When I got home from a very long spy day with Tatiana and Trinity. My daddy took one look at me and raised an eyebrow, although I was at a spa. I was not relaxed. Then that gentle smile appeared on his lips as he slipped back on his expensive black shoes and put back on his suit jacket. “Come with me,” he ordered softly.
I followed him downstairs and into his car that he personally rented. He was never fond of expensive vehicles on his trips, so we rode down the street in a nice looking Toyota, black in color. When I asked where we were going he simply said it was a surprise. The streets became a bit more dirty, and covered in graffiti as we entered a more dangerous side of Harlem, New York. After a bit more driving we pulled in front of an old looking but nice building. It remember me of some of the houses and businesses located in the Hagglers Market back home. He opened the door for me and led me through a salon style doorway. My body was quickly filled with a nice warmth, a warmth that also oddly made me feel a bit hungry. I didn’t really eat much with Trinity and Tatiana at the spy, my mind more focused on what I had agreed to help Trinity with. I was even offered, and practically begged, to stay for dinner with them, however I was not really in the mood to.
I took one deep breath and my hunger only increased. My nose was filled with the smoky smell of freshly made barbecue. The deep brown wood floor creaked as my daddy waved to an older black woman, her hair up in a curly bun, her smile as warm as the heat in this building. There were about 10 or tables spread around this place. A few nice looking jersey’s of both football and basketball players, protected by large glass frames, some of them looking signed. A basketball game was playing, one table had a few older men sipping on beer and playing cards. One of them had a lime green colored jepei flowing off his shoulders and he greeted the two of us with a knowing nod, that we returned. There was a nice looking bar leaning against the wall with a single couple sitting at the tall chairs, as an older man with wrinkled white skin and long gray hair cleaned a few glasses before pouring them both a dark amber colored liquid.
We sat down in a booth in the back, and one look at menus that were on the table helped me understand why my daddy had taken me here. This place was called Uncle James’s Barbecue and Bar, and the special for Thursday was the first thing I saw. “All you can eat ribs,” I mumbled as my stomach finally let me know just how hungry I was.
“Yep,” my daddy said with a chuckle. “I found this old place during another trip to New York, which quickly became one of my favorite spots.” I understood why. People with carnivorous animal spirits ate a lot of meat, and we ate a lot as well. “And my daughter looked tired and most importantly hungry, so I decided to share this place with you.”
“Thank you,” I said, though my smile grew a bit worried. “Though isn’t it risky, eating out, what happens if Katherine just happens to come and finds us?”
“Come on now, Verona.” My mind relaxed as he said my name. I heard Cindy so much in the last few days that I nearly forgot that was my real name. “Do you really think that Katherine would come here of all places? That woman cannot stand eating somewhere that looks cheap, and besides this place is one, you need to know the right people to find out about.”
A man came to our table, honey brown skin, and with a nice and sharp looking haircut. I had gotten a blackberry lemonade and I had to have these ribs. My daddy had gotten the same though he also added something called Kansas City Burnt Ends, and had ordered some kind of whisky. The man placed a metal holder onto our table that had seven sauces inside of it. “Now I also wanted to ask, what seems to be on your mind?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said a bit cheeky and kinda didn’t want to have this conversation as I still didn’t really know what to say to him. I know he would say no to my plan of helping Trinity, but I was also growing tired of lies and telling secrets.
My daddy gave me a knowing look. “Verona, while you are, and I don’t like admitting it, a good liar sometimes. You hold your heart on your sleeve more than you think. I could tell that something is on your mind, something that is bothering more than you want to let on.” My daddy reached across the table and placed a hand over mine. “What is going, little one?”
“I am not that little anymore.” I said with a small bit of laughter escaping my lips.
He chuckled as well. “Well no matter how big, or strong you get. You will always be my little one, and that is never gonna change.”
I thought for a moment before asking. “How do you do this so much?”
“Do what?”
“This,” I said, motioning my hand around where we were. “Go on these missions, go help people, help the police put people away. How can you handle lying about a lot of things, probably wearing a new face to keep safe.” My nails dug a bit into the polished wooden table and I felt my jepei pulse a bit from frustration. “It’s hard listening to Trinity tell me that I am a good friend, while I am lying and keeping secrets from her. It’s hard to wear a disguise and a fake identity while also trying to gain her trust. How do you do it?”
