Blossom~

I don't remember the last time I heard from my dark sister and it is finally eating at my conscious.

Maybe that was a white lie; it's been eating at me since the day I left her apartment.

Stinging cheek and all.

I have just been…

Running from it.

A bad habit I picked up and from whom I'm not sure.

Running to a six letter word.

Miller.

I've been drowning myself in him.

So much so that I haven't seen my own townhouse in the past six months.

A year and six months I haven't spoken to her.

I swallow the burning guilt.

I mean it wasn't that bad, the wound was healed before I even made it home.

I…provoked her.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and make my way to text Bubbles.

It's as if she's read my mind, her smiling face appears on my cell screen.

"Hey Bub."

"Oh Blossom I can't get a hold of Buttercup at all."

"What?" I ask, "Slow down, you're crying too hard for me to understand."

"SHE ISN'T ANSWERING! KIMIKO HASN'T HEARD FROM HER EITHER!" She yells, I hear her drop the phone to do a good sonic scream.

My ears ring and the glass on my phone cracks.

Great.

"BUBBLES!" I shout and she stops, sobbing into the receiver once more, "Calm down Bub you know she's done this before."

"Yea but that was when he was alive and could find her!" She shouts, "We aren't close to her like he was, he always knew how to find her!"

"Hey, hey calm down," I start, "Even if he was alive we probably wouldn't want him to find her now anyway."

It was a bad attempt at a bad joke.

I hear Bubbles crush the phone in her hand before it becomes disconnected.

It never used to be this hard to calm Bubbles down; Buttercup was always the thorn in my side.

I sigh and call Buttercup's phone.

It goes straight to voicemail.

She either hasn't been charging it or has crushed it out of a fit of rage.

Most likely the latter.

I send her an email in hopes that she's glued to her computer. That happens sometimes.

So absorbed in work that her personal life doesn't matter.

Not that she has much of one anymore.

She's done this before though.

After she broke up with Butch out of nowhere.

Almost two years of dating down the drain and she was gone.

For almost a full year.

Or maybe it was a year, I can't remember.

I just remember Bubbles and I begging Butch to find her. I remember being so worried over her that I actually cried in front of Butch.

I grab a fistful of his black shirt, a piney musk sticks to my nose.

"Please…Butch she's never… never been gone this long." I say between sobs, he stands with his hands stuffed into the pockets of that damn leather jacket.

The one she got him for his birthday.

I clench harder, staring up into his face, eyes brimmed with tears.

His handsome features blurred but I can still see his clenched jaw, the apathy that still clings to him.

He's been aloof,

Almost as hard to find as Buttercup.

But I found him.

Flew straight to him once I got word of where he was.

I tried bribing him with a get out of jail free card for six times.

No expiration date on it either.

No crime cap,

I would even let murder slip by to find my sister.

I said I would give him any amount of money that he wanted.

I would

Give

Him

Anything.

Normally giving him that much power over a person was too tempting for him to turn down.

Still his hard green eyes were colder than ever.

"Blossom, I'll tell you a final time," He says, gripping my wrist hard enough that it snaps, "If she wanted to be found you would have found her by now."

He shoves me away from him.

His voice is like a punch to the gut.

Venom soaked words stinging with every syllable.

I choke on another sob, falling to my knees as he looks at me.

Eyes glowing dark, angry green, before walking away.

He ended up finding her later that night.

As if he knew where to find her that whole time.

I let it go for now.

She either will or won't reply and either way I'm sure I'll have to end up banging on her apartment door.

For the time being I'll go see Bubbles, sort things out with her before I lose another sister.

I'll get Bubbles to send Kimiko to her apartment or to look around in that area.

And if she is missing again I'm sure we will never find her.

I grit my teeth and try to call Miller.

I need to run away a few more times before I actually deal with this.

I'm still looking for a ghost, the red hat sitting on my kitchen counter.

Returning to that after the drama at my sister's is another reason I am heavily relying on Miller.

He soothes my ruffled feathers.

Not as well as Brick could but Brick's dead and Miller isn't.

My work phone rings in my jacket pocket and I avoid it, not wanting to answer Thompson.

He will just have more bad news.

More murders I'm sure.

Though the 'Green Phantom' and 'Red Devil' have been inactive the past six months.

Since I left for Japan.

No news of them so maybe,

Maybe Thompson is calling about that.

"Blossom." I finally answer the phone and Thompson scolds me for almost letting it go to voicemail.

"Look this is very important. That copycat is at it again. But his time…well you need to see if for yourself."

I go to the location Thompson sent me to.

Miller is arguing with someone on the phone.

"You shouldn't have told her! No this could be personal you dumb ass. What if..what if this is her si…." He turns around, "Shit I gotta go."

He turns his back to me again before sending a newbie my way.

"Hello Detective Utonimum." She sounds, I look her over. She is fresh out of the academy, there isn't a hair out of place but she is sweating, seems pale.

Means she's seen her first body.

"Hello. If you'll excuse me I need to start studying the scene thank you." This is a shitty attempt at keeping me at bay and Miller knows it. He glances over his shoulder before yelling at a few more officers. He doesn't normally get this worked up.

"I don't think that's a good idea ma'am, I've been told by a superior officer to keep you at a distance." She says, voice clear but her eyes are shifty.

Looking around behind me, almost making me want to check over my shoulder.

Almost.

I pick up a tactic from my raven haired sister and get close in the officer's face. She's unsettled, she swallows taking a small step back.

"Oh? Last I checked, Miller wasn't my superior." I say, pushing her to the side.

Miller sighs once he sees me headed towards the crime scene.

"Bloss, I don't think this is a good idea okay?" He says, hands on his belt. That means he's nervous, I don't see that often but it scares me now.

"What's not a good idea?" I try to see over him, but he's as tall as Brick was.

"You being here, on this scene. I don't think this is a good one for you."

Anxiety rushes up my throat as I try to piece together his phone conversation from a few moments ago. It could be what?

My si….

My sister?

It couldn't be either one,

Not only did I speak to Bubbles this morning

But there isn't a being alive that could kill Buttercup

Except for maybe…

Herself.

Panic surges through my muscles and I push Miller hard enough out of the way that he falls to his ass.

I continue to shove people out of the way.

The photographer stops and stares at me for a moment.

Gaging my reaction and totally in flight or fight.

He chooses flight and leaves me alone with the body.

A body that has dark raven hair.