Hello, boys and girls...I'm back! Did you miss me? Becouse I miessed YOU...and this story.

Enjoy this new chapter!

XXXX

Chapter 12 :

Carnage's threat had landed. A tail more than eight kilometres long wound in the direction of Brooklyn Bridge, a branch even started from the City Center Memorial Park.

From the bridge you could see City Island and from there stood the imposing and proud Statue of Liberty, which raised its torch. The large statue had been built decades earlier as a lighthouse, a light that would illuminate the city's hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, over the years, that light had dimmed to illuminate little more than the infinite series of failures in the metropolis.

Agents on motorbikes or on horseback paraded alongside the queued cars in an almost vain attempt to remain calm among those who desperately wanted to escape. Line buses, intended for a new use, had been collected at the most critical point, in order to partially lighten the traffic, but they also ended up trapped in the crowd of terrified fugitives.

From the back seat of the service car, George Stacy orchestrated the city exodus as best he could. He was caught in the tourbillon of half a dozen cell phones that put him in communication with the captains of the key districts of New York.
The vehicle proceeded for most of its torturous path on the sidewalks, and the insistent cry of the siren put the already terrified citizens on the run, who tried not to be run over.

"Sir", a voice on the phone said. "My men have already evacuated a third of the population of Roosevelt Island, but we'll never be able to reach everyone in time."

Tom Hills, veteran of the New York Police Department, twenty-two years of service, was captain in the Fifth district, and he was clearly frightened. At the same time, however, he endeavoured to maintain control.

"I don't know what to do, sir. We really need help."

"I wish I could give you, Tom", Stacy replied. Hills had been one of the first policemen he met after his arrival in New York. It was almost impossible to find a better and more honest agent than him, which is why he was promoted to captain only three years later. "We have the staff reduced to the bone. You need to evacuate all you can."

"And those that we can't evacuate, sir?"

The answer was hateful to him, but Stacy knew there wasn't another.

"We can't do the impossible."
And, having said that, he closed the communication before Hills could reply, dropped the phone on the seat and exhaled deeply.

Even in the best conditions, it was an impossible job. Today was even worse.

He watched several school buses loaded with middle school kids, or even younger ones, passing his car. They headed north, passing Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan. From there they would be pushed west and, with a little luck, they would leave the city in an hour or two.

The children seemed frightened and for a good reason: it was undoubtedly the most chaotic situation they had witnessed in the course of their young lives. Unfortunately, New York always found a way to leave its mark, even on the youngest.

"In the end, everything always falls on children, doesn't it?" Stacy said to Ben Finch, his driver. "They must be so scared. I look at them and I can only think when Gwen was their age."

Finch nodded. "Yes, but do you know what, Commissioner? Twenty years ago there were no monsters like Carnage. Today, we are invaded. I couldn't even count them."

He shook his head.
"In my opinion, these children know all too well how low humans can go. They don't even realize that life doesn't have to be a sewer, that this shouldn't be the norm. For me, this is the real crime."

Stacy felt a squeeze in the stomach. "How do we deal with such a situation?"

"Well, you asked me: it's just my opinion, of course, but for me it would take at least a hundred people like the Avengers. And we should make all our resources available to them."

With each word, his voice rose in cadence. He took a deep breath and added. "As I said, it's just my opinion."

"It is fortunate that there are people like the Avengers", Stacy agreed, but not without a certain degree of reluctance. "Maybe they are even fundamental, I know too. But as precious as they are, you know better than me that we cannot live forever under their tutelage. We'll need the law sooner or later, rules and order. People turn to us policemen in search of protection and must believe that we are up to the task, and we don't need outside help."

"I agree with you, sir", Finch said to Stacy. "But until then, with all that is going on in the world ... I think they'll need to take care of everything for us."

"The trouble is that they really raise the stakes. And the criminals continue to adapt to the new level."

"I realize it, sir. But if you are so opposed to the Avengers, why do you let people like Spiderman operate freely in this city?"

"Because they aren't the ones who worry me. As annoying as he is, I know that Spiderman is a good person. It's his followers and those of the other Avengers who worry me, who want to imitate them. Not all of them will have their unshakeable sense of justice, like that Punisher. I always pray that one day New York and the other cities of the world will only need the police."

"It's a beautiful dream, sir", Finch muttered, before stopping the car. "Here we are."

Stacy took a deep breath and opened the door, immediately finding himself immersed in a cacophony of lights and screams, many of which belonged to the agents who tried to maintain order around the police station.