“Well I can tell you that it is not an easy thing to do, not the first time at least. However, what I learned from doing this more and more, is that sometimes it is best for what we have to do. In order to shut down evil, we often have to enter it ourselves, the best clues lie in the lion’s den. These disguises, some false truth and true lies, are weapons to survive in that den.”
“What happens when you finally show who you are, especially if the person you are lying to thinks of you as a friend, a really close one at that?”
My daddy ran his thumb against my hand, a soft relaxing motion that always made me feel a bit better. “It is hard to do that, some that I had fooled, were grateful once it was all over, others hated me and later saw reason, and some still hate me. It truly depends on the person, but oftentimes I find that those accept me after I show who I really am.”
“I am tired,” I admitted. “I want this to be over, and I want to get Trinity and Tatiana out of here.”
“Tatiana?” He questioned.
“She was a girl I met at Club Serenity and she told me a few things that tells me she is also in all of this. Even told me a few things about Trinity that makes me more worried about her involvement in all of this. Trinity is not bad, I think she has been… Katherine is doing what she probably wanted to do to me. Only it is working, I truly think that Trinity is the small figure that has been killing people for Katherine and her daddy. I think this other girl was hired by maybe Mr. Wallace’s enemies to take her out.”
“I think you might be right about that.”
“I don’t want them to kill Trinity for her crimes when she is old enough to be truly charged for them.” I felt tears starting to prick against my eyes. “I don’t know how to help her though, she loves her daddy and is doing this to help him, I think that is also why she is putting up with Katherine. Even Tatiana who just wants to be different from her family is being dragged into all of this.” I reached up and wiped my eyes of these tears.
“This has been a lot on you, hasn’t it.” I nodded my head and even with my slight tears I felt a bit relieved admitting that. Just as I did admitting to my momma that I was still afraid of Katherine and made a mistake coming here to begin with. However, just like with her, he knew what to say to cheer me up. “You have done great so far, you have gotten things that I don’t think me and Joshua would have been able to do. I know how hard this has been, I know that you are worried about all of this and your friends. However, I believe that when this is all over, your words and what you have found are gonna be what we need to get Trinity back to the island, where she can be rehabilitated rather than punished for her crimes. Because your words in this case are gonna mean more than you think, and that one reason is why regardless of what happens when we finish this. Trinity is gonna be grateful that despite your small lies and false truths, it is those two things that are gonna keep her alive for much much longer.”
“Can I ask one more thing?” I asked, much more grateful and relaxed after his small speech.
“Of course you can.”
“Have you ever had to help someone do something really bad in order to help keep your cover?”
He thought for a moment, picking up his glass of whisky that had not been touched so far and took a sip. “Sometimes, but what you learn from doing this is that there are some lines that even you don’t want to cross. I have done a few small things, but you learn to make limits in all of this, as well as be on the same page as your allies just in case. Why do you ask?”
I wanted to tell him what I had planned for tomorrow night, but something made me stop. I don’t think it was really that bad of a thing to do this now. “I just wanted to know.” My mouth started watering as our server came back with the first two of probably many trays of ribs that were gonna be ordered. “Thank you for taking me here daddy.”
“No problem.” He said. “Also I would recommend the sweet heat sauce, it is my favorite.”
And after one bite of these tender ribs with that sauce, I understood why.
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It was chilly tonight. I was starting to grow used to the warm autumn weather of the morning that later changed into more chilly winds of night. It was mid September, technically I was still on summer breaker which ended in two weeks. I was starting to wonder if I was gonna be back home by then. We had been making progress but it was still a slow journey. I was waiting outside of my “hotel” or rather the place I always had Trinity’s drivers drop me off. It was going on 11 at night, however I don’t think anyone told the city of New York that it was time for bed. It was Friday night and the city still seemed so lively and ready to party. I was grateful that I loved to sleep and it took so little for me to fall asleep, or the evening noise of New York would probably keep me up much longer than I liked.
