XAVIER

It's quite astounding how idiotic Streeters are.

Dominic waited further down the driveway as Damien and I walked to the front door of the Streeter house. The moon shone down in the night, glowing from even inside the house's windows. I motioned to Damien who took out a few lock picks and got to work on the front door. After a few moments, the handle clicked.

He pushed the door open without a sound. We stepped into the dark house and shut it quietly behind us. From the white tiled floors and the open layout of the house, it was clear that the residents were middle class. Hushed voices came from the family room, though they gave no indication of knowing our presence here.

We slipped down the hallway, passing the living room and choosing to inspect the house for ourselves instead of questioning them right away. We entered the kitchen in which the lights were still on. The scent of sweet desserts drifted through the room and I stepped closer to the stove where the contents in a pot still sent up fumes despite the stove being off. Someone was just cooking. Tall glasses sat next to the pot, ready to be filled.

I stepped forward to check what was in the pot only to hear the crunching of glass under my shoe. I looked down to find one of the glasses on the ground shattered across the floor. I narrowed my eyes. It was possible they dropped the glass themselves, but then they would've cleaned it up by now. Perhaps they were in a hurry, but they were clearly home now and from the hushed tones they were speaking in, something disastrous just occurred.

The residents had to have been attacked, but the Governors of Indianapolis said they didn't interfere and came to us first with the information. So who attacked? I leaned forward and looked into the pot.

Inside was some freshly cooked hot chocolate.

I looked up at Damien whose face flashed from curious to hurt to annoyed.

"What did she do here?" he whispered.

I said nothing, only looking around the area to find clues to answer that very same question. She was here not long ago and had enough time to cook some hot chocolate. Most likely, the residents attempted to fight back when they spotted her and dropped the glass in the skirmish. And then she left and now they were speaking in the living room about what they were going to do since they were just visited by an assassin.

But what did she do in the middle? Why was she here? How did she find this place? And what has she been doing the past few months since graduation?

She was one of the very few people I'd never been able to track down. Indigo I knew had hidden in Arrow Livingston's old Streeter apartment until graduation in which she disappeared with Nydia after the funeral. She was only able to stay off the radar because of Nydia's skills and I never found the two again, even after searching vehemently. There were only two other people I'd never been able to find like that: Phoenix we found in the last week and the other I was sure was dead, though I never found a body.

So where the hell is she? Looking at Damien, I knew the question irked him as much as I.

I was still inspecting the kitchen for clues when my eyes landed on a door across from the hall which was propped open ever so slightly. I could make out the shape of a little kid in the doorway peeking out.

I looked over at Damien and tilted my head in the door's direction. He caught my message and looked at the door before rolling his eyes and walking over to the room.

When the child noticed Damien stepping towards the room, there was a small gasp as the door started to swing shut. However, Damien reached the door just in time to push it back open and reveal the little girl spying on us. She was carrying a half-empty glass of hot chocolate, the other half either in her stomach or spread across her cheeks in a messy array.

This girl was already seven and she didn't know how to drink from a glass? This is why I despise children. They were disgusting, with their grimy hands and constant wailing, and it was always depressing to see how much of an idiot their parents turned them into.

It's a shame I will have to deal with a child of my own one day, though they would certainly be able to drink properly.

The little girl gasped again and staggered back, opening her mouth to shout, but Damien covered it just in time. The girl, her shouts now muffled, panicked and struggled against his grip though she didn't let go of her glass.

Damien rested a hand on her shoulder and calmed her down in whispers, "It's okay. I don't want to hurt you. I just want to talk."

The girl's struggling slowed to a stop and she tilted her head, the panic replaced with curiosity.

"Are you going to scream?" Damien asked. The girl shook her head. He slowly removed his hand from her mouth. He smiled, though it was slightly twisted as if the cruelest thoughts were entering his mind, the little girl didn't seem to notice.

"Why do you want to talk?" she whispered.

