Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Jaden Scotts 

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      Jaden Scott is a tall and muscular guy with trimmed jet-black curly hair and blue eyes. He is 23 years old.

Mostly, he's a mess. 

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He got out of his car that evening feeling fatigued. As usual, his nights were shaky. 

There was nothing that made this worse than getting called on the job first thing in the morning.

He got up, took a shower, and decided to skip breakfast as usual.

He always gets his breakfast from a coffee shop close to his office. 

As he approached the crime scene, he raised the yellow tape with the phrase "Police line do not cross" written on it, and he could already feel the eerie atmosphere.

Although he was used to the job, he just couldn't get familiar with crime scenes.

 

It was a duplex.

The deceased was a woman named Carrie Sam, a 24-year-old blonde, stabbed repeatedly in the chest and eye.

He bent to examine her body as it lay on the cold floor in a pool of already clotted blood. 

He stayed there, trying to envision how her murder took place, feeling nothing but sadness.

"Her mouth was open and her eyes too. Was she screaming? And why couldn't her neighbors hear her?" He thought it was obvious from her strained face that she was yelling for help, plus there were marks on her neck showing she had been strangled first.

 

JADEN'S POV:

I was used to seeing dead bodies, but I've never seen one so brutally killed.

If strangling was enough to kill her, then why repeatedly stab her? 

I began to write down my observations.

"She's young," said Aaron from the forensic team.

"Did she have a boyfriend?" I asked, barely looking at him.

"Yes she does. As a matter of fact, the neighbors said they saw him leave the house at about 2 am in the morning.

We have gathered all the fingerprints needed and sent them to the biometric department, but they all belong to Miss Carrie." He replied.

I nodded slowly and walked towards the music speaker in the room.

Whoever killed her is definitely not an amateur.

"I guess I understand why her neighbors couldn't hear her; they drowned out her voice with loud music," I thought to myself before writing again.

"Come with me," Aaron said as he led the way. 

I followed him downstairs, and he showed me all the things they had stacked in white plastic bags as evidence for the investigation.

A high-heeled shoe?

"Why do we have a shoe as possible evidence?" I asked, not hiding my confusion.

"The victim wears a size 8 and that shoe in the plastic bag is a size 10 found in the kitchen." He replied.

"Let's go to the kitchen." I ordered.

Aaron followed me into the kitchen, and there were two badly kept knives with bloodstains.

"Get me a plastic bag," I said, and Aaron quickly handed one over. 

"Send this over for a biometric scan immediately.

Let them check for fingerprints and run a DNA test. I need the results before the end of the day."

"Ai ai, Sir," replied Aaron playfully.

In less than 10 minutes, Aaron was back. 

"Anything new?" He asked

"I feel this is a relationship problem, and we need to speak to her boyfriend." "He's our first lead," I said, walking out of the kitchen.

"Lock the house and keep the security line up; we'll be back once the results are out." I continued.

I felt dizzy and started to lose my balance.

The air felt tighter and I started to sweat. 

"Jaden, are you okay?" Aaron asked, using his hand to help me. 

"Um yeah. I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. I've been having these weird dreams but I'm fine now, carry on" I replied, finding my balance

Aaron nodded as he walked away.

I drove to the coffee shop, just a few blocks away, and as I entered the shop, I felt some serenity.

Why do I feel so at ease? Like I didn't just stare at the dead body of a young person.

I walked up to the counter to place an order.

I noticed there was a new employee, and she looked oddly familiar.

I kept thinking about where I might have seen her.

She was so beautiful, with her platinum dyed hair and rosy red lips. 

Not the kind of beauty you'd easily forget.

She handed the cup of coffee to me after staring at me for a few minutes, which I'm completely used to. 

I slowly shook my head, took it and walked away quickly. 

That was weird, very weird.

I couldn't explain the feeling.

Now about my nightmares... well, most of them are dreams I forget the second I wake up.

I have been having them for as long as I can remember.

I literally dream every day and it's messed up.

I sometimes act weird, talk weird, I don't even have friends except my best man Aaron, but I've had females that wanted to get into bed with me and well, sometimes they did.

The option was to try to lose some sleep in the night, and sex felt right.

Sometimes I feel like I don't know who I am or what I want  and it makes me pretty miserable. 

I'm going to stop there before you think I'm crazy.

I was at the club that night.

I picked up a girl named Stacy and tried hitting it off with her in my car...just then I heard a loud thud on the car, so loud it felt like a building collapsed. I got out quickly and tried to check what it was but there was nothing.

 

I saw five men dressed in black by the alley.

Stacy had run off out of fear, and voices filled my head.

The men had disappeared. 

"Who are you guys and what do you want?" I screamed.

The first voice spoke, to the others, 

"Are you really sure that this is Prince Jaden? He feels like a weakling." 

"This is where they said he would be found. They can't lie,"another voice replied.

It was like a conversation in my head and I had no control over it.

"Let's kill him and be over with it."

What did they say? They wanted to kill me? What the hell did they mean by killing me? Am I going mad?

I thought to myself, holding my head in my arms as the voices grew louder. Maybe it was my dreams again.

All I had to do was wake up.

"What do you want from me?"

I asked, but they seemed so uninterested in this question.

If they wanted to kill me, why were there so many? "Five against one."

I felt a punch on the face. It hurt so badly that I fell down as the metallic taste of my own blood filled my mouth.

The five men were slowly coming back into the picture.

I got really angry and scared at the same time as people from the club trooped out and began to stare at me, the crazy man.

I had no idea that I was the only person that could see the five men, and so I kept pointing at nothing in particular.

Trying to get up, I felt a series of blows and kicks all over my body.

Then a distant voice echoed from one of them.

"We were told to make your death slow and painful. Sins of the parents,the offspring shall suffer the punishment."

What the hell did he mean by that? 

Just then, I heard another voice in my head. This time it was a lot more peaceful than the rest of the voices.

"You need to get up now...let your rage be your strength."

The voice was so clear, it was like I had someone living in me.

My anger began to rise.

Why was I being beaten up for no reason? 

I felt a huge strength engulf me.

It was different.

Taking a stance, my fist clenched. I could see them clearly now. They weren't just voices or another nightmare, they were real.

I threw a punch at the first one and immediately it flew back, hitting his back on the wall hard.

Damn, where did that strength come from? I took a lot of Judo classes while training as a detective, but that strength was extraordinary.

"He has regained his powers. We need to end him now!" The shortest of them spoke.

I grabbed him by the throat and broke his neck.

My killer intent was unstoppable. 

One by one, I took them down.

A bright light surrounded me, and I felt more empowered. 

"Your anger has become your strength," the voice said again.

"That's right!" I replied, smiling to myself.

After a while, they all lay on the ground, lifeless.

People still stared and pointed. 

Didn't they see what I just went through?

Immediately, the power left me and I felt my body grow numb as I fell to the ground, almost unconscious.

Just then, someone lifted me. My vision was too poor to make out anything.

I could only see the beautiful platinum hair. It wasn't Stacy, stacy's hair is black. 

It had to be... 

Could it be? 

I strained even further. 

The woman from the coffee shop

She looked really worried. Was she crying?

My body gave in as my eyes closed, finding solace in the darkness.