A moment later, I was surprised as not a limo, or truck, or even a car pulled up in front of me. Instead was a slick looking red and chrome colored motorcycle. It slid gracefully in front of me and a moment later the helmet was taken off revealing Trinity. She was wearing tight black pants, a long sleeve black hoodie, and she had a smirk on her face. Her dark red eyes gazed over me for a moment, before she got off her bike, and before I could stop her. She quickly stuffed my braids inside my own black hoodie that I had brought this morning and pulled my hood up over my head. “You could have told-” I gasped as she pulled the strings of my hoodie tighter, making the hood close up around my head. “I can do this myself!” I snapped more out of annoyance than anger.
“I know,” she said, before handing me a white mask, with pink cheeks, the mouth was shaped into a smile and the eyeholes seemed tainted. “Come on, we have to go.” She said, pulling her helmet back on.
I had never been on the back of an actual motorcycle before. I had a dirtbike at home that I used to use to get places before Aisu was big enough for me to truly ride. However, this one was bigger, prettier and a lot quieter than I originally thought. I climbed on the back and wrapped my arms around Trinity’s waist and rested my head against her back. The mask she had given me was a bit uncomfortable, and it took a moment for me to adjust to the slightly darker vision I had, however as we drove down the streets of Manhattan. I quickly got a knack for it. Trinity was actually really good at driving this bike, she turned corners like she was a professional driver, she slid in and out of this late evening traffic. She made sure to stay out of the sight of police as I am sure we would get pulled over and probably taken into custody, for a much less serious crime than the one we were about to commit. She never stopped at red lights, only slowed down before taking an alley or going down another street.
She knew these roads like they were the back of her hand.
After about 15 minutes we had arrived at a large cube shaped building that had at least 50 clear looking windows all stretched evenly apart. This looked like the back of the building as I saw no sign of an actual doorway for us to go into. It then occurred that even if we came to the front door it wasn’t like we could just go inside. Trinity stopped her bike across the street and once I was off of it, she opened the seat and took out a chain that she used to chain her bike to a nearby bike rack. “How long have you had this?”
“A year,” she said plainly. Judging from her much more serious tone she was not in the mood to talk. Her aura was back at full strength and I did notice that she was still favoring her left arm a bit more. “Come on,” she ordered as she quickly moved across the street towards this building. Her aura spiked towards her legs as she leapt up and grabbed the ledge of one of these windows. She pulled herself up before jumping off that ledge onto another one.
I was amazed at first seeing how easily she did this, wondering just how many times she had done this in the past. However, I followed after her, taking the same path she had taken, my hand slipped once on this slick stone and I lost two of my sharp nalls but managed to keep on going. I looked up as Trinity pulled herself through a window near the top floor and held her hand out to me. I took a deep breath before pushing myself upwards and grabbed onto her hand. I heard her wince in pain as this was probably her left arm but she still pulled me up with ease. I found myself in a warm room. The lights were off but thanks to our jepei auras, the room was filled with dark red and bright violet auras. That was another gift of our jepei auras was being a natural light source as well to our people.
Trinity was kneeling on the ground holding her left arm. She shook it a few times, each one getting a small wince of pain. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped through clenched teeth. “Come on.” She went to move but I grabbed her hand holding her in place. “I don’t have time for this, Cindy.”
I didn’t let her go, instead I pulled her closer to me. I could hear footsteps coming and I held a hand over my mouth. I pulled her towards this empty desk and had us sit underneath it until I was sure those footsteps were gone. “I have really good hearing,” I whispered. “I could hear people outside.”
“Are they gone?”
I nodded my head before taking her left arm in both of mine. I then straightened it out and lifted it up like she was lifting a weight. “Does that hurt?”
“Cindy we,”
“Does it hurt?” I interrupted firmly. “I am not doing this if you are too hurt to do so. It puts us at risk and puts you at risk of an even worse injury.” Our jepei aura’s combined to give us a red and violet mix of light. A light that helped me see through the glass of her motorcycle helmet and into her dark red eyes. “So either you let me run you through something so easy that a five year old can do it. Or I knock you out and find a way to take you out of here so you can heal.” My face softened as I then added. “I care about you, and I don’t want you to lose things because you are being stubborn.”
Trinity didn’t respond at first but then using her other hand she flipped up the glass of her helmet letting me see her much clearer. “Okay.” I nodded as I carefully moved her arm back and forth, up and down, finding what she could and could not do with it right now. It looked like she would be fine as long as she kept it mostly still and didn’t do any pulling or pushing. I wished Beatrice was here, she was learning from her mom, medical studies, and probably knew just what was wrong. “I’m sorry,” Trinity answered once I finished. “I just need to get this done and then things can go back to normal. To be honest, I didn’t want to do this.”
