Marcus King wasn't one to be impressed easily. When that socially awkward boy, with bangs on his eyes, entered the parlor, he laughed. His voice was shaky as he talked to Sarah, the receptionist. His eyes averted for awfully too long to her cleavage showing through the shirt, and his hands were fidgeting. He was more nervous than anyone he's ever seen.

The boy was still young, maybe a few years younger than Marcus himself. His blue eyes were frantic, probably searching for another exit then the same one he came through.

"You are pure evil, King." Guy Forward said. He worked there, too.

"Oh, come on, Guy." Marcus said still chuckling. "Look at the boy. He is petrified."

"He is just scared."

"Then he shouldn't be getting a tattoo."

"Is that why you don't have a tattoo?" Guy asked leaning on the doorframe.

"Fuck you." it wasn't, but Guy didn't need to know that. It was Marcus's business and only his.

Sarah brought the new client to the hall and looked at both of the artists. "Mark, this one's yours."

Marcus usually liked Sarah, she was pretty nice and pretty hot, but in that moment he wanted to bash her head on the wall. He wasn't patient with crying clients. He nodded and walked to his studio, the boy right behind him.

"You already know the design you want?" Mark asked, getting things ready.

The boy probably nodded and caught his backpack. After a few seconds of papers shuffling, a big kid-like drawing of some animal that walks in all four come to view. It has fur, Marcus thought, and these pointy things coming out of the... mouth? They must be the teeth. The boy was staring at him with big, expecting eyes, exactly the same way that a fat kid looks at cake. "Okay, what the hell is this supposed to be?" Marcus asked sighing loudly.

"A wolf."

"A wolf." Marcus deadpanned.

"Yeah, a wolf." the boy got up from his chair and walked to Marcus. "I know I am not a good drawer, believe me, but it is a wolf. This is the fur, the snout and the teeth. I want it angry, and I want it secretive. Mysterious."

"What's your name kid?" Marcus asked tapping the pencil on the blanc paper infant of him.

"Drew Barry."

Marcus nodded. Lines were already forming in his mind. He could already see the right eye of the big black wolf. While Drew told him some story about his mom being famous and some shit like that, he was already finishing the eye. It was dark, an deep. Very deep. Mysterious, just like the boy asked.

As his hand flew around the paper he could feel it. He felt the fur on his skin and heard the light growl coming from the slightly damp snout. The shining black fur moving with the wind and those eyes... those meaningful eyes.

"You want something like this?" Marcus asked, still looking to the wolf's eyes. He then remembered something his mother always used to tell him.

The eyes are the window to the soul.

"No." Drew said, seeming hypnotized by the drawing. "I want exactly like that."

Nodding, Marcus started to get things ready. He tested the pistol, sorted out the inks—mostly black—and then got himself to work. Drew took his shirt off and surprised the tattoo artist when he presented with a defined back. It would be a good canvas.

The boy laid down on a table Guy managed to snatch a few years ago to work on big pieces. While sterilizing Drew's back, a scar started to appear. It was small, really close to the nape of his neck, but it was visible.

The client must've noticed the special care to that sensible area. "Cover that up, please."

"Are you sure? It looks old, but it will hurt more, anyways."

"Yeah." Drew said with a quiet voice. "Cover it up."

He started with the work, first the outline, and then the coloring. Not once the boy complained, hissed or something like that. He just laid there, immobile like a dead body. After two hours he needed a break.

"How about we schedule another session?" Marcus asked applying the tattoo goo on the boys back. I am really tired, he wanted to say.

"Sure." Drew said putting his shirt back on. "Tomorrow?"

"Wow, kid." the boy was crazy. "The skin is still very sensible. How about next month?"

"Is the scar covered?"

"Yeah." Mark said, eyeing the boy reaction. "I just need to finish the eyes."

"Oh. Okay than." he said, shaking Marcus hand. "Thanks, see ya' next month sometime."

As said before, Marcus King wasn't one to be impressed easily. But that boy managed to snatch away every once of indifference he had. "Yeah, see ya'."

"Here," Drew said giving him the paper. The wolf drawing he had made. "you keep this. Don't throw it away."

Marcus just nodded. The kid was dead serious. Never in his two decades of life he saw such seriousness.

A couple of hours after the boy left, he decided to check the drawing again, just for some laugh. When he grabbed the paper, there it was. The poorly drawn wolf... with a pen drive. The boy must've forgotten it here, he thought. He was going to give it to Sarah, if she hadn't left earlier. And thank God she did. Better him in this situation than sweet Sarah with her pink hair and pierced face.

Curiosity got the best of him and he decided to check on the kid's activity. He looked his studio door and grabbed his laptop. Plunging the pen drive into the USB entry, he started to open every single file on the flash drive. One after another, scared him more.

brain_scann1

brain_scann2

MRI

FMRI

Countless brain exams were listed on the file. Countless images of brains, and theories about something he didn't quite understand. Until he noticed something. It was small—like, really really really small—but it was there. He was an artist, used to noticing things out of place. 

That thing was out of place.

Right on what he remembers to be the brainstem, there was something. He didn't know what, but it was squared. Almost like a cellphone chip.

-----------------------

Jordan Hunt was in big trouble. As always. That woman Rachel told Hawthorne that the newest member of the group decided to have a solo expedition to the tattoo parlor and now the famous detective was lecturing her like he was her father. And that was a little uncomfortable.

