It was Ty's shift at his family's coffee shop. It was small but relatively popular thanks to some brilliant business decisions on his older brother Julian's part. Julian proved to be quite adept at running a business. Smart innovations like to add in a vape bar when the trend started getting traction, and other such decisions that kept the Blackthorn's financially afloat. The store was small enough that only one person was usually needed to man the shop, and on the rare busy days two or three.

Thankfully for Ty, today was not a busy day, and as a result he spent the majority of it sitting behind the bar reading. That was the case until he heard the chime of the bell above the front door alerting him to the fact that he now had a customer he was expected to wait on.

Ty shifted his gaze to look at the customer to see a familiar blonde haired boy who was approximately his age approach the bar.

Ty's grip on his book tightened.

The boy stopped in front of the bar as Ty put down his book getting up to fix the other boy's order.

"Black coffee." Ty said in acknowledgment that he already knew the order and turned around to prepare the beverage. The corner of the boys mouth quirked up as he took a seat in the corner of the shop.

The boy and his dad were regulars of the coffee shop and Ty noticed two things about him as time went on. The first thing was that he ordered his coffee black, which striked Ty as odd given his age, and the fact that he had been eyeing the different flavors they had before ordering. The second time he served him, Ty decided to try something, and was glad Julian wasn't around to see him purposely mess up a customer's order just to see if his deductions were correct. Instead of giving him black coffee as he had ordered, Ty gave him a peppermint latte, Which Ty was pleased to see that the boy drank the coffee without so much as saying a word of complaint.

The second thing he would notice was the color of the boy's eyes, which was odd for Ty considering that he seldom made eye contact with anyone if he could help it. This was something that often made others uncomfortable around him. Most of the customers ever banned from the shop in fact, were those who presumed Ty was rude and tried to give him a piece of their mind, In which Julian had promptly kicked them out of the store and giving them a lifetime ban. So it struck him as interesting that the blonde boy never tried to catch his eye, making him suddenly curious as to what the other boy's eye color was. The answer he would find, was light blue like distilled twilight.

Ty sat down the coffee in front of the boy before returning to sit behind the bar. The boy took a sip of the coffee, and looked down at the cup with a small smile. The bell chimed again and both boy's turned their head to look at the new customer. It was tall man who was probably in his late 30s though he seemed to want to appear younger judging by the style of his clothes, and blonde highlights that looked rather off on the older man.

"Black, with seven cubes of sugar if you have it." The man said leaning on the counter giving Ty a grin showing off his missing teeth. Ty nodded without meeting his eyes and turned to begin making the order when he noticed the man take a seat across from the blonde haired boy.

Odd, Ty thought.

Odder still was that the boy didn't seem surprised by this, but instead gave the man a lazy look as he apprised the him still lounging in his seat. The two customers began to talk in low voices. Even though they were clearly trying to whisper it wasn't hard to over hear them considering they were the only one's in the shop. Besides, Ty thought as he slowly prepared the coffee, he had to admit he was curious. His mind seemed to snag on the man's next words.

"Alright little Rook I got your information if you got mine." The older man leered.

"Yeah, I got it alright." The boy said producing a small slip of paper between his fingers that he waved in front of the man. The man eyed the paper, shifting with impatience as he snatched it from the table as the boy slid it towards him. The man read the paper and let out a huff, as if he was amused by it somehow.

"This it? This is all you got?" The boy narrowed his eyes at him.

"Look that's all I could get, Thats the address of the drop, what more do you need? He said waving his hand as if to say "what can you do?" The man cocked an eyebrow, an uncomfortable grin spreading across his face as he leaned in close across the table.

"Really? With a pretty face like yours? You must not have tried that hard." His voice was so low it made his words sound like a threat. The boy was quiet for a moment before leaning across the table as well, never breaking eye contact.

"Don't screw with me Miles, I got you your information. Now, wheres my father?" He said, matching the man's threatening tone surprisingly well. The man Miles, smiled wide exposing the gaps in his teeth as he fished out his own crumpled piece of paper from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table in front of them. The boy hesitated for a moment before picking up the paper and quickly scanned through its contents, his brow furrowed in confusion as he reached the end.

"This, this is where he last was?" He seemed to be putting a lot of emphasis on "this", Ty thought, which said something since it was the kind of thing he usually had trouble picking up on.

"Looks like you didn't even need my help." Miles leaned back in his seat and looked around the cafe, his arms stretching out wide.

"But...why?" The boy still looked dumbfounded much to the mans amusement.

"Look kid, this place ain't as big is you think, everyone's got their hands in somebody's pocket. And anybody looking for pockets knows Johnny Rook."

That's why Rook sounded familiar Ty thought, as he finally brought the man the coffee he ordered. Strangely however, as he walked up to the table Johnny Rook's son palled as he noticed him there. The man just stood up and waved away the coffee Ty had still in hand.

"Afraid I have some business to attend to. Here kid, you like sugar don't you? Why don't you take it. Consider it a thanks for the information…about your father." He said with a grin as he got up to leave. The boy scowled as he watched him leave the shop.

It wasn't long before the boy who was apparently looking for his father left the cafe. Ty was cleaning up the table, noting that the coffee with sugar was left completely untouched. Picking up the cash, he counted the money left on the table. The boy had left a 20 dollar bill, way over paying for his order, tip included. An idea was forming in Ty's head as his mind raced to put all the whispered pieces together, who was Johnny Rook, and where was he? What sort of information did the boy have and what did the man tell him that surprised him so?