“Then why are you doing it?” I asked. “Why do things you don’t wanna do, you have everything you could want, your daddy would give you the world if you wanted it. Why risk all of that by doing something like this.”
Trinity’s eyes hardened like stone and it was like I was looking at a truly different person. “You don’t understand, everyone has to do things they don’t wanna do to make sure our pride stays strong.” Trinity closed her helmet before stepping out from under the desk. Her was aura shining a bit brighter and stronger than ever. It was easy to tell emotion from jepei users, our aura would grow bolder or fainted, lighter or darker depending on how we felt. Trinity’s right now was back to the style I had seen when I first met her at Club Serenity. Bold and bright, filled with pride. “This empire is gonna be mine one day, and I will do what I have to do to make sure that it stays strong. My daddy did his part alone and pathed a nice way for what will be mine when I am 18. That was his promise to me.”
“What is this empire and why is it so important?” I asked, stepping behind her. “You are right, I don’t understand, so help me understand it.”
Trinity looked back at me, her hands held behind her back. “Help me do this and I will give you my word. I will tell you everything about this empire and then make you an offer you cannot refuse.”
My eyes went a bit wide as she said that. Because this is what we had been looking for for so long since I came here, this is what we could use to truly understand what is going on here. My daddy was right, sometimes you have to do something bad to gain something better to help you. However, there was one thing that I needed to also know first. “What would be so good that I couldn’t refuse it?”
“I want you to stay in New York and be my friend, to be my right hand.” Trinity answered and even though it was covered. I was pretty sure that she was smiling. “I like you Cindy Perez, and I want you to be the first person that I ask to join my pride.”
“W-What?” I asked in disbelief. “Why me?”
Trinity just turned around a bit more a skip in her booted step. “Help me get this done and I will tell you everything you want to know.” She opened the door allowing bright white light to come into this dark room. “Come on already, we have work to do.”
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As I followed Trinity through these empty halls of NYPD headquarters. I couldn’t help but think about what she had told me not even a minute ago. “I will tell you everything you need to know, I want you to be my right hand girl because I like you.” I had to shake those statements out of my head because I had to focus right now. All of that can wait until this is over, cause if I failed this then it wouldn’t matter what Trinity wanted to tell me.
She probably wouldn’t tell me.
And if I failed it probably would end our friendship right now.
This was not only important to her to protect the pride that apparently she was being built to run, but I think that this was gonna be what defined this friendship of ours that has been built on a large amount of half truths and lies. This probably would also be the one thing that could help us finally get all the information needed to take down Hezekiah Wallace, and the last thing we needed to push Katherine in the right direction to get her taken down. So although I knew this was bad, I kept my mouth shut, my eyes wide and my ear open as I chased after Trinity. Occasionally I would stop as I picked up movement and I would grab her arm. She would stop, fully trusting my judgment, I didn’t know where we were going but I was gonna keep following her.
We eventually made it to a nearby stairwell, and Trinity carefully opened the door and peaked through and motioned me to follow. We raced down the steps skipping every other step as we went. Once we reached the sixth floor, she pushed open the door and I followed her out. More doors were on either side of us, all of them having nameplates and numbers above them. I closed my eyes for a moment and listened carefully, I could hear a few things but nothing serious. Accept for someone typing away on something, probably a computer or laptop. When I opened my eyes, I saw Trinity leaning up against and she was motioning towards the door. I could read the golden name tag from here. “You’ve gotta be freaking kidding me.” The office that Trinity was trying to get into, was not only a friend of my daddy, but I had literally just used her husband as my fake daddy.
Office Cassandra Perez Cooper.
“No, no, no!” I thought to myself as I pressed up against the otherside of the door. Trinity nodded at me before spinning around and quickly opening the door and sliding inside. I followed her lead, really hoping that maybe Office Perez was not gonna be inside of this doorway. My hopes were immediately dashed as I saw a surprised Office Perez look up from her table. She had very light brown skin, her hair short, and a surprised look on her round face. Trinity ran forward before the woman could draw her pistol and one very hard punch snapped the woman’s head sideways and she collapsed onto the ground a bit dazed but somehow still conscious. “I am sorry,” I told myself as I ran in and then with one quick kick the woman collapsed onto the ground unconscious.