"You know, Ben, until yesterday six million people lived and worked here in New York", he muttered, getting out of the car. "Now there are not so much any anymore."

XXXX

"Mr Fisk? I'm Turk. I'm between seventeen and Broadway. I met Hood's guys like you said, only that they changed their minds. They don't want to join us against Carnage. Hood said that now we are all against everyone."

"And what is our response to betrayals, Mr. Barrett?"

"They confiscated my weapons before I entered, and they didn't return them to me when I left. I mean, boss, I'm lucky that they let me go. Could you send me reinforcements?"

"Barrett, I sent you to handle the situation. And I expect you to do it. Solve the problem, or maybe Mr. Hood will allow you to become a member of his entourage. You know how important loyalty is to him."

"Yes. Um, all right, sir. I understand. I'll take care of it. Don't worry, boss."

"I don't worry, Turk", Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin of New York crime, said. "I pay someone to do it for me."

Turk Barrett felt the line drop and felt a lump in his throat.
He had no choice. Counting Hood, there were seven inside the office building. The question was: could only one man kill them all ... a man without a gun?
Unfortunately he knew the answer: impossible.

At the age of nineteen, Turk Barrett had found himself without great expectations from the point of view of work. He had hardly finished middle school and had given up in the penultimate year of high school. At the time, one of the few jobs he could do was as the henchmen for the Maggia Family. But he wasn't very good at it.
A year later he had moved to Thompson Lincoln's gang.

He had gone from gang to gang, affiliating himself until they kicked him out. But, four months earlier, he had finally entered that of Wilson Fisk, recently released from prison. And unfortunately, he knew that if he failed again he couldn't join another gang as if nothing had happened. Wilson Fisk, after all, didn't take failures well.

Turk looked down the street and saw some police cars parked. The agents weren't there, they were probably evacuating the neighbourhood, like their colleagues did after Carnage's announcement.

The road was littered with rubble, including a crowbar half hidden in the bushes of a flowerbed.
He knew he wasn't the smartest of Fisk's men but, given the opportunity and the urge to stay alive, he was perfectly capable of doing some calculations.
He took the crowbar, looked around to make sure no one saw it and prepared to break through the window of a steering wheel. With any luck, he would find a loaded pistol inside.

"Hi!" a sudden voice exclaimed above him, forcing him to stop and look up.

"Spiderman", Turk swore, as soon as his eyes landed on the figure of a certain wall-climber comfortably resting on the top of a lamppost.

The vigilante, dressed in his Iron-suit, began to clap his hands mockingly.

"I bet nothing gest past you", he said, then took a leap and landed right in front of the man.

"I couldn't help eavesdropping. I heard you were talking to good old Fisk. Would you like to tell me the topic of the conversation?"

"Fuck you", the thug growled, raising the metal tube in attack position.

The Avenger's lenses thinned into a couple of slits.
"Wrong answer", he whispered in a low voice.

Then, he lunged forward with a lightning motion and hit Turk directly in the jaw, sending him straight against a wall.
After trapping his arms and legs with a spider web, he walked up to him and grabbed him by the neck.

"I had a really bad day, so you should be very careful with your next words", he hissed in the face of the criminal, whose face was now a mask of blood. "I know you were talking about Carnage. Tell me where he is!"

"I don't know where he is, I swear!" Turk exclaimed, visibly frightened. "I just know he recently bought a lot of weapons from Fisk!"

"Weapons? What the hell are they for?" Peter asked, visibly perplexed. After all, Carnage was hardly the type of person who needed guns or pistols to kill.

Turk swallowed hard.
"I don't know! But now Fisk is trying to convince the other gangs to come together to hunt down that monster. I am only a messenger!" he shouted desperate.

The vigilante remained silent, staring at him for what seemed an interminable time. Then, he let go of the man's neck and took a step backwards.

"This better be true…for you", he said coldly.

He shot a web at the nearest building and launched himself in midair, a single thought going through his mind: "What game are you playing, Fisk?"

XXXX

Perched on a stone gargoyle, seventy meters from the sidewalk, Carol Danvers was peering at the members of that fleeing horde.

Thousands of men and women dragging tearful children behind them, their faces distorted with terror, all in the hope of being able to leave the city before Carnage started whatever he organized for the city. Many were convinced that he would detonate bombs, while others that he would begin a long slaughter that would last for the whole night.

