News reporters surrounded the rickety station when word got out another murder had taken place in the city. Of course Liam knew these were the leftover reporters who hadn’t seen the crime, hadn’t witnessed the police investigate the body left in the middle of the city of Sherrington. The incident so recent that even he could remember the smell of iron in the air, the sight of fresh rubicund blood painted on the streets and lastly, your signal carved into the flesh of the innocent man. Well, innocent is what the public believed anyway. They had been investigating the man for weeks, picking up the clues of his dirty laundry, his money laundering, and illegal shipments. It was a step closer to finding you.

It was easy for the public to riot when the government was already collapsing, failing to keep its greedy clutches around and tight. Not that he couldn’t say the entire hierarchy wasn’t bastardized, but there had to be a reason you were doing this. Poking and prodding into people’s business became a sort of hobby for Liam even as a child. He was the type to ask too many questions, the sort of person to annoy anyone with the ‘what’s, and why’s, and how’s?’ It only was the start of his obsession with your case, one that he was willing to crack.

Dim nights and the smell of citrus is what led him to the dark alleyway. A dim pop up shop that only appeared open when streetlights turned on, selling a variety of citrus’s or citrus-smelling products. Sitting behind a cramped stock of wooden boxes wasn’t his preferred method of a stakeout when watching the business door—but he’d stifle the aching feeling if it meant getting a step closer to you.

The sound of the bell chiming and muffled footsteps turning into light footed running made him inclined to give chase down the alleyways. He tried to memorize the patterns your steps went in—left, right—right—left dead end—dead end? He could barely think it was a trap before his body hit the floor, a shoe pressed against his hand and a weapon aimed towards his head.