Lincoln Hawthorne wasn't born the best detective in NY, he fought for it. Worked hard, stayed countless night awake, had many hospital visits; he earned it. So when he saw the desperate girl crashing through his door, it was like something inside him ticked. Her eyes were too frantic for his taste, and really... school work? He used that excuse too many times to fall for it.

When she started to ask him questions, he took a long look at her. Jordan looked relaxed now, shoulders slacking, crooked smile, normal breathing. But one thing gave her away—one small detail that he didn't let it pass. Her hands were gripping the bag strap... too tightly. 

Jordan must've dried her hands on her pants at least five times, a clear sign of nervousness showing through the tough surface. It wasn't too hard for him to read her. Jordan Bennet was like an open book, and right now, she under his care. 

"Okay, just wait here while I make your file." the detective said to the handcuffed teenager waiting by the table. 

"No need to make one, just check the system." she mumbled. 

"I already have, there is nothing under the name Jordan Bennet." he said with a smirk.

"That's because my name is Jordan Hunt." she said banging her head on the table and sighing deeply. 

"So you are not Lindsey Bennet's sister?"

"I am!" Jordan was flustered. "I just... it's not important."

He ran her name through the database, finding a match. It wasn't a big file, just some hacking problems a year ago and a accident report — on an car crash. Curiosity got the best of him and much too soon he saw pages and pages of written report.

Later, he thought to himself. 

"So, Ms. Hunt," Lincoln Hawthorne said. "you have been charged with petty crimes before. What have you done?"

"I'm pretty sure it's explained on those files." she murmured, a light shade of red coloring her cheeks. 

"Oh, but I believe that to every story there are two sides." he said, frowning. "What's yours?"

"Boredom makes you do incredible things." Jordan said sarcastically. 

"I am giving you a chance here." the detective didn't have enough time to deal with that girl. "And you waste it?"

"Why don't you ask what you really wanna ask?" her voice raised and her breathing fastened. 

As said before, Detective Hawthorne is not a heartfelt man. He couldn't care less if you were to cry or attempt suicide in front of him, all he wanted was to find that little breach—the one that if you push too hard, it'll brake—inside someone. 

But, somehow, he connected to that girl. He saw himself in her position too many times to just ignore that desperate call of help. 

"Why did you hack the NYPD main system, Jordan?" he finally asked, making the girl breath out, relieved. 

"You guys couldn't find him..." she said with a hoarse voice, cracking sometimes. "So I tried to give it a shot."

Detective Hawthorne furrowed his brows. "Find who?"

"My parents, the killer... You name it." 

"Your parents? What do you mean?"

"The precinct was incapable of closing so many cases due to the lack of intel." Jordan was starting to get to him, just like her sister did in the interview. A small smirk was all it took, this time. "Intel that I have."

His jaw visibly tensed. "And how have you acquired those?"

"I just know where to look." the teenager said looking to the mirrored glass, imagining the disappointment in her sister's face. Her heart tightened at the thought and she hold back some tears.

"And where do you look?" Hawthorne knew he was pushing his limits, that sometime the girl would crack and just shut her mouth... but as she previously said, boredom makes you do incredible things—and right now, he was getting really bored. 

"A magician never tells its tricks." 

"Good thing you are a hacker then." oh the irony. 

"I won't tell." she said frowning, finally looking at him. "If I tell you, you won't need me anymore."

"But I don't need you already." was she trying reverse psychology? 

"Oh, but you do." Jordan said with a dark look on her face. She was ashamed, that was obvious. He noticed the rosy of her cheeks and how her shoulders slacked forward. But there was something about the small smirk on her face that got under his skin; it was a faint sensation, but Hawthorne didn't like it. "You see, I am very good at what I do, and I want in."

"In on what?" the detective asked, yawning. 

"In the murder case, obviously."

Hawthorne was bewildered. How could the girl know so much yet so little? She would have to get passed all the firewalls on the precinct to manage to get a hold of that information on the case. As she continued to talk useless things he already know, the wheels started to turn in his head. 

The tech team in his group was fairly weak compared to that girl, and besides, she had the guts. The guts that were needed in so many times, but none of the crew wanted to leave the office. Hawthorne himself had to learn some of the computers language to close a few cases, but still, she could be either used on the field or on the inside team. 

But he couldn't actually be considering her wish. It was dangerous, especially since they had no clue to who was this new killer. She was young. Around eighteen, he thought. His age when he started at the business. Well, he knew how scarring it could be, and there was no way he would let that girl become like him. 

"What are you thinking, detective?" the feminine—and growingly annoying voice—asked him. 

"That you must be really stupid." he sighed.

"Or really smart. You choose." her eyes shone with something the detective was very familiar with. Victory.

"Quite egotistical, too."

"Oh, how considering." she said mocking him, testing his patience and watching him closely, looking at how far he would manage. 

They've been inside the interrogatory room for two hours now and Jordan didn't even know if Lindsey was still outside waiting for her. She hoped she was. Nothing could push her forward more than her big sister. 

Please, wait for me, she thought with her eyes closed. Just for a few more minutes, wait for me.

That's when they heard a loud bang come from the door. And another one. One more and soon enough the metal door hit the wall behind it, making a very furious Lindsey Bennet appear with two officers trying to pin her down. 

