twenty three.

The bullpen buzzed with small conversations. A desk phone rang, the sound bouncing off the blue painted walls. Keys on the keyboard were being pressed as the clicks filled the space. Almost all of the intelligence unit were occupying the room each by their own desks. Pru's phone was the one that had gone up which lead the girl to pick it up. Instantly she was met with a fast talker on the other line. Taking down notes of what she was hearing on the other line.

"Alright, listen up." Hank Voight called out from his office. Just hanging up his phone and walking out of the door that he had left open. His unit all turned their attention onto their boss. Pru had soon began to multitask with listening to the phone call and her boss.

"Atwater's gun lead went south but we got something else. There's two wannabe gangbangers out in the wind looking to do something stupid." Voight began to inform them as Pru had just finished up the call that she was on.

"It's initiation day for the Three Corner Kings." Voight told them.

"Ah, man, with Peña back in charge that's not good." Antonio commented.

"He's only been on the streets for three months. He's already good for six homicides." Jay said with his arms crossed.

"Alright, so let's get these kids off the street fast. Invent a charge if you have to. Just bring him in." Voight instructed his team. All of them grabbed their jackets to head out. Hank then approached Kim and Pru who were sliding on their jackets.

"Hey. Will one of you put out a BOLO on that car? Late-model Silver Caprice. That's the partial plate Atwater got." Hank asked as Pru looked at Kim, nodding in agreement. Pru pulled out her walkie to make the call.

"5021 Queen, all units be on the lookout for a late-model Silver Caprice." Pru requested using her callsign that she was assigned as she gathered the rest of her things to head out with Antonio and Kim.

+

Antonio had parked the car in the middle of the quiet street. Kim and Pru leaned against the car as they stared at the front of the abandoned house. What they were looking for wasn't there where it was suppose to be. They had got a call on a sighting of the car. But once they arrived at the place, the vehicle was nowhere in sight. The three waited as the truck pulled up and parked. Hailey and Jay hopping out of the truck in confusion.

"Where'd the car?" Jay wondered.

"It's not here." Antonio told him.

"Dispatch said they picked up a Silver Caprice on this block ten minutes ago." Jay said.

"And dispatch confirmed this is the right address." Kim confirmed. Pru pointed at the tire tracks made in the snow coated driveway.

"But someone was clearly in a hurry. They must have done what they needed to then left before they could get caught." Pru pitched her thoughts as she walked closer to the fresh tire tracks on the ground. Walking farther into the driveway with her hand hovering over her gun that sat in her holster. Cautiously observing her surroundings. Pru heard rustling behind a garbage can. Slowly peering around the side to slightly jump in surprise. A cat sat there looking up at her. A meow escaped from its mouth as Pru smiled sweetly at the animal. Bending down slowly, the girl took one of her gloves off. Letting the cat smell her hand. Rubbing up against her hand, allowing her to pet over the soft fur coat. It's purring got louder at the attention it was receiving.

"You sweet little thing." Pru cooed as the cat blinked it's green orbs, watching her.

"Guys, check this out." Jay called out. Pru looked back then patted the cat.

"I gotta go." The girl dismissed herself as she went to see what Jay had found. They all pulled out their guns as they cautiously walked into the side door Jay had come across. Everyone went to split up to cover more ground. Pru had Kim's back as they went deeper into the dark house. Kim had slowed down as her flashlight had shined across some blood marks on the wall.

"Pru?" Kim got the girl's attention as the light source traveled to the floor. A purple duffle bag and a single shoe laid by each other. Trailing more to the blood streaks and discarded clothes to the other shoe. Walking further and carefully into the room to come across a body of a girl. A puddle of crimson blood surrounding the body.

"Oh my god." Kim let out as she rushed towards the body. Pru froze for a second in her spot as she stared at the body of the young girl. Then everyone entered the room as Kim checked for a pulse. They all stared with a look of grief at the scene. Kim looked hot at her colleagues and shook her head.

"Dead." Kim confirmed with sadness laced in her voice.

"That's one hell of an initiation." Jay said.

"What kind of animal does something like this?" Hailey wondered.

"What kind of animal makes someone do this?" Antonio asked.

"One that needs to be put down." Pru stated as she walked out of the house, not looking back.