A very interesting idea.

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Kit Rook made his way back to the coffee shop late that night making sure to dodge past streetlights and incoming headlights. As the little shop came into view he pulled up the hood of his jacket hoping his blonde curls weren't sticking out too much. He took his time walking around the shop. The lights were off, obviously the shop had been closed for hours now. No need for anyone to still be in there by now he thought. Kit looked around the entrance way hoping to find a spare key. If it was a typical store he wouldn't bother, but everyone knew the little cafe was a family run business with the owner's nieces and nephews working as the stores only employees. So it was possible that maybe they had a spare key lying around for when one of the more forgetful siblings forgot theirs, much like a spare house key.

Kit looked under the welcome mat, nothing. Of course not that would be too obvious he thought, as he looked around more his eyes resting on a large rock. Kit smiled and walked over to it lifting it up to indeed a find a small key. He picked it up smiling to himself feeling victorious, only to have the smile slide of his face as he looked at Ambrosia Brews. Kit pushed himself forward putting the key in the lock, his eyes glancing over at the small chalk sign by the door that read: Our motto is "bad service is no service."

Kit pushed open the door closing it gently behind him. The cafe looked much more quaint in the dark somehow to him. The Roman styled pillars with fake ivy wrapped around it along with the white Christmas lights that hung on the ceiling made the place feel more elegant than it actually was. There was no music playing like usual either making the place feel smaller. Usually Ambrosia had different music playing depending on the employee working. Kit first noticed it when he came into the shop one day and was greeted with soft classical music instead of the typical pop rock or musical soundtracks he was used to. He would begin to associate that music with the dark haired barista that always served him flavored coffee rather than black. Tiberius, he thought he remembered was his name. Kit shook his head, why was he thinking about the barista? That wasn't helping his cause right now.

Kit walked into the back of the shop where the kitchen and office space was, it really was smaller than he thought. He walked through the kitchen and headed into the office, relieved that the office wasn't locked. Kit bent over to look at the papers scattered on the desk, he wasn't really sure what he was looking for but there had to be something here, anything. Kit began shuffling through the papers, mostly bills and paycheck stubs when he heard a sudden noise behind him.

Kit whirled around still clutching the papers in his hands only to see the dark haired boy from earlier standing in the doorway holding a kitchen knife. Tiberius.

He looked unsure of what to do next but his hand held steady on the knife. That's when he raised his eyes to meet Kit's.

Kit sucked in a breath. His eyes were a startling gray matching the knife in his hands, yet somehow his own eyes were drawn more to the boy's then the threat he held in his hands. He watched as his grey eyes widened, mirroring his. Words left Kit as he stared back at the boy. For a moment they just stood there in silence.

"I-."

"That's not what your looking for." The boy interrupted, his eyes darting down to look at the paper in Kit's hands.

"Wait- What now?" Kit said baffled. He just motioned with the knife for Kit to move out of the way. Despite himself he stepped aside to let him through. Tiberius moved into the office and produced a key from his pocket he used to unlock a filing cabinet left of the desk Kit had found his papers, quickly taking out several sheets of paper and handing them to Kit. He hesitated before looking at the documents, shocked that this boy who didn't even know him would just hand them to him. The papers seemed to be detailing transactions or recording meeting times under the name of R. Kit riffled through a few more pages and felt his heart jump seeing the simple scrawl of his father's handwriting. Kit looked back up at the boy to see him holding out his hand for something.

"Show me the paper he gave you." He said. It took Kit a moment to register what he was asking for, almost forgetting that he must have overheard his conversation with Miles. Kit pulled out the paper he still had in his pockets and handed it over, watching the other boy examine it.

"That's what I thought, Its a forgery." He said with a nod.

"No its not." Kit said realizing this was really the first thing he had to contribute in this bizarre conversation. Tiberius didn't contradict him, just waited for him to continue.

"I know my dad's handwriting and that's definitely it."

"No." He shook his head showing him the paper." See here where the lines are darker as if someone had hesitated here? This means someone was taking their time trying to be very precise, they wouldn't have to do that if that was their handwriting." He said it with complete confidence, and Kit had to admit now that he had seen it he was starting to doubt it himself.

"But how did you know this was a forgery before you had even seen it?" And what are you still doing here, he wanted to ask.

"I overheard you talking, you seemed to be surprised of the location he gave you, it sounded like it must have been somewhere you were familiar with, but the information wasn't unhelpful so it wasn't your house, or his place of work. You spent a lot of time after you finished your coffee before leaving just observing the store like you were looking for something, also left too much money when you left and considering your father is missing I'm guessing you don't have an abundance of money to just give away so you did it on purpose. That would suggest you were feeling guilty about something but you hadn't done anything yet, so it was about what you were going to do. And if I was right I assumed the paper would be a forgery and that Miles had lied to you but that doesn't seem to be the case.." He finally finished looking annoyed that he got something wrong. Kit was trying not to stare with his mouth open. He had thought he was being discrete, and even if he hadn't been the as cautious as he should, surely no one else could have possibly figured all of that out?

"Hold on." Kit said suddenly coming back to his senses. "You were right about the forgery, but not why?"

A shattering of glass pulled them out of their conversation, there was silence for half a heartbeat.

"Rook where are you? Come on out kid, we know you're in here." A man said, a melody of laughter from several people followed afterwards.

Kit felt his heart slamming against his chest, he was set up.

And they were going to kill him.