The apartments both Nick and Hank pulled into were rather run-down and not very inviting, and they were already littered with cops. Among them was Sergeant Wu, whom Nick and Hank approached immediately.
"What happened this time?" Nick asked Wu bitterly.
Wu gave him an odd look, then shrugged. "Same situation as Thomas Webber, shredded to bits. But this time, there's no bulletholes, and there's two bodies," Wu replied.
Nick tensed a little, wondering if there was a connection. "Who are the victims?" he blurted, earning himself a look from both Wu and Hank. He cleared his throat, embarrassed. "Sorry," he muttered.
"We've identified the victims as Markus West and Samuel James. Not that you can tell by looking at them," Wu muttered. "Neither of their wallets were in their pockets, but they both conveniently had just their IDs," he said as Nick and Hank followed him in the apartment, hinting that it could've been a robbeyr. The bodies were sprawled on the floor, blood everywhere. Both detectives suddenly felt sick to their stomachs at the sight. As soon as Nick saw the state of the bodies, he seemed to have a pretty damn good idea of who'd done it. He really needed to see Erin.
"Damn," Hank breathed. "Think it's all gang-related?" Hank asked. Wu shrugged, clearly having no clue himself. But Nick had a few ideas. He had a few clues and he intended to solve this case. If he could help it, these two would be the last victims of this shit.
"Is the captain here?" Nicked asked. Again, Wu shrugged and left.
"What do you think?" Hank asked Nick, who shrugged unconvincingly. "C'mon, Nick," Hank muttered. Nick knew something that he didn't. Nick sighed and gave him a look that said it all, and Hank let out a long "oh", finally realizing. "It has to do with all that weird Grimm shit, doesn't it?" he said.
"I'm pretty sure," Nick replied.
"Yeah, I'm starting to recognize your looks," Hank muttered.
"Hank, I think I'm going to, um, take this one by myself. I need to see someone," Nick told him, with an apologetic look.
"Who?" Hank asked curiously.
Nick sucked in air. He had to tell Hank who he was really going to see, he couldn't bring himself to lie about it. Though he didn't need to necessarily get into details about the situation. "Erin Parker," he replied.
Hank looked baffled. "The little delinquent?" he said. "What the hell has she got to do with any of this?" he asked Nick expectantly.
Nick sighed. He couldn't tell Hank about Erin. "She's not a delinquent, Hank, she's just-" Nick hesitated, looking for the right word, "-lost."
"Well, where is she?" Hank asked.
"Hospital," Nick responded with no hesitation this time.
"Why, what'd she do?" There was a mild expression of concern on Hank's face.
"She was, um, jumped." Nick avoided Hank's gaze as he told this obvious lie. "I better get going, Hank," he said quickly, brushing past Hank, who frowned at him suspiciously but said nothing.