Scent Of Death

10 Years ago. A woman is driving through the freeway road. Racing through the traffic, constantly looking in her rearview mirror and looking at her child sleeping on the passenger seat. As if scared of something, she tries to reach her phone and dial it. As she is able to dial the call while driving, she answer's "Alex". Boom, a truck rams into the car. The crash leaves the car toppled down, busted completely the woman crawls out of the cracked car window cries into the phone. "Alex..." Back in present, Alex wakes up from the dream. Sits up on his bed holding his head, quite hungover from the last night. The morning light fills up the room. His phone was buzzed up with 25 missed calls. He turns to see a girl getting out of the shower wrapped in white towel. Alex pops in some pills from his drawer, chugs it down with some whiskey. The girl approaches, him to kiss where he pushes her off onto the bed, goes into the bathroom. In awe, she shouts "What's gotten into you Alex? Last night you were all over me, f*****g me without letting me sleep you asshole and this is the thanks I get?" Alex comes out of the bathroom, dressed up in a navy blue shirt, black jeans, brown jacket and grabs his brown boots from the ground and say's "f**k off, b***h. Whatever your name is." Clearly in shock, she said "Wow, You are a dickhead like everyone said, I just thought.." Alex replies "What?! That I'm a saint of some kind, I don't care what you all think of me, get your s**t together and get the f**k outta my house, Ms. Whatever." She responds "It's Leah, don't come searching for me back at the Livin' Shack again, I don't want to see you ever again in my life. Alex laughs and says "That makes the two of us, Don't worry I won't come look for you. And don't come back here again. You understand! Now I'm going and when I get back you better be not here." Leah grunts and throws a pillow at him, clearly missing him. Alex walks out of his home, gets on his bike and drives towards the long road, startling the neighbours. Alex drives onward a secluded road filled with trees on both sides. He comes at a stop near a bridge over a river. A hooded figure stands near the riverside under the bridge. Alex yells "Dave!, You came." Dave removes his hood a glances at Alex. "You brought my stuff, right?" Alex asks. Dave annoyingly "You know a little 'how are you doing?' or 'are you alright?' would've been a little civil to ask to the people who do your s**t for you." Alex ignores Dave and snatches a small bag from his hand, he takes out some cocaine from it and snorts it down, popping some pills with it. Dave continues, "Hey! Hey!! Don't take 'em all at once s**t face, something like last time will happen. I heard Charlotte had to pull some strings after the last one to keep you out of trouble." Alex furiously, "Hey, last time I didn't mean it to happen that way the guy lost control. I had to kill him or he would've killed you in snap. Enough chitchatting, did you bring the other thing I asked." Dave whips out a Glock 19 tosses it Alex, along with some ammos. "It's loaded" say's Dave. Alex shoots a tree branch across the river. "Don't lose this one, ex-cons turned FBI informers don't get this stuff easily" Dave continues. "Yeah, Alright..Alright." replies Alex. "What are you gonna do with it?" Dave asks. "Your not back at the agency for a while." He continues. Alex replies "Yeah, I'm not back for a while, that doesn't mean I can't have some fun, does it." Alex starts to walk away from Dave before receiving his reply. As he walks away, Dave shouts "You're gonna get yourself killed, one way or another!" Alex replies "That's the idea!!" At that moment Alex feels like someone was watching him from behind the trees, but disregards it. As he gets upon his bike, he again receives a call from an unknown number. Alex picks it up "Hey, listen whoever the f**k this is I got nothing to do with anything..." Alex gets cut off by a woman on the phone, "Mr. Alex Harper, This is from child services, I'm calling you regarding your niece Stacy, Stacy Harper-Jones. She gave me this number to call you as your her next-of-kin." Alex replies "Uh-huh, why are you calling me?, she doesn't live with me. She lives with her grandma." The woman continues "That is why we are calling you, Mrs. Jones died this morning, Stacy has no other living relatives. Would you mind coming to us?" Alex stares blankly, not knowing what to say, gruntingly "Yeah, give me an hour. I'll be there." Alex starts his bike and takes off. At the same time, near an old abandoned factory. Police cars are huddled up. A ruckus is being caused by them. The area is completely sealed of by them. Soon, a black Mercedes approaches there. A middle-aged woman gets out of the