Living in New York often meant living in fear. Soon there would be nothing but fear… unless something was done about it.

"Unless the Avengers do something about it", Carol thought, as she saw Hulk helping some cops move abandoned cars that blocked traffic.

At the same time, the woman noticed a group made up of five unsavoury-looking guys approaching an old building.
What appeared to be the boss was thin and small, and he shouldn't be more than twenty-five years old. He wore jeans and a blue T-shirt with the design of a famous cartoon character.

The boy stuffed an alcohol-soaked rag into a glass bottle full of gasoline and motor oil and then lit the makeshift wick. Once broken, the bottle would have generated an instantaneous and deadly fireball. Always if someone hadn't stopped him earlier.

Carol jumped into the group and grabbed the hooligan, lifting him from the ground for about four meters. Then she dropped him, breaking his legs.
As soon as the aspiring arsonist was stopped, the woman dived and grabbed the incendiary bottle. Then she threw it across the road, towards the Hudson River, where it sank without damage.

Carol landed in the middle of the other four in the group and knocked the biggest one down with a punch to the jaw so strong it broke it. The criminal, who was bleeding from his mouth, stopped and fell to the ground.

The other two were wingmen accustomed to seeing their victims surrender with just a few moans of fear, to indicate their disagreement in the face of the superior force of the group. The terrified shopkeepers rarely reacted, when the gang aimed their weapons on them with the threat of sending them to hell if they didn't release the contents of cash register.

But Carol had no intention of complaining or giving up. They deserved a lesson, no matter how long they would spent in jail.

She punched the hooligan hard on the bench. The boy was out of breath and collapsed, and as a real idiot he tried to put his hand on his belt to hold a gun.

With a quick fist, Carol fractured the bones of one hand, which she heard cracked and then broke. The thug cried out in pain.
Once healed, within six to eight months, he could use it again to bring food to his mouth, perhaps even to cut it, but little more. His criminal days were gone forever.

At the sight of those downcast suburban hooligans, Carol felt neither joy nor satisfaction. She merely observed everything with an impassive, empty gaze.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw that thug number four was trying to escape.

Without wasting time, the woman raised her right hand and hit him with a ray of cosmic energy. She saw the boy fall to the ground without getting up.

The hooligan number five proved to be smarter, or at least he had treasured what had happened to friends. He went to his knees and put his hands on the back of his neck, interlacing his fingers as he had certainly been ordered many times. Carol didn't give it any importance.

She raised her right hand and clenched it in a fist, preparing to hit the boy.

"Carol!" a voice behind her exclaimed.

The woman spun around. Bucky Barnes had appeared a few meters from her ... and he didn't seem happy at all.

Snapping her tongue, the Avenger let go of the thug, who was staring at her with an expression full of terror.

She put a couple of handcuffs around his wrists, activated the communicator and tuned it to Rhodey's frequency.

"Rhodey, I have five thugs already packed on Robbins, south of Times Square. Someone should pick them up."

"All the police officers are busy, Carol", the comrade Avenger replied. He looked tired and frustrated, but determined not to give up. "We have to evacuate a city of six million inhabitants, terrified and in hysteria, and we have not even a thousand policemen available. They are doing everything possible to keep at least a semblance of order, but trains and buses are not enough for even a quarter of the people. Therefore thieves, arsonists and all the other dregs in circulation today are not among our priorities."

Carol turned back to the five thugs she had stopped, all tormented except for the one who had given up.

"I'm not going to let them go, so I will take them directly to the nearest station." she muttered, before stopping the transmission.

She started to approach the delinquents, when a hand on her shoulder forced her to stop.

"What the hell did you think you were doing? You were going to kill that boy", Bucky said, staring at her with a hard look.

The woman raised an eyebrow.
"I would have only made him unconscious", she retorted angrily, abruptly removing the arm of the former soldier.

He stared at her incredulously.
"He had given up! You had no reason to hit him."

"He's a criminal!" Carol growled, violently slamming one foot against the asphalt and making the whole area tremble. At the same time, the street lamps in the neighbourhood began to release sparks and electric discharges, which certainly didn't go unnoticed to Bucky's eyes.

The man raised both his hands, in an attempt to calm the superheroine.

"You are frustrated, I can see it. Do you want to tell me why?" he asked with a much gentler tone, hoping wholeheartedly that she wouldn't hit him with a ray of cosmic energy.

The woman tightened both eyelids.
"I don't want to talk about it", she snorted with a low voice, continuing to walk towards the unconscious bodies of the delinquents.

