Fucking frogs.

Gross, slimy, green fuckers.

If Lucia had had to pick her least favorite animal before this exact moment, she never would have said "frogs". Sure, they're rather annoying at times when they won't stop their incessant quacking, robbing one of sleep and ultimately patience. But there were much much worse things out there.

Spiders. Worms. Stupid cicadas. But it had to have been the fucking frogs to land her at the precinct.

"Again, from the beginning please. The recording will be submitted as formal evidence, if charges are pressed," a tired voice drawled from Lucia's right. Despite the feeling of guilt expanding in her stomach, Lucia held herself back from shrinking in on herself. Daniel was just doing his job.

"June 15th, two in the morning. Was doing my usual rounds 'round the compound's perimeter. We'd been dealing with fuckers stealing parts for a while. First car parts, then those idiots trying to score bits of metal from that alien invasion. Government's real picky about those so instead of one round a night we need to go 'round more often. But nothing unusual that night. Just a fucking noisy summer night. Y'know, humid with a bunch of cicadas ruining the mood, among other things," the man across from Lucia stated, then looked at her with a smirk before adding, "Frogs."

Biting back a remark at the cackling idiot, Lu gripped the base of the plastic chair, clenching her jaw and ignoring Daniel's hard glare.

"Continue, Mr. Oswald," Daniel urged him and cleared his throat. The idiot was none the wiser but Lu had been subjected to that same harrumph for the past six years and knew she had better keep her mouth shut.

Henry Oswald had been stinking up the room the minute they had both been ushered into it. The smell of cold stale cigarette smoke and cheap beer was already penetrating every crevice.

But Daniel, unlike Lucia, was professional enough to not let it get the better of him. The only hints of annoyance were in his brows and his nose. The usual high arches seemed to have finally been made acquainted with gravity, his nose lying crinkled between them. If she hadn't seen that displeased face every week of her life after another unnecessary argument between her cousin and herself, she probably wouldn't have been able to spot his annoyance that easily. Lucia probably didn't look all that different from him. They were both pissed off, although – naturally – for very different reasons.

The interrogation room was dark and moist despite the fact that most of its interior was either cheap plastic or metal, and for the offense at hand it was overkill. The state had succeeded, if its objective was to make its suspects and victims as uncomfortable as possible. Although she wished that the idiot next to her was less comfortable. If only she could-

"Look at her!" the idiot's excited roar made her flinch and she took a deep breath, involuntarily inhaling his stink. His expression was somewhere between amusement and wonder, eyeing her from head to toe, from clenched jaw to twitching fingers. And he was enjoying it, too. "Little bitch's mad at me for keeping track of what's mine, the nerve," he cackled, spitting all the way across the table and making Lucia jerk away.

Turning her pleading eyes to Daniel, she hoped he'd get her message of defeat. She didn't give in easily but it was five in the morning and she really didn't have the stomach for a person like Oswald anymore.

Seeing Daniel nod sent a flood of relief through her body.

"If you could just state the offense Ms. Johnson here supposedly committed," he encouraged Oswald and rubbed his eyes.

"She stole parts again, that's the offense!" he hollered, anger suddenly spreading in the already stifling room. "Hadn't it been for those frogs, I wouldn't even have noticed her! Stopped their damn quacking long enough for me to get an earful of her rummaging through things that are none of her fucking business! Was about to steal a thousand dollars' worth of stuff, easily!"

"Nothing on that fucking yard is worth a thousand dollars, Henry!" Lucia spat back, finally finding her voice with her fists balled and nose scrunched up.

"It must be, if you wanted it so bad!"

"Oh you fu-," she started but despite her attempt at lunging across the table, she only came as far as raising her hips slightly from the creaking chair until Daniel had caught her by her arms and pressed her ass down again, all in one swift motion.

Oswald cackled away on the other side of the table and leaned back against the chair, enjoying that he got to watch her getting scolded like a little child.

"Mr. Oswald," Daniel started, shielding his mouth with a hand to distract from an oncoming yawn, "We didn't find any stolen goods on Ms. Johnson here and the yard is in fact owned by the city. There are no charges to be pressed, at least not by you," he stated and patted Lucia's shoulder. Check and mate. None of the two men needed to know that the parts were indeed stowed away outside of the scrap yard behind a very dead pot of Marigolds. She had chucked them there while Henry had raged and dragged her from the yard to her uncle's precinct. "If you'll excuse us, I will send another officer to go over the paperwork, then you're free to leave. Have a good day."

"Good day it'll be," Henry seethed, watching Daniel usher Lucia out of the room.

Giving Lucia a light shove to make her walk through the door, he held back a sigh until the door fell into its lock behind them with a bang.

"Why?" he asked.

"I didn't take anything!"

"Oh stop lying," he scolded. "Why do you keep doing that? It's pure junk. There is no possible way you're able to make anything possibly functioning out of that crap."

Lucia shrugged, saving her words and making way for shame and guilt in her expression. Overwhelmingly, it was guilt for making Daniel deal with Henry McIdiot at the crack of dawn. The shame came because Lu knew he was mostly right. Moving in to give him a hug, she felt him pat her back, first reluctantly but then she felt his hand move in small circles across her back. "Go home," he mumbled against her head. "I'll deal with this. Tanya's worried sick. If you don't get home right now that 'til death do us part'-thing will have a whole other meaning."

Nodding against his chest, she started to slowly untangle herself when he sternly added, "It's also a-"

"A school night, I know," she finished, blinking back the need for sleep creeping up on her. She knew he was right so she finally let go and started moving down the corridor of the dimly lit precinct until she heard him call after her.

"Yeah?" she asked, confusion settling in when she saw him pick up something from a nearby table. There were no pamphlets in this precinct Lu hadn't already been presented with at one point or another.

Licking his lips, he tapped it against his open palm a few times. "Found something. He's in town, Lu. Expo or some other thing."

A tiny bit of knowledge of that man's whereabouts was enough to make her stomach clench up, unable to move but sending her heartbeat into a frantic rhythm. "Oh fuck me," she muttered, more for show. Had she expressed her true feelings, a few curse words would not have been enough.

Stretching out his hand with the flyer in it he expected her to take it. She looked at it long and hard.

"You're burning a hole through it with that stare of yours," Daniel commented and Lu snapped out of it long enough to grab the cursed piece of paper from him, despite the queasiness she was feeling. "Chance of a lifetime, Lu."

"What good does it do after seventeen years?" she asked, her eyes not leaving the flyer and taking in the bold script and the blinding white smile of the man next to it. But her question had been too quiet and she didn't dare repeat it out loud. So with one last glance at Daniel, she crumbled up the flyer and started walking home. Her first glance at her father through something other than a screen wasn't going to happen anytime soon. He had survived thus far, he would live a while longer. She hoped.