"I think my friend was here," Damien explained. He picked up a stuffed animal next to her feet and held it up, revealing a cartoonish depiction of an ostrich. "Did she give this to you?"

The little girl nodded vigorously, a smile forming on her lips. "She said-"

"Shh, whisper."

"She said it's a ostrich," the girl whispered. "I never see a ostrich before."

By the crown, her grammar is terrible.

Damien looked at me. This was definitely Nydia.

"What did she talk to you about?"

"My brother. He's really cool! She says she's his friend. Are you his friend?"

"No, but I would like to know more about him."

The girl giggled, "That's what she said!"

This time her exclamation was loud enough to be heard by her parents. Their hushed whispers fell completely silent. Damien pressed a finger to his lips and she mimicked him, both of them falling silent. He nodded to me before whispering in the little girl's ear as he closed her bedroom door as quietly as possible.

"Sophie?" a woman's voice called out. Sophie stayed quiet in her bedroom.

The woman called out her daughter's name again to be met with no response. I heard a shuffling as the parents stood and two sets of footsteps made their way slowly through the house. I stayed within the kitchen but stepped away from the doorway so that I didn't cast a shadow.

The parents journeyed down the hall finally making it to their daughter's bedroom. Just as they were about to turn the knob, I turned off the kitchen lights. I heard their gasps as they turned, one's back slamming into Sophie's door in shock.

"Who's there?" the father's voice shook. I didn't answer as I was mildly enjoying their panic.

The father stepped forward slowly, walking into the kitchen as he wildly waved a bat in the dark, his wife right behind him. Streeters are such idiots. How does their brain even think that walking into a dark room where they know there's an intruder and knives and that an assassin visited them just earlier is a good idea?

As soon as they stepped into the room far enough, I slid behind them and shut the door, drenching us in complete darkness for a moment. They shouted and turned, the husband most likely swinging his bat right into his wife causing her to cry out in pain. The husband cursed and called out again.

"Show yourself!"

As enjoyable as this was, I had a task to complete and a mother to avenge. I flipped the lights back on and my eyes adjusted quicker than their's as they looked around, blinking, their gaze finally setting on me.

The husband ran at me with the bat and I side-stepped, twisting it out of his hands and hitting him across the face with it. He stumbled to the ground.

The wife ran behind the counter and chucked the glasses towards my head. The first one missed and hit the door behind me. The next came straight at me, but I swung the bat, shattering it halfway through. She ran to a cabinet and pulled out a knife, pointing it at me with shaky hands.

I planted the tip of the bat on the ground and placed my hands over it as I stood unmoving. The man on the ground didn't bother getting back up and instead crawled away until his back hit the counter.

"Please," the man begged. "We already talked to one of you. We told you everything we know. Please, leave us alone."

"What is the color of your shoes?"

The man looked confused. "What?"

I didn't repeat my question. He looked down.

I watched him closely, looking at the way he acted when telling the truth. 

"Um, brown."

I looked him in the eye. "Do you know who I am?"

The man inspected my face before his eyes widened. "You're Xavier Kingston, the Intellect Crown Heir."

The woman in the corner sucked in a breath. I heard the voices of Damien and Sophie talking openly behind me, though I couldn't make out their words.

"You're lucky Arielle Fortier isn't here," I informed them. "She would've cut off your hands for throwing glasses and then your tongue for saying my name."

The woman's lips trembled and the man swallowed.

"Repeat what you told the assassin before me, word for word."

The woman didn't say anything, only held her hand firmly as she continued to point the knife at me. The husband hesitated before saying, "She asked us about the Ravens and the bombing on the Queens. We told her we didn't know anything."

"You don't know anything. Is that the truth?"

It was a lie, but he nodded anyway.

"Then why was she here?"

"The same reason you must be. Our neighbors hate us and are trying to get rid of us. They tell people we're Raven sympathizers so that the assassins take us away."