Bucky snapped his tongue annoyed.
"Okay, it's time to use heavy calibres", he thought with a hint of bitter irony.

"Is because of Spiderman?" he asked suddenly.

The reaction he got was practically instantaneous.
Carol stopped suddenly in the middle of the road, remaining silent. Then, she slowly turned her head towards him.

"What about him?" she asked coldly.

Bucky refused to back down and held the superheroine's gaze.
"It's all day that we try to contact him and he hasn't yet answered. Did something happen between you two?"

"Like what?" the other sarcastically retorted.

The super-soldier shrugged.
"I don't know, maybe a classic quarrel between lovers."

The woman blushed sharply.
"I do not ... as you can think of ... he and I are not ..." she stammered, trying to simulate an expression furious enough to frighten the comrade Avenger. The soldier, however, simply scrutinized her with an impassive, apparently unimpressed look.

Carol let out a sigh.
"How long have you known?" she asked resignedly.

"For about a month", Bucky replied. "You are quite obvious. In fact, I'm surprised that more people haven't discovered it."

The blonde's face blushed further.
"W-we've never been obvious!" she protested indignantly.

Bucky snorted amused.
"It's clear that you have never noticed the way you look at each other during meetings. It's the same look Steve gave to Peggy before each mission", he said with a de facto tone.

Silence reigned in the neighbourhood.

Carol opened and closed her mouth a few times, then released a snarl and went back to staring coldly at her teammate.

"Does this not cause you problems?" she asked defiantly.

Bucky shrugged a second time.
"It would be rather hypocritical from me, considering that my best friend had an affair with a woman who was one third of his age. Not to mention that that woman also turned out to be his acquired granddaughter."

"... Ok, it's pretty messed up", Carol admitted, unable to hold back a little smile.

"Believe me, I lost sleep for days", Bucky said, shivering at the memory of those nights spent in white. Then he went back to peering at the superheroine.

"So, will you tell me what happened? Did you quarrel?" he asked curiously.

Carol gasped. "Bingo", the Avenger thought.

"No ... or rather yes ... or rather, I did", the woman said, with uncertainty. "I was angry ... hurt ... and I lost control. I told him things I didn't really think."

Bucky didn't reply and just stared at her. Feeling weighed by that look, the woman let out a frustrated groan.

"Or maybe I thought them, but ... God, I feel like shit", she muttered with a low voice, while she put a hand on her face.

In front of her, the super-soldier looked up to the sky.
"You are neither the first nor the last person who almost blew up a relationship for some stupid thing they said."

"Remove the 'almost'. I think that ship is now on the ocean floor", the blonde bitterly replied.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Are you really sure?"

"After what I told him? Yes", Carol answered, with a de facto tone.

Despite his best judgment, the super-soldier found himself smiling in front of the woman's naivety. She was an excellent soldier and an extraordinary strategist, but she seemed to struggle to distinguish people from machines. She seemed almost convinced that, in the human body, there were sectors specifically programmed to respond to certain situations. In a sense, she was very similar to the generals of his time.

"You underestimate that boy's heart", he said, after a few moments of silence. "Did he ever tell you what made him choose to become Spiderman?"

Carol stared at him.
"The death of his uncle", she answered with a hint of reluctance."It was caused by a thief whom he had previously let go."

"Did he also tell you that he had managed to capture that man?" the soldier asked, further surprising the woman.

"He ... no, he didn't", she admitted almost with a whisper.

The super-soldier nodded to himself.

"He told it to me, during one of our workouts. Imagine: the only father figure he had…was stolen from him just a few hours earlier. He had his killer in his hands and was holding him over the ledge of a five-storey building", he revealed, making the woman jump.

"Oh my God, Peter", she thought, as she felt a chill gripping her heart.

"He could have let him fall ... but he didn't", Bucky continued. Then he curled both lips into a proud smile. "He chose to turn him over to the police. He chose to do the right thing where many others would choose to take revenge. And, a few months later, he went to visit that man in prison ... and he simply forgave him."

Carol dilated her pupils and opened her mouth wide. She knew that Peter had faced many things, despite his young age. But this ... she never expected such a scenario.
When she found herself in front of a defenceless Yon-Rogg, she too had been very tempted to kill him right there and make him pay for all the horrors he had committed against her and the people she cared about.
Still, Carol had chosen to spare her enemy and not give up to revenge. Just like Peter.