+

"Okay." Antonio hung up his desk phone then turned to face everyone.
"That was my C.I. He swears he can't ID the two pledges." Antonio said.

"You believe him?" Pru asked, raising her eyebrow with her arms crossed.

"Doesn't matter. He's not giving them up." Antonio told the girl.

"I got the M.E. Report." Detective Hart announced as he approached them. He was partnered with Kim for their current case. So the man was all in with trying to help them take down the people who caused the gruesome murder of a teenager.

"The DOA was raped, then strangled to death." Hart informed everyone in the bullpen.

"Any third-party DNA?" Voight questioned as he flipped through the file.

"No, they were wearing condoms. They found traces of spermicide inside Jane Doe." Hart replied.

"Her name's Daniella Rios." Kim spoke up which moved their attention onto her.

"Yeah? How do you know?" Antonio asked.

"I was researching local dance groups. She looked like she was wearing a dance uniform, and there was a dance charm on her bracelet." Kim began to tell them as she walked over to the group. Turning the laptop around for them to see the screen.

"Village Dance, it's an after-school program for at-risk teens. Uniform is the same." Kim finished as they looked at the picture.

"I'll run her name, get an address." Hart said as Kim closed the laptop.

"I already did." Kim informed them.

"So go talk to the family." Hank instructed Kim and Hart who then followed the orders and headed out.

+

Pru sat on the couch in the break room as she sipped on her coffee. Kim had walked in to fill her mug of the bitter coffee. But the girl began to space out as she stared out the window. Hailey entered the room a few minutes later, pulling Kim's attention on to her.

"Hey." Hailey greeted.

"Hey." Kim replied back.

"I heard that Tina girl got assaulted too?" Hailey recalled the new information.

"Yeah. I mean, she didn't say that, but it's pretty obvious. Poor kid's terrified." Kim said.

"I don't blame her. That's something extremely hard to get over. It's with you for a while. Maybe even the rest of your life." Pru spoke up as she stood from her spot.

"It's just horrible." Kim commented.

"Yeah." Hailey sighed then looked at Kim's distant face. Her mind was clearly not there in the present.

"What's up?" Hailey questioned.

"I dealt with this last year with my sister. She got drugged and raped." Kim sipped her coffee.

"Yeah, I heard. You guys hooked the offender though, right?" Hailey double-checked.

"Oh, we hooked the offenders, yeah. We arrested them. But the judge, he whiffed. He just smacked him on the aśs and said. 'don't do it again.' Three years. I mean, out in what? One?" Kim clarified what had happen and that not much was done about the horrible event.

"The guy will get what's coming his way. If he got away with very little. I believe eventually Karma will catch up." Pru commented. A moment of silence settled across them.

"What's going on with the case?" Kim wondered.

"Adam and I had been going over the Title 3 wiretaps but—."

"But he said there's a lot of chatter the night of the murder , but it's all in code or something." Kim had finished Pru's sentence.

"Yeah. No words. All numbers." Pru said as a knocking sounded on the doorframe to get their attention.

"Got something." Adam announced as Pru followed him out the door into the bullpen quickly. Kim and Hailey not too far behind them.

Everyone formed around in a spot where they could see the board. Giving their full attention to Adam and Pru. Pru placed the code key onto the whiteboard to show everyone how the code worked.

"Alright, so I talked to Gang Intel. They helped me crack the code." Adam began to tell the unit as he turned to point at the key.

"Each letter's a number. They split the alphabet in half, evens and odds to make it confusing so A is one, B is 3. Then by the 13th letter, it flips. N is 2, O is 4, so on and so forth.
Anyway, we came up with this." Adam turned to the board.

"Matamos a una. It means, 'we killed one girl'. That was a text sent by Miguel Salazar. A minute later another incoming text was sent from Eduardo Vargos. La otra escapo. It means, 'the other escaped'." Adam read off the translations.

"Both these idiots, they used their own phones. Texts were sent to a burner phone that we think is owned by Peña." Pru spoke with her arms crossed as they looked at their boss.

"You run their names?" Voight questioned.

"Both of them are 18, both with impressive juvie sheets." Pru informed them.

"Ping their phones, grab them up." Hank ordered as the group dispersed.