I ran back and closed the door and locked it as well as pulled the blinds on the glass of her closed door just to be safe. Silently praying that her large thud had not alerted anyone underneath her or nearby. However, I also turned off the lights and locked the doors to hopefully make it look like she had just gone home. Our jepei aura light through the darkness and I increased mine a bit more to make sure so we could see. When I turned around I was met with a pair of white gloves hitting me in the face. “Put them on before you touch anything else.” Trinity ordered firmly. “Honestly we have to teach you how to not leave so many clues behind.”
“Well I am new to this,” I said walking over. I held my hand out and using my projection I sent most of it to my hand to act like a flashlight. “What are we even looking for and was it necessary to knock her out like that?”
“Yes it was,” Trinity began to quickly open up drawers and started to drum her gloved hand through all of the files. “Go through her computer for me.” She said pointing at it. “Look for anything about Hezekiah Wallace and delete it, then check to see if you deleted it from the recycling bin.”
“Okay,” I said standing behind the desk, not bothering to upright the computer chair she had been using. Luckily I had caught it before it went into rest mode or we would have to guess a password. I also took one of the pictures of Office Cooper and Detective Cooper off the table and hid underneath, cause I did not need Trinity finding out the truth.
It took a good moment or two before I had found a very long string of emails on Hezekiah Wallace. However, the ones that were important were labeled as evidence. I stopped for a moment as this file had all the footage that me and Joshua had gotten at the party. It had still frames of the pictures I had taken when I had Aisu take that woman’s small bag. It had audio recordings from the both of us, mostly of conversation from Joshua as mine weren’t really important. However I also realized that if I had not come and Trinity had looked at these files. I think she was smart enough to find out who had gotten this footage, and I didn’t want to think what would happen to me.
Then another thought came into my mind… what would happen to Aailyah who also helped me in my lies if Trinity found out she was involved.
However, I also really didn’t want to do this, all of our hard work was gonna be for nothing. So what if I did something different? I looked over at Trinity who was still busy working and quicker than I had ever typed before. I looked up my father’s name and as quickly as I could I made copies and sent them to him. With a label that said from Verona I am sorry, I will explain when I get home. When I had finally finished sending what I could, I deleted the rest and made sure to check it twice. My heart fell deeper as I thought about how much we probably ruined and just what this meant.
I was probably gonna be in a lot more trouble than when I first came here.
Once that I was finished. I quickly looked over at Trinity who was still drumming through files. Until finally she stopped and pulled out a paper, and I could read the letters from the jepei aura that surrounded her. “Warrant Approved! Chaos and Order!” Trinity took the paper and rolled it up before sliding it into her hoodie pocket. She looked around for a bit more and took three more papers, putting them in her hoodie pocket. Trinity raised her helmet covered head up and nodded before moving towards the door and I followed after her. We had gotten what we came for… and I had a feeling I was gonna have a lot of explaining to do when my daddy opened his laptop.
We followed our steps back to the top of the building and made our way back down the same side of the building we came up. My heart was pounding through my chest, I could barely breath after what we had done. As soon as we were back to her bike, I lifted my mask off my face and dropped to my knees in front of a sewer and lost my lunch. I felt horrible for what we did but at least I had sent something to my daddy and I could only hope they still had enough. However, that thought didn’t make me feel any better, and the idea that I had helped Trinity and was probably gonna get some important information also wasn’t helping.
“There are lines that I don’t cross when doing this.” My daddy’s words from the previous night ran against my head. I now understood what lines he didn’t want to cross.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and when I looked up I saw Trinity with her helmet off and she was smiling at me. “Good job, and now I truly know I can trust you.” She kneeled down and wrapped her arms around me in a tight embrace. “Tomorrow afternoon, I am gonna pick you up and I will tell you everything you need to know.”
“T-Thank you.” I answered.
Her hug didn’t feel warm, it was cold and distant. Even her words, while heartfelt, didn’t truly feel right.
I think I made a mistake, and I didn’t know what that mistake.
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and then Add to home screen.