"Are you still convinced that you have no more hopes?" Bucky asked, bringing her back to reality.

The woman looked down at the ground, as if she was in a state of profound contemplation.
After what seemed an interminable time, she raised her head and stared at the other Avenger with determination.

He sighed with relief.

"Go look for him", the super soldier said. "Find him, before he takes advantage of all this mess to do something stupid. I'll take care of these guys."

Carol sent him a smile full of gratitude.
Then, she flew into the sky and started heading for the Stark Tower.

XXXX

"Here I am, Fisk", Stacy said, as he entered the interrogation room. "So, what do you have for me?"

Wilson Fisk, better known as Kingpin, was on a huge chair, suitable for his massive build, and mumbled a big cigar. The commissioner remained standing.

"I'll get straight to the point", the crime boss said, releasing a thick cloud of smoke. "I would like to file a complaint against Spiderman. Burglary and violation of private property. Aggression and beatings. He thinks he can go into someone's house, step on him, and then drag him to prison without a proof rag. Isn't that an injustice? Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I've known enough to know one or two things about the law, and I don't think Spiderman is respecting it."

"I don't doubt it", Stacy replied, looking at the time. "And I'll face the problem ... but we're not here to talk about him, right?"

"Oh, no! Of course not! Um ... as you know, I consider myself a businessman. I have night clubs, racing salons, massage centers ..."

"You mean drug stores, gambling dens and brothels."

"You have no proof about this, do you? When I think of opening a new business - always in a legal way and in the light of the sun, I remind you- I write a detailed business plan and offer the material to people interested in investing. Until proven otherwise, I insist that you recognize the full legality of my business."

"We know what kind of business you talk about", Stacy replied. "And when you say invest, we read extort."

"If it's not soup it's a wet pan", Fisk said, with a shrug. "But I'm a business man. Instead, this Carnage is a nutty fool, and his delusional plans are hurting my business. I want you to stop him. After all, I pay your wages with taxes."

"Remember me to send you a thank you note", Stacy said, as he sat down and threw him some papers. "If you hate him so much, why did you sell these weapons to him? And before you deny it, here's the deed of sale signed by you and Carnage."

Fisk threw the cards on the table without even looking at them.
"First of all, I have those weapons legally. My lawyers will forward the licenses to you. Secondly, what kind of businessman would I be if I didn't sell him my products, especially if that idiot was willing to pay them even after a price increase ... completely reasonable? Profits lead to strange alliances, you know? And then, seriously, do you really think I could say no to someone like him? I'm rather surprised that he didn't try to take them by force, but I suppose even a madman knows how to recognize when the numbers are not on his side."

"A lot depends on whether or not you were aware of what Carnage was going to do with those weapons", Stacy replied. "If you were aware of it, you're a partner in crime. And if I can prove it, I swear that you will never see the light of the sun again."

"It's the same thing that Matt Murdock told me before I was sent to prison twice, yet here I am again outside. Between saying and doing there is a sea", Fisk said, with a little smile. "Anyways, no, I don't know what the hell he wants to do with those weapons. Actually, I didn't ask, and he didn't tell me. But, if I had to guess, I think he's building an army. Perhaps for protection from the Avengers, because I seriously doubt that he would need it against the police."

The man gave the cigar one last pull, then squeezed the stub into the styrofoam cup on the table.
"In any case, for my companies to grow and prosper, New York must be relatively quiet. Chaos is not an atmosphere that favours business. And here's the reason for this chat. You could ask me the same question about Genshiro Shiragami. I think you would receive a completely different answer."

"Shiragami? The chemist? What does he have to do with Carnage?" Stacy asked, visibly surprised.

After all, he had heard of the man several times. He was one of the most renowned individuals in the scientific community of New York, and had recently been involved in the creation of a new type of bacterium capable of increasing the productivity of wheat and allowing it to thrive even in desert areas.

Fisk just shrugged.
"I don't know, but, thanks to my informants, I know for sure that Carnage kidnapped him recently. And of course I also told this to Spiderman."

"And how did he react?"

"More seriously than usual. A pity, I like that boy. It doesn't have all the anxiety of Daredevil. He makes me smile. I mean, what would you like to arrest me for, exactly?" he continued, in a mocking voice. "Legal weapons? I got it. Deed of sale? I got it. Tax paid? I got it. You won't frame me like Al Capone. And I believe that the denunciation for obscene acts in a public place has fallen in prescription. So unless you can find an indictment that lasts longer than a family-sized pizza takes to get here, when can I leave? I have a company to run."

