"Where. is my. coffee?" Rosa glared at Amy as she came back into the room.
"What?" Amy looked entirely affronted, and spoke as she slid into her chair, "Jake should be back in a few minutes, he texted asking what I wanted."
Rosa slammed her head on her desk and groaned. It was 3:15 am and everyone either wanted to sleep, or was asleep. Terry sat, zombified and typing on his computer, Boyle was on the phone with someone in Tennessee. Gina was out cold at her desk, snoring softly.
"I thought you only drank tea?" Amy looked at the black-haired sleep deprived detective.
"Fuck everything, I need caffeine."
Amy nodded slowly, then sent Jake a text asking how close he was, before exasperatedly looking around the precinct. Holt's office door was closed, blinds as well, he was probably napping, what else would he be doing? It was 3 am for crying out loud.
Amy impulsively checked her phone for Jake's response, but it was suspiciously devoid of notifications. Boyle ended his call, and stood up, with a sweeping gaze, he looked around the area. The next thing Amy decided to focus on, was the meeting in the briefing room, and that Jake was still not there.
"I got off the phone with a nice old Cherokee Indian woman-"
"Don't call them that Boyle!" Gina was nursing a mug of tea, and glaring at him.
"She said she was one!" Boyle shot back at her, "anyways, she and I had a nice chat about ancient legends, and it turns out, there was a sect of the eastern band that broke off about fifteen years ago, and they're working on getting sacrifices to bring to the Rock people, who are tiny people, so they can make their leader into a new Uktena, or a giant horned snake."
Everyone stared at him, highly confused. Boyle sighed, and elaborated, "So there's apparently a tiny race of people who are, and I quote, as tall as our knee caps, and that race has three tribes, and one of them is called the rock people." He received slow nods of apprehensive understanding so he continued on,
"the rock people are mean, and they kidnap kids, and they like revenge. So, the small group of people that broke off of one of the bands of the Cherokee, is trying to gain the help of the rock people. The only issue is, they based themselves out of New York, and no one knows where the rock people are anymore."
"Or if they ever were a thing to begin with." Rosa muttered, her temper mostly from lack of caffeine.
"Anyways," Boyle continued, "the nice lady, I couldn't pronounce her name so she said to just call her Friend of Birds, said that they would be looking for sage, wild flowers, dead game, and missing people, mostly children and childish adults, or as she said, 'forever children.'"
"Okay," Holt finally spoke up from his spot in a corner, "So what are we looking for?"
"We should look through illegal hunting charges, missing children's reports, and missing people's reports." Terry suggested.
"Oh my gosh!" Amy had a sudden realization, "The flower shop, that's why he killed them, he wanted all the flowers to be for the," she faltered, the idea still being so weird to her, "the sacrifices."
"that's a motive." Holt spoke up.
O0o
"yeah, I wanted flowers for it, they said they didn't wanna give them no more, but we don't kill sacrifices. They're ain't missing."
"Wha'd'ya do with 'em then?" Rosa needed coffee, and Rosa had no patience.
The man must've sensed the difference in atmosphere around her, because he cooperated, "they go to the rock people."
"that's not an answer."
"What do you want from me? Yeah, I killed the guys, they were gonna end their sacrifices, said it was useless, and we should just make a life for ourselves 'stead of tryin' to bring back them old times." The man smirked, "You got my story lady, but ain't ya missing something?"
"What?"
"your eegoheeduh oowahgeeah." (spelled English phonetically, a google search will yield nothing) She leaned over the table staring at him, but he smirked sat back and smiled, "Your forever boy."
Behind the glass, Amy took out her phone to check if Jake had responded, but there was nothing. She called him, her panic rising even as Rosa finished up and left the room. All Amy managed to get, was a voicemail. "Hey Jake, where're you at, Rosa really needs that coffee."
O0o
"So, there's a kid missing somewhere in this city." Rosa stated without lifting her head off the table, it was seven in the morning now, and still no Jake. It's not that she didn't care, she was just too tired to emote in normal Rosa manner. Jake was in for a harsh talking too when he did show up.
It was Wednesday now, and the uniformed officers were beginning to show up for their shifts.
"there's no missing persons cases in the area that fit the criteria." Terry looked up from the tablet he was holding.
"Maybe we're not looking for a kid." Amy spoke up from where she sat at one of the tables. She turned to Boyle, "the woman," she made a weird face when going over her name, it just seemed funky to her, "Friend of Birds, she said, children or people that act like children-"
"Childlike." Terry corrected.
"Yeah, she did say that." Boyle spoke with a thoughtful air, before getting a sudden look of alarm, "people who act like kids…"
"What?" Rosa lifted her head from the table, "you mean like Jake?"
Amy froze, and took out her phone, "I'm going to try and call him again." and for the fifth time, Jake's phone went straight to voicemail. Everyone listened to the message, then the beep, and Amy hung up, she'd already left a few messages and another one would be redundant.
"Santiago, take a uniform and go check your home, Diaz, go ask around the twenty-four-hour café, Boyle, go talk more with Barns, get as much information as you can," Holt swept his gaze across the room, "Jake could just be being, well, Jake."
No one, not even Holt himself, believed his words.
A/N: I now know this story will be exactly ten chapters. That makes the OCD part of my ADHD very happy. Also this chapter and the next one will be the longest in the story, and I might turn this into a series, obviously not with so many Cherokee references, but still, I think it'd be cool to have a series, and I have some ideas, but I've decided to try this new thing where I don't post stories until they're finished. Drop a review if you liked it. Or you can just leave silently and hope I don't know what I missed because you really don't wanna type one out, that's okay too I guess lol! Peace out, Don't drink and drive, Bai!