Chapter One
Roy practically had to shove open the door to Ed's office. He didn't bother with knocking, he never did anymore. When he laid eyes on him he could immediately tell the seventeen year old had been working all night non-stop, and he sighed under his breath. Ed looked up at him. He'd ditched his uniform for more age appropriate clothing, a pair of faded torn jeans, a band t-shirt and a wrist band, and there were three of four cans of Monster sitting on his desk. The only thing that looked remotely 'official' about him was the badge he now wore around his neck. Roy didn't doubt that they were empty. He must have been taking a break for a couple minutes. His iPod was on, sitting on the corner of his desk with the volume turned up all the way, some rock band Roy couldn't place a name on no matter how hard he tried pouring through the speakers.
"Could you at least try to act decent?" Roy asked, forgetting why he was even there in the first place.
"Sorry." Ed replied, and spun his chair around. He leaned over and grabbed something from the floor, another can of Monster, this one with a yellow logo instead of a red or green one. "Want one?"
"No, not really. Don't you know how bad those things are?"
"Kinda." Ed agreed, smiling before he flipped open the tab. "I don't really care right now."
"How many of those have you had?"
"Just tonight?" the blonde asked, "This is my fourth."
"Ed, your hands are shaking."
"Well that's what happens when you overload on caffeine." Ed replied. He looked down at his hands. True, they were a little shaky, but it wasn't anything he was unable to deal with. It was probably what Roy got like after a few cups of coffee anyway, he had no right to talk.
"Oh my god…"
Ed laughed at the negative comment. Roy didn't know if he could handle a more hyper than normal version of the blonde. He watched as he stood up. "So what did you come here for? I'm assuming it's not just to chat, right?"
"Uh…new case, yeah."
"Come on, really!? I haven't even finished this one, and…"
"And what?"
"I don't know what I did with the rest of the Monster I brought with me." Ed replied, his mind already somewhere else.
"How much did you bring?"
"Enough to last the rest of the week." It was silent for a couple seconds. "You know what? Forget it. I need to get out of here, and do something, or I'm gonna freak out. Let's go play a game."
"We're at work."
"Oh, yeah, um…let's go for a walk."
"Not very scenic around here."
"I have to."
"No, you don't."
Ed laughed again as a thought crossed his mind, "Come on, just while we go over the details. I can be House and you can be Chase."
Roy rolled dark obsidian eyes, placing his hands on his hips. "I don't even watch House."
"Then how do you know what I'm talking about?"
"Because you talk about it enough for me to gasp some of the details." Roy replied, "And isn't that show about medicine?"
"Sure." Ed replied, and he was already walking out the door, his newly opened and already half-empty energy drink left forgotten on his desk. Roy followed him. The halls weren't as busy as they usually were, and he handed the new case file to Ed, which he opened and started reading.
"Someone came in this morning and said they'd found a body in the park a couple miles from here. A couple guys went to check it out, and it turns out it fits in with the M.O. of one of our top priority killers."
"Which one?"
"One of the ones who hasn't killed since a year or two before you were born." Roy replied, "The whole case was closed up until this morning, deemed unsolvable."
"Either this guy's really old right now or we've got ourselves a copycat killer."
"The case was never made public to the media."
"Too gruesome?"
"Something like that. Just, if it were copycat it would have to be someone in the law department or someone who knows someone in the law department."
"Or someone who knew the original serial killer."
"Why do you think that?"
"Psychology's taught us that the vast majority of serial killers feel the need to talk about their crimes, means he had to have told somebody, right? And what if that someone wanted in on the whole thing? So maybe this guy will lead us to the original, too."
"Smart thinking."
Ed stopped where they were, in one of the busier rooms. There were around ten to fifteen other people there. He turned to face Roy. "I think we're done now." He decided.
"Done walking or done discussing the case?"
"Both, I guess. I think what we need to do is check out whatever evidence is there at the crime scene. Until we've found something there that can back us up, what we've just come up with is only a theory."
"Great. I'll do that. And I think that then you should go down to the basement and pull up the old case file. See who did what during that investigation. Just in case our first scenario doesn't work out, we can check out the investigators from the first case and get histories on them and their immediate family. You know, for the whole 'maybe the killer knew someone in the department' thing."
"What do I look for?"
"I don't know, any history of mental problems, violence, all the normal stuff. And anything that strikes you as odd. Don't leave anything out."
"I'm on it." Ed replied, then added, "See, we need to do this more often, Roy."
"Listen to you?"
"Well, yeah, that too, but I was actually talking about the walking thing. They were onto something when they came up with House."
"I'll pretend to understand what you're talking about."
"Awesome. Well, I'm gonna head down to the basement before I get lazy and find something else to occupy my time with. Feel free to help yourself to the energy drinks in my office, Roy, they really work."
"I don't think I need them."
"I think you do." Ed concluded. He turned to leave but immediately spun back around at the sound of a startled scream. His hand instinctively moved toward his waist, but he remembered that he didn't have his gun with him. He'd left it at the office.
A man at the far end of the room stood holding a gun to a female secretary's head. She was now crying, and two other men pulled out their guns as well. Ed looked to Roy, the older male's right hand around the back of his pistol, then he quickly scanned the room. The majority of these people were normal civilians. They, and one other man, were the only police officers in the room.
Said other police officer drew his gun without thinking. Hostages started to scream. Roy stepped in front of Ed. One of the men fired their gun twice, missing the cop and striking a wall once and then hitting him in the arm. He fell to the ground, his hand grasping the wounded limb while blood soaked through his fingers. Ed pushed past Roy, ran to the officer. "Someone call a medic!" he screamed.
"No!" the man demanded. He aimed his gun on the small blonde. Ed looked up at him, but the expression in his eyes didn't change one bit. "Nobody leaves."
"He's injured!"
"I don't care. Nobody's going anywhere until we get what we want." The hostage taker demanded. Ed noticed that it was just him and two others.
"If he dies, this is on you." Ed replied, his arms wrapped around the now sitting up police officer. It was silent for a few seconds as the two glared at each other, the only noise in the room the heavy panting of the injured cop. Ed finally shook his head in frustration.
He looked down at his shirt and tore down on it, hard, pulling off a long strip of cloth. The way he looked was the least of his worries. He straightened it out and tied it around the man's arm as tightly as he could. He heard Roy behind him; he didn't need to look to know it was him. The older brunette slipped off his jacket and wrapped it around his shoulders to cover his newly exposed stomach.
"Alright, I want everyone in that interrogation room over there before more cops show up." The man announced, attracting everyone's attention. They just looked at him. Nobody broke the silence. "Move it!" he screamed, waving his gun around.
Ed and Roy exchanged a glance as people started shuffling into the open door, and they helped their fellow police officer to his feet. This looked bad.
