C4: Captivated

“Love at first sight? Only fools would believe in those useless things.”

A certain man raised an eyebrow, in which the other person quickly noticed but refused to acknowledge.

Captivated.

Reese took pride in being second only to their boss in terms of intelligence among the eight idiots below him. It's his brain that has earned him this position, and he hates himself for allowing these hordes of walking bad luck to drag him into one of their idiotic games—which resulted him to this state, worried about the consequences that await them after this mission. Thus he was unable to function normally.

Despite this, none of his internal turmoil was visible on the outside. He still managed to mask and hide his anxiety in the deepest recesses of his mind and did his job as the outlooker and brain of the team.

"FBI! OPEN YOUR D---oh wait it's unlock.'' Despite his confusion, Paul twisted the knob open with his left hand after knowing it was not locked, his dominant one pointing a gun ahead of his sight, assessing any threat that may appear in front of them.

"Yo blockhead, scream much louder, why dont yah? It's not like we're undercover here or something,"

Reese could only shake his head with the exchange of two of the dispatched teammates he has. Despite their unending bickering, it’s a fact that both are suitable to be paired with when it comes to the frontlining. 

The mission was to apprehend two wanted criminals with a two-year history of kidnapping and sexual violence against children aged 10 to 18. The police had a difficult time locating these two because their tracks were always wiped clean before anyone could get anything useful from them. They were like disgustingly slippery rats, nimble enough to find holes they could fit through just to escape; such situations are common and often take the local police more than two years to solve, but in this case, the suspects made a huge mistake by kidnapping the mayor's daughter, who has a close relationship with the Vysenian Police Department. Although it is not within Reese's team's authority to apprehend criminals in cases of kidnapping and sexual violence, this changes the moment the higher-ups decide to assign them as the case's lead investigator in order to help the Mayor.

 It was simple for them to track the two down within 24 hours, which led them to the most expensive hotel in Vyseni's capital city, which was quite something they didn’t anticipate.

If you didn’t find the situation strange then what else would you think of it?

This is the reason why their boss was quite intrigued by the case itself, and also his motive of accepting the mission right after confirming their current location. Even if this may seem a normal case which the boss would usually find boring and uninteresting, once he discovers an unsolved puzzle, nothing will stop him from finding a way to solve it.

“What’s the situation?”

Speaking of the devil.

“They’re inside. However I found it strange that the door was unlocked and unguarded. Aside from that, there wasn’t any noise coming from there either,” Reese responded as his eyebrow furrowed. His eyes were directed towards the countless monitors in front of him which had access to the security cameras of the hotel.

Reese heard the man behind him hum in response but didn’t say anything further.

It was quiet. The room was unusually quiet. Did the two get into the wrong room? There's no way the intel they have is wrong. There should be two wanted suspects here with a large bounty on their head, and a victim that they have to rescue, but why is there not a single fuss? 

"Shit! What the fuck?" 

"The only thing shocking here is how much you reek of bad breath—holy mother of donkeys." Noel's eyes widened as he took a cautious step beside Paul's flabbergasted figure, narrowing his eyes to the scene in front of them. "Am I seeing it wrong or is there really a large hole on the wall and two naked men with their patooties cut off? Oh God I'm gonna puke–." 

"Tres? Sin? What's going on?" Reese asked. There weren't a single CCTV camera inside the rooms of the hotel which was a bummer as they couldn't see what was going on inside. 

Paul’s eyes narrowed as he thought of one word to describe the scene–gore, and the fact that they are both men made it all even worse than it is. Paul held his breath as he took a step forward towards the bodies, touching each of their napes to confirm whether they still have their pulses, in which he shook his head off after finding the results. 

"Are they dead?" Noel asked from the corner, his arms stretched towards the wall as he prevented himself from taking another round of vomiting. 

As a person assigned to the frontline, this truly brings shame to himself.

"They're alive," Paul said as he took a few steps back and pressed the button on his earpiece, responding to Reese over the side of their communication device. "We need the crew and some medics here right away; we found the targets unconscious and... in a bloody state, but they still have pulses."

Noel shook his head in disbelief before mumbling to himself, "Fuckers received karma earlier than they expect themselves to cum--blergh." 

Paul sneaks a glance over his partner puking over the corner, before eyeing the suspiciously broken wall. It was big enough for a person to come through. 

"How about the child? Did you find her?" 

