substantially, so anyone who was living inside there had to have a certain level of wealth and be living a certain lifestyle, though the individual that they were looking for definitely wasn't either an actor or a basketball player, and certainly didn't gain his wealth from normal means.
He stopped her just outside of a window, which they were prohibited from seeing through by a pair of curtains that dangled loosely from the top of the ceiling, black in color. Liam raised his hand into the air and knocked his knuckles against the glass window, a pair of footsteps came almost immediately, the individual that they belonged to running to the window and grabbing it from behind, removing it out of place, revealing a middle-aged man with an annoyed look.
Judging from the way he was dressed, wearing a white wife-beater that hung from one shoulder, revealing his well-built figure underneath, and a pair of shorts, he'd more than likely just gotten out of bed. And that theory was supported when a woman, younger than the man who looked like a supermodel, stepped into view— wearing only an oversized shirt, likely from the man standing before them, her hair messy and sweat dripping down her forehead.
"What do you want, kid? Can't you see I'm busy?" He said, nudging his head toward the woman behind him, who didn't seem to mind two teenagers hovering in the air with electric/fire wings on their backs that flapped in the wind.
"Sorry," He blushed, "I just need your help finding the identities of some people, it's for the Banshee case, Tony."
"The one that I specifically instructed you to stay away from, because it's too dangerous?" Tony said with an annoyed look, though didn't look too suspended that Liam had directly disobeyed his direct orders— something that wasn't entirely foreign to him.
"...Yeah, that's the one."
Tony sighed with a shake of his head, stepping backward. "Come in, it's freezing out here, so we can talk business and you can introduce me to whoever she's supposed to be." Layla ignored the man's comment and went into the apartment first, then Liam stepped inside, their wings dissipating as they took off their shoes and were directed to his couch in the living room of his apartment.
"How long are you gonna be, Tones?" The woman asked him, stepping behind him, her fingers trailing up his back and snaking around his shoulders, gently caressing the man's shoulder blades. They weren't even trying to hide what was going on here from the teens, who were both visibly uncomfortable.
"Shouldn't be too long," Tony replied, his head turning, placing a kiss on her cheek, then turning back to Liam and Layla. "Now. Tell me everything you need to know."
"Honestly? I just need your help on one thing. Finding the identity of these people—" He pulled his phone out of his pocket and showed a photo of the people on the recording, "—and pulling a list of everyone that they work with because we believe that one of their employees, a white male with brown hair, is the Banshee killer."