XXXX

Peter began to walk down the path that led to the Kasady's house.

Weeds infested the lawn in front of the house, hiding the stones that marked the path to the porch. Crickets sang in the meadow, and some grasshoppers were seen jumping around in erratic and casual parables.

The building was pervaded by a disturbing aura. As edgy and dilapidated as it was, with the windows all barred with planks, it had the sinister appearance of all the old houses abandoned for a long time. The exterior plaster had fallen, swept away by the rain, and the house had taken on a grey and uniform colour.
The windstorms had caused several tiles to fly away, and at a point on the east side a heavy rain had made the roof arch, giving the whole a rickety and threatening appearance.

A wooden sign attached to the mailbox warned against going any further.

He felt a sudden urge to stop, but it only lasted a couple of seconds. He was the amazing Spiderman, after all. This house was nothing compared to individuals like Thanos and Carnage. Of course, he just hoped Carnage himself wasn't in there.

He looked around one last time.
The house had been inspected a few days after Kasady's escape from Ryker's Island prison, without the police officers in charge finding anything there. Subsequently, no other checks had been made.

This is because, according to Commissioner Stacy's statements, it was very unlikely that Kasady would have chosen such an obvious place as a refuge.
Of course, this was also the reason Peter had gone there. It was not excluded that Kasady had taken advantage of this belief to use the house as a hiding place later. After all, the police practice was never to check a place that had already been inspected, and due to the whole situation with Carnage, Ryker's Island's escape had probably gone into the background.

Sure, Peter could have informed Stacy of his theory - that Carnage and Kasady were the same person - but he didn't want to risk putting other agents in danger. They didn't have what was needed to fight that monster ... but he did.

He crossed the lawn between the crickets and the locusts to the porch and looked inside, through the glimmers of the nailed boards.
He swallowed and stared at the house, almost hypnotized.
Once he entered the lobby, he smelled musty and damp intent on corroding the walls and the wallpaper, while a group of mice ran frantically along the walls, towards their hiding place.

He began to look around.
The house was littered with junk shops and furniture covered in dust. His gaze lingered on a spiral staircase that connected the living room to the floor above.
He appealed to his senses and tried to evaluate whether or not there was someone in the house.
Nothing. Not a heartbeat, not a pounding of footsteps or the hiss of a breath. The house seemed completely deserted.

First he went upstairs, checking the bedrooms and bathrooms, but found nothing useful.
Then it was the turn of the main floor, but the result was more or less the same.

The only sign that someone had been present in that house in the last few days was some leftover food that he found scattered around the kitchen, but could have been safely left by a homeless man who had chosen the house as temporary accommodation.

Finally, the turn of the basement came. Peter would have liked to avoid it, his experience with horror films had never been pleasant when it came to that particular section of a building.

"Come on, Parker, don't be a child", he muttered to himself, then took a deep breath.

Being careful not to make too much noise, he began to descend the staircase that led to the cellar.
The door to the room was locked with a padlock.

"Not for long", Peter thought.

Using his superior strength, he broke the bolt in seconds, opened the door wide ... and stopped.
The whole room seemed to come directly from the isolation cell of an asylum.

The dirty and wrinkled walls were almost completely covered with large red writing, thousands of AH AH AH AH scattered on every inch of concrete.
Except for the wall perpendicular to the door, on the right, where numerous photos and newspaper articles stood out, connected to each other through a scarlet thread.

Swallowing hard, Peter approached the improvised board slowly.

He saw pieces of newspapers about Claridge and Erbert, photos that depicted them as they prepared to enter their homes or stroll through the city. It was evident that Kasady had been keeping an eye on them for a long time, to learn all he could about the daily routine of what would be his future victims.

Later, Peter's eyes landed right in the centre of the board, where all the red threads met on a newspaper clipping depicting a middle-aged man with Asian features, perhaps of Japanese origin.

"Genshiro Shiragami", the boy read, realizing that this was the same person who, according to Fisk's informants, had been kidnapped by Carnage that same day.

Next to the article stood a map of Manhattan, where a specific point of the island was circled in red.

The vigilante tightened both eyelids in deep concentration, in an attempt to remember what that part of the city corresponded to.
When he did, he felt his heart skip a beat.

"Oh, no ..."

XXXX

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BOOM!
I hope you liked it, let me know in a review. Next chapter...the final fight with Carnage will start!