At the sudden mention of the kid, Paul notices an unconscious body of a female child on the couch, not that far away from them, covered in a thick, yellow blanket. Paul immediately assed her condition, noticing that other than the fact that her clothes were ripped and the obvious hand marks on her wrist and legs, there doesn’t seem to be further evidence of a tragic and gut wrenching crime that happened. However, he couldn’t be too sure. It’s also a good thing that she’s alive and breathing. 

“She’s here. I found her. Send the teams quickly.” Paul said as he gently put back the blanket over the kid’s body. “Noel, check the—”

Paul’s head snapped a figure of a person walking out of the broken wall gap.

As she assesses the broken wall, a woman dressed in her pajamas stands over the gap. Her eyes are wide and her brows are furrowed. Before the woman could take a good look at the situation in the middle of the room, Paul only saw someone rush in to cover her eyes before wrapping his arms around her shoulder and practically hugging her, blocking off the gory sight.

“?!”

Paul raised an eyebrow. 

“Pardon my rudeness, lady. It is inappropriate for you to look at such unsightly scene especially if the one looking is as pure as a young maiden as you–”

“I’m a man.”

“Fuck.”

Noel removed his arms over the woman–man, unfortunately, right immediately and walked away, forming a huge distance between the two of them. The young lad has a disgusted and irritated expression on his face before dusting his... barbie pink pajamas which is the reason why they mistaken him as a female as it looks too feminine on him.

That, and because he has long curly hair.

“B-but your hair…” Noel trailed off, still not awakened by the fact that he hugged someone with the same sex. 

Sighing in frustration, the man ripped off his wig and carelessly threw it over the side of the room, which revealed his black, messy medium asian haircut. The aura he emits immediately changed from a cute, naive young lady to a young man who has difficulty expressing his true sexuality. 

“Does this prove my sex to you or do you want to compare sizes?” the youngster said in a sarcastic tone, attempting to strip off his barbie pants as he spoke.

“Fuck. No, thank you.” Noel wishes to slam his head over the wall for the embarrassment he felt.

“Hey, sorry to disturb your… thing, but perhaps can we ask you a question?” Paul, who was a bit flabbergasted by the interaction, approached the young lad with a small smile on his face. He reached for his badge over his inner pocket before showing it off, “We’re from the Vysenian Police Department, and as you can see, we have a little bit of a situation here which seems to be connected to you…? Seeing there is a hole on your wall.” The two comically stared at the broken wall between them.

“Look, Tristan–”

“It’s Tres,”

“Trees–”

“T-res, Tres.” Paul forced himself to smile.

How difficult is it even to pronounce his name?!

The young sighed. “Tres, you can ask whatever question you want but I assure you that I am as clueless as you are. I just woke up and the first thing I saw was a humongous hole on my wall, near my kitchen, and two naked men in a disgusting state with their…birds missing. That’s the gist of my personal experience 2 minutes ago. “

Raven lacks sleep, and yet here she is, in disguise just to fix the dumbest mistake she has ever made in her entire career as a killer. She has always been level-headed, yet when it comes to such scum, menace in the society if you may, she can really lose her cool and do the dumbest andidiotic thing to do. 

Really? Punch a hole over a wall? There doesn’t seem to be anything more suspicious in what she did there. 

Countless footsteps came rushing in the front door, as the cleaning team and medics went in. Raven narrowed her eyes discreetly at their outfits. All of them have that familiar uniform which is a sting in her eyes as it’s always them who would interfere with most of her cases. In short–she and the police are enemies. It would get troublesome if she were to get dragged in the case further. She has to come clean right now.

“How the hell did a large hole happen in there? There’s no way a person punched that hole, there has to be some kind of object used, like a hammer or something” Noel said in fascination and curiosity. 

“The proper question that should be asked in these situations is: what is the reason for creating a hole?”

Raven involuntarily tensed hearing that voice. It wasn’t familiar, but it did give her the shiver considering that it was intimidating, aside from the fact that the context of the question was alarming.

“If you were a criminal, what is your reason for doing so?” 

Raising her head up, Raven was met with the most beautiful hazel green eyes she has ever seen, filled with unspoken stories and unsolved mysteries. It was mesmerizing that she even forgot to breathe. 

Since when did he get here? She didn’t even feel his presence.

The owner of those hazel eyes leaned closer to her face, in which she subconsciously backed off, his hands were inside his jeans pockets as he ask, “Perhaps the mystery would be less enigmatic if we were to assume it wasn’t the criminals who did it,”

Raven asked under her breath, “Then who?”

He smiled. 

Fuck did her heart jumped with that smile.

“A third party, perhaps.” He replied, whispering directly in her left ear as he sideyedly glanced at the person’s interesting expression in front of him.