"What do you mean she left with someone?" Alex stared at the woman with a struck look on her face.
"I mean she met up with a man she appeared to know, he offered her a ride, and she left with him, agent Danvers." The receptionist tried to talk as slowly as possible, because it was obvious the woman in front of her seemed panicked, to say the least.
Alex's eyes widened as she realized what that meant. From what she'd read on the case files, that's how the killer lured his victims.
"Did… Did he say where they were going?" She tried to stay calm, balling her hands into fists. She couldn't snap at the woman, not when Maggie was missing.
"No, I'm sorry. They just walked out."
"What did he look like?"
"Uh… Late twenties, early thirties? Blonde hair, blue shirt."
Alex nodded anyway. It wasn't much, but at least it was something.
Without another glance, or even a 'thank you', she walked out of the police precinct, and pressed her phone to her ear. "Kara? I need help. Maggie is missing."
It took the blonde all of 30 seconds to land in front of her, cape flying effortlessly behind her, and cracking the concrete underneath her in her haste to land. She looked up, and wrapped her arms around Alex immediately. "What do we know?"
"She went along with a blonde man, they got into a car, he drove her somewhere."
Kara narrowed her eyes and looked around. "…I don't hear her anywhere."
Alex didn't want to think about what that meant.
"I'll fly around, and look for her." Kara nodded quickly. "She can't have gone too far. We'll find her, Alex."
Somehow, her sister's comforting did nothing to calm her down. But watching Kara shoot up into the sky made her take a deep breath, and try Maggie's cellphone again. Maybe there was a reasonable explanation. Maybe it was just a friend of hers, and he dropped her off at home – where Alex currently wasn't.
She walked back to her bike and hopped on, speeding back to her apartment. It was the only place that would make sense for her to stay, without her sister's super hearing or super speed.
The entire ride to her place was spent begging to anything, anyone that would listen, to please bring Maggie back home that night. Because the reality of losing her became scarily possible. And after all they'd been through – it couldn't end like this. Not tonight.
After closing the door behind her, she dropped down onto the couch dejectedly. She was powerless. Stuck waiting for Maggie to come home, or for Kara to call her.
And the wait was excruciating. Torturous.
Eventually, she fell asleep, hearing Maggie's 'I'll meet you home' repeated over and over again.
Were it really the last words she'd ever hear from the woman she was going to marry?
A loud buzzing noise around her made her crack her eyes open tentatively. She grunted against the noise, but it took her brain all of three seconds to catch up with the past evening's events. She shot her hand towards her phone on the coffee table, answering the call. "Kara?!"
"Uhm… Alex?"
The agent's stomach dropped.
"…I'm on my way to your apartment."
Oh god.
After a few minutes of restlessness, the curtains waved, and Kara landed into the living room, holding something Alex couldn't see.
As the blonde turned, she raised the object in her hands.
Maggie's badge.
"I found it in the middle of the road. Alex, there's blood on it."
Alex stepped forward slowly, reaching for the badge and examining it closely. There were a few drops, trickled down onto the plastic. Kara looked green, but clenched her lips together as she watched her sister process.
"Where did you find this?"
"Downtown."
Alex looked up. "Bring me to where you found it."
"Alex, it was probably dropped out of a car or something, there's no way you're going to-…"
"Take. Me. There."
Kara complied instantly, taking Alex into her arms and launching her up into the sky.
The concern for Maggie only grew in Alex's mind. It wasn't a fun meetup with a friend anymore. Alex knew that her earlier gut feeling had been right. Something had definitely happened to her.
Kara lost altitude near an almost deserted road, and lowered Alex to the ground. "This is where I found it. It's the road to the power plant. I'll go scan it, maybe there's something else there.
Something else.
Of course Kara couldn't say it out loud. Alex didn't blame her.
She watched her sister launch up into the sky once again, and looked around. There weren't any houses, just industrial lots and old buildings. The darkness gave all of it a creepy vibe, but Alex couldn't care less.
Her eyes caught something a few hundred yards down. A figure, appearing out of what looked like a small alleyway. It looked around quickly, but as it saw that Alex was staring at it, it ran in the opposite direction.
"Shit…" Alex cursed, running off after it. Already feeling the pressure on her newly acquired leg start to take its toll. She continued to let out a string of expletives under her breath as she chased into the direction of the figure. But when she almost reached the alleyway, she figured it was useless. Whoever it was, they were long gone by now. And she couldn't give a description to save her life.
She stopped running, and caught her breath with a grunt. Who would run away from a complete stranger on the street if they didn't have something to hide?
Her mind kept telling her it was probably a junkie. Someone shooting up in the alley, or at least someone doing something that wasn't supposed to see the light of day.
But… Just in case…
Alex drew her gun and walked up to the entrance of the alley, already feeling her heart beating out of her chest in anticipation. It was probably nothing.
She took a few steps inside, and looked around into the pitch black alley. It was hard to see her own feet below her, let alone twenty feet in front of her.
She reached for her phone, and activated the flashlight, shining it through the alley.
Into what she instinctively described as the cruelest homage to Jackson Pollock she'd ever seen in her life.
The entire back wall of the alley was sprayed with spats of blood, dripping down the bricks and pooling at the ground.
Right in front of her, stood a lonely green dumpster. Its lid wide open, and dripping blood.
A small note attached to the metal made her stomach jump.
She began running into the alley, towards the end. The screams in her mind repeating over and over again. No… no… No, please no…
She raised her gun, and steeled herself as she peered over the edge of the container.
No.
A lonely, blonde-haired man was lying in the dumpster, staring wide-eyed at the sky.
Alex stepped back, feeling bile rising in her throat, and doubling over as she threw up in the corner.
When all that's left was pathetic dry-heaving, she walked back towards the dumpster to read the note attached.
She didn't listen.
Alex reached for her cellphone, and dialed Kara's number with shaky fingers, starting over at least three times because she'd missed a key.
"C-come here. Please." After that, she tucked the phone away again, not bothering to wait for a reply.
The man obviously fit the description the receptionist had given her. Early thirties, blonde, a blue, blood-soaked shirt. It was Maggie's companion.
But where was Maggie?
She heard the whoosh of her sister landing behind her, paling at the sight in front of them.
"I-is it…" She heard the blonde's voice filled with tears.
"No." Alex swallowed thickly. "… It's the guy she was with."
"There was nothing at the power plant."
"T-the previous note said that… We would never find her body." Alex took a shaky breath. "I…"
"No, Alex." Kara shook her head, looking up to meet her sister's eyes.
Alex noticed the tears streaming down Kara's face. And that was the trigger for her mind to finally accept that maybe she wasn't going to get Maggie back, at all.
"We're going to find her!" Kara grabbed her sister by the arms. "Alex, we have to keep looking."
But the agent was too far out of it. Hysterical tears started streaming down her face at the thought of losing Maggie for good this time. Kara wrapped her arms around Alex when she felt her sway, and lowered her to the ground, all the while listening to her sister's pathetic sobs. "Please… god, not her… No…"
Whoever it had been, they'd better be ready to meet Supergirl's fury head on.
But for now, the only thing she could do was hold Alex in that alley, surrounded by that poor man's blood, and hoping that Maggie hadn't shared the same fate.