"What were you thinking?" he shouted. "Are you okay? Did someone hurt you? This is not a safe neighborhood, Jordan, you can't wonder around alone!"

"Dude, chill." Mark said from were he was. "The girl is okay."

Lincoln Hawthorne was in shock. Never had someone disrespected him like that.

"Do you know who I am?" the detective asked, getting closer to the boy leaning on a wall.

"How can I not? Your face is all over the news."

"Then you should know better then to disrespect me."

"Than you should know better then to scare an innocent girl." he said pointing to Jordan that was quiet on her chair.

"I wasn't scaring her. I was worried, it's not my fault she is not used to it."

The room fell into a deadly silence. Lindsey's eyes were flaming while Jordan was still quiet on the corner. The sisters were in a tight spot; that was a sensible topic, and he must've noticed how Lindsey shifted in her seat, holding in the rage. 

"That came out wrong." Lincoln said trying to defend himself. He than looked at the smirking boy. "What have I done to you? Arrested your daddy?"

"Lincoln!" Lindsey gasped in surprised. Even thought it wasn't in the right moment, he liked the sound of her pretty pink mouth gasping his name.

"Nope. My dad is good, taking care of the farm, thanks." he said chuckling.

"Then what is it? You seem awfully repulsed by my presence."

"Relax, it's just the superiority complex you cops got going on." Marcus said walking through a door and coming back with a glass of water, giving it to Jordan, that offered him a shy smile.

Hawthorne took a deep breath, controlling the urge to just punch the boy in the face. Even though he was a disrespectful lad, he was glad Jordan was okay. She seemed quite entertained with her glass of water and the boy beside her than with the sermon being given to her. 

"Anyways, I still have an investigation to do here. I need to talk to the tattoo artist that inked Drew Barry."

"You're talking to him."

"You?" Lindsey asked. "How old are you?"

"Twenty one in a couple of weeks." Mark said.

"I need-" Lincoln started, but it was quickly interrupted.

"To do a research on my studio? I know. Knock yourself out, it's the right door on the end of the hallway." Hawthorne nodded and disappeared behind the walls.

"I am so sorry about his behavior." Lindsey said sitting down a gulping what rested of Jordan's water.

"It's okay. No need to apologize for your boyfriend, ma'am." Guy pronounced himself. Sarah was sitting right besides him, staring at her grasped hands. She was in shock. Pure little Sarah had never seen anything like this; cops searching her work place for evidence of a murder. And the distrust that the authorities shown towards them got her a little not the edge. This was her family. 

"Oh, he is not my boyfriend."

"It sure as hell looks like." Marcus said sitting alongside Jordan.

While everyone in the room started to talk and bond, Marcus King and Jordan Hunt were deep in thoughts. "I need a smoke, care to come with me outside?" he asked her.

Without being noticed, both of them left the parlor, sitting on the from sidewalk. He didn't really want a smoke because... well, because he didn't smoke. 

"He was your friend, wasn't he?" her voice came out shaky and small, nothing like before. It was unsettling to see the girl like that. She came into his studio with curious eyes and a nervous smile on her face, and that was his first impression; a strong girl. He didn't want to let that go.

"Let's say we had a growing relationship." Even though he didn't smoke, Mark really needed something to relax his muscles. His hand made his way to the nape on his neck, massaging the tense muscles there.

He didn't notice, but Jordan observed him. His hands were firm. His fingers right on the sore spot, working slowly on the tender flesh. His eyes were closed in relief and brows furrowed with what probably was a slight pain in the neck. 

"He came into the parlor looking so scared." Mark chuckled. "I laughed so much. Then when he came with that awfully drawn wolf, I laughed even more. But something about the kid made intrigued. And when he left it behind, I just couldn't understand, you know? Why would someone leave such thing behind? Wasn't it important?"

Jordan's eye were sparkling with hope. It? What was it?

"He didn't deserve this. He was a good kid; awkward, but good." Marcus finished, closing his eyes. It was the first time he had shown any kind of emotion to Drew's death, and Jordan was glad that she was the one he'd shown it to. It had shown trust. And Jordan liked to be trusted.

"Not wanting to be insensible or something like that but... rewinding a bit, you said that he left something behind. Do you think you could tell me what was it?" She asked leaning forward and grabbing both of her ankles, something she always did when sitting on the ground.

He eyed her skeptically. "Why should I? Because you are a cop?"

"Since we are in a deep moment here, spilling the beans and all that stuff," she said looking straight into those blue-grayish eyes. "I am no cop. I am working with Detective Hawthorne's tech team for personal matters, but it's not like I can get you arrested or something like that."

"Actually you can." he said smirking like and idiot. A sexy idiot, though.

"Oh yeah?" He nodded, still smirking.

"You're not legal." he said laughing out loud. Jordan's face blushed incessantly, and she buried her head in her hands. After a little while, she started to laugh with him, earning the right to friendly punch his in the arm. Which, as the perfect gentleman he is, he returned.

"Hands off her."

Lincoln Hawthorne sounded very intimidating with his gun pointed to Marcus's back.

"Hawthorne, put that down!" Jordan screeched. "What the fuck?!"

"We found this inside a drawer, on his studio." he threw her a folder, with many papers inside. Brain scans. All of them with the same label. Drew.

She looked at him and his face was dark. In that moment, Jordan Hunt knew that they had found something they weren't supposed to.

"It's not what it looks like." Mark said to Jordan as his hands were put on handcuffs.

"It never is."