"It's been two hours, you bastard. Let Jordan out." Lindsey's voice was filled with rage, her hands shaking as they yanked the strange pair of hands holding her. "She is a minor."

"I don't really care." was all that Detective Grumpy said.

"Why can't you just agree with me on this one?" Jordan murmured, looking with plea in her eyes to the heartless man. "You know I am right, Hawthorne."

Her eyes—those big green orbs—were digging a hole in his heart, managing to reach something within him. He knew what she was going through, believe it, but he couldn't just let her go. She knew too much, it was dangerous to this whole operation. But, more important, it was dangerous for her. 

Jordan Hunt was just a seventeen year old teenager that should've been enjoying parties and crushing hearts. She was really pretty, like her sister, but at the same time different. Lindsey possessed a delicate frame, with and obvious and sexual beauty, while the young girl had a fierce look on her face, giving her a rougher glamour. Something about her eyes, though, made him back away. Too intense. 

He wouldn't do to her what people had done to him so many times. The pressure on his body and mind, the strange looks as he walked by... he couldn't. 

Grabbing the small keys from his pocket, he unshackled her, guilty flowing through his body as he saw the red lines around her tiny wrist. "Go."

They didn't need to be told twice. Both sisters held hands and flee from there, but before they could actually pass the door, Jordan turned around and gave the detective a warm smile.

In that moment, the said heartless Lincoln Hawthorne, smiled back. 

-

The girls were home now, listening to an endless speech about safety from their Grandmother. 

Beth felt like her heart was being ripped apart from her chest as her eyes followed Lincoln Hawthorne manhandle her granddaughter through the hallway. She almost blew her cover, jumping right there and then on the man's neck. But she knew that it would be unwise. And it would possibly get her arrested.

What really caught her off guard, though, was the file that the detective found on the computer. She thought Jordan would've cleaned her name by now. Why hasn't she?

"Granny, it wasn't that big of a deal." Jordan said slumping on the couch. She had a frown on her pretty face, and Beth usually found they way she scrunched her nose very cute, but now it was just plain annoying. 

"Jordan Imogen Hunt-"

"Oh my God!" the young girl screamed. "I hate this name!"

"It was my mother's name." Bethany said with an impassive face. "And don't try and distract me. What you did was irresponsible and could have put all of us in danger."

"Could being the key word." Jordan rolled her eyes—a very irritating habit she acquired from her sister—and got up from the couch, walking to the kitchen and pouring herself a cup of old coffee. "Possibility."

"Jordy," Lindsey started with pleading eyes. When she used the nickname it was, usually, when thing got serious."just stop. Please. Granny is right. That move was reckless." 

Jordan lowered her head to her sister and her grandma. Both of them tried, they tried hard, but they just couldn't understand, after all they were just the bait and the informant. They weren't really in it. 

They weren't in their element. 

Holding her mug with much more force then necessary, Jordan walked to her older sister.

"No."

"No?" Lindsey asked, raising her eyebrows. "So you getting arrested wasn't reckless?"

"No." Jordan said putting the mug down. Her eyes got that weird sparkle again and Lindsey didn't like it. "Maybe, just maybe, I got him exactly where I want."

"And what do you mean with that?" Bethany Neville asked with exasperation, throwing her hands in the air. 

"That I got into his head." 

Simple like that. Jordan could be a little absent minded sometimes, but not even a blind person could miss that sign. Something—something she did or say—got into his skin. She had him exactly where she wanted and that was good. That was more then good. 

"No, you didn't Jordan." her sister said, looking really tired. "Maybe—maybe we should just drop this."

"W-what?"

Right there and then, Jordan felt like a kid again. That awkward fifteen years old girl who could barely talk to someone without stuttering and shrinking in her two feet. But this time, there wouldn't be a daddy waiting home to sooth her. There would be no mommy waiting to tuck her in and sing to her. There was only Jordan, to fend for herself. 

"Yeah, maybe we should, darling." Beth agreed, following Lindsey's train of thought. They've been trying to make sweet Jordan forget about this stupid plan for over a year. They thought that if they agreed to it, the slowness and failure of the first weeks would be enough to make her give up. But that only made her more pertinacious. 

What both of the women didn't understand was that, differently from them, Jordan needed closure. Something to assure her that it was finally over. Even if it wasn't.

"Sorry, no can do." the calm tone of her voice was the most scaring thing in the whole situation. 

"Why?" Lindsey asked. "Because you've gotten into his head?" She was mocking her little sister, and even though she knew she was being mean, Lindsey couldn't keep going with that stupid plan. It was drowning her; their family. She had missed more days of work in that year than she had in her whole life; Jordan missed almost a month of school once, and Lindsey had to beg—beg—the principal not to call social services. Beth had already a trip to the hospital due to heart conditions. Everything was out of control. 

Jordan was about to explode into a big and very loud 'yes' when her phone made everyone shut up. It was her phone. Her. Phone. Was. Ringing. And it was from the precinct number. 

"Screw you." she said to gain some courage just because, and slid her finger through the screen. "Hello?"

"You're in." the husky voice said. "But you only get to mess with the computers and watch from afar, you are not coming with me anywhere."

"What?" she whined. "That's not fair!"

"Take it or leave it princess."

She stayed quiet for a while, not sure if she would manage not getting in trouble during her hours with the detective. 

I need this, she thought. We all do.