A half-lie. Their neighbors must've hated them, but only because they were indeed Raven sympathizers and therefore putting their lives at risk.

"That's the truth?"

They nodded.

"If I find out that you're lying or withholding information, you will regret it."

"It's the complete truth."

I nodded once. "Okay."

I pulled out my gun and shot the wife straight through the head before they could even blink. The knife clattered to the floor and she soon followed. Blood pooled around her.

Sophie shouted in fear from her room but Damien calmed her down, saying, "They're just playing a little game."

The father looked at his wife's body, mouth open and speechless, still in shock.

I placed my gun back in its holster and looked at the man. "I believe you're protecting someone. But let me be clear. No matter what, one way or another, we will find them and they will be punished. The only choice you have is whether or not your daughter gets to live."

The man looked between me and the dead body of his wife. After a moment he nodded.

"I'll tell you."

I only looked at him, signaling him to continue.

"My son, my eldest child, he's nineteen. Almost a year ago he disappeared and only left a note saying that he wanted to live for himself. Only a few months ago we found a note sitting on our doorstep. Inside was only a sketch of the Raven symbol. We burned it immediately. We didn't want to put us or Sophie in danger, but the neighbors must've caught a glimpse at it somehow because I overheard them telling their friends that we were Raven sympathizers. And then there was the bombing and when we watched the news footage, we recognized one of the Ravens running away. It was our son."

So their son was the one Damien was chasing. He was the one who killed our mother.

"Do you have a picture of him?" I wanted to confirm his story even though he looked to be telling the truth.

The man shook his head. "We burned those too after the footage was released in case someone recognized his face."

"Where is he now?"

"I don't know," the man admitted. "He hasn't sent me any information besides what I just told you."

Sensing that he was withholding information, I stared at him. He stared back, not saying anything. I thought back to what I'd seen so far in the house, trying to piece together what he could've been hiding, when I remembered that Nydia asked Sophie about her brother.

Of course, a homesick brother would visit a younger sister who idolizes him and would keep his secret without judging his decisions.

I turned and opened the kitchen door and Sophie's bedroom door despite the father's protests. Sophie and Damien were sitting on the bed, the glass completely empty and on the floor.

"Brother," I mouthed to Damien. He nodded and turned back to Sophie.

"You said your brother was really cool, right?"

Sophie nodded and smiled, spreading her arms wide. "He fights bad guys!"

"Can you tell me where I can find him? I want to send him a little present for fighting all those bad guys."

Sophie's face fell. "But he told me not to tell anyone."

"Don't worry," he said, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear. "We're old friends. We can keep a secret."

Sophie hesitated but smiled. "He stays in those big houses on the other side of the city."

"Near where?"

Sophie rattled off a few local landmarks and Damien nodded, smiling.

"Good job, Sophie. You've been a great help."

"What will you send my brother?"

"Your mother's death certificate," I answered.

She looked at me. "What's that?"

"That means," Damien started. "that we killed your mom."

She blinked, not quite understanding the full force of the situation.

"But you're my friend."

"You shouldn't believe everything people say," Damien told her, gently caressing her cheek. "Because sometimes your brother kills the wrong bad guy, and the other ones get very angry. They kill your mother."

Sophie started crying, but Damien placed a finger on her lips. "Bad guys get angry when little girls are loud. You don't want them to get angry, do you?"

She shook her head and fell silent though the tears still slipped down her cheeks.

"Stop it, please," the father begged from behind me, his eyes starting to grow wet. "Please, just stop."

Damien fixed him with a malicious stare. After a moment he said, "As you wish."

He stood and Sophie looked up at him for a moment before running past the two of us and straight into her father's arms.

"If you try to warn your son, you know what will happen, don't you?"

The man hugged Sophie tighter and nodded over her shoulder.

"Great," Damien smiled. "No need to waste more time here."

And with that, we walked out the door and joined Dominic, leaving a family torn to pieces without an ounce of remorse.