vehicle wearing a maroon sweater and a black blazer. Has a cup of coffee on her left hand. As she exits the car, an young police officer comes up to her. He asks "Your Detective Charlotte Mason. I'm Sergeant Ridley Hopkins. I was the one who reported to your superior Senior Detective Avery. I was asked by Officer Wilson to contact him if anything regarding this case happened." Charlotte exhaustedly replies "Look kid, I'm already tired of my seniors bossing me around to do other's s**t and covering up for them. Let's cut to the chase, Why am I here to doing your job while I can be somewhere far more important than investigating some dumb guy shooting another dumb guy just because they were high." Ridley startled by Charlotte's remark clears his throat and answer's "No, this murder is quite unusual and needed someone with far more experience and high detective skills to handle it." Charlotte replies "Oh!, then why isn't your Officer Wilson, here to solve his case?" "That's the problem Detective, Officer Wilson is the one who got murdered!" Ridley starts to walk towards the crime scene. Charlotte confused by his words, follows him. The scene is sealed of completely, both of them get inside the marked area. "Where was the body found?" asks Charlotte. Ridley replies, "That's the unusual part, we didn't find the body or all of it cause his body was completely ripped apart and squashed into bits and pieces. That's why there's blood everywhere here" Charlotte in disgust and horror. Ridley continues, "We only found his arm with his id inside his fist as if left for us to find. We ran it by the forensics and it was confirmed it was Officer Wilson." "Was there any other prints on it?" asks Charlotte. "No, nothing found, but the thing is I think Wilson already knew something was gonna happen" replied Ridley. "Why?" questions Charlotte. "He was working on some new case and few days ago he asked me to call you guys if anything happened to him. Well, here we are" continued Ridley. Charlotte gazing at the blood marks spread across the walls asks Ridley to send her the case file Wilson was working on. As Ridley turns around to he remembers something "Ah, Detective Mason, Wilson also asked one more thing." "What is it?" Charlotte replied. "To bring in Detective Alex Harper on the case, he said it was crucial and he's the best of you guys." continued Ridley. Charlotte gazes into Ridley's eyes and says, "Yeah, he is." Alex arrives at the child services office, as he walks in he spots a teenage girl sitting near the office, whom shares a resemblance to him but with a distant memory of acquaintance. The girl makes eye contact with Alex, and instantly runs to him, hugging him while sobbing. "Uncle Alex, you came. I didn't think you would've come after all these years. I didn't even know if your number had changed or anything. I'm so glad to see you" Alex completely lost to what's happening, "Stacy, what happened to your grandma?" asked Alex. "She had a cardiac arrest this morning, I wasn't home. Our neighbours got her to the hospital, but it was too late. I had no one else to call but you, then child services brought me here till somebody came and then only I can get to the hospital and get grandma's body too." An office lady walks into the lobby and asks "Are you Alex Harper, Stacy's uncle?" reluctantly, Alex answer's "Yeah, I'm Alex. Were you the one who called me?" She replies "Yeah, I'm Evelyn Cage. Can I talk to you alone in the office Alex?" Alex answer's "Yeah, Sure." Alex turns to Stacy and asks her to go sit where she was. He walks inside the office, and takes a seat. "Look Alex" Evelyn responds, "Your the only family that Stacy has now. I don't clearly know about you but by the looks of you and some of the things I heard about from the news I don't think your capable of taking care of Stacy. But even then, Stacy's a smart kid I want you to know that she'll be okay wherever she is and she can definitely contact you. Do you have any other question?" Alex stares blankly at Evelyn and nods, She continues "Excellent, I'll send her with you for now to cremate her grandma, then both of you can get on with your lives." Without much response Alex gets out of the office, and takes Stacy to the hospital. Both of them collect the body, and takes it cremation centre. Stacy says some last words to her grandma "Grandma, I know you always felt the need to be there for me because my parents died but you were always there for me and I'm grateful that you were there. Thank you." She kisses her goodbye and then asks Alex, "Am I coming with you now, or is what I expected going to happen?" Unable to find words Alex stares into Stacy's eyes, She continues, "It's alright, I knew something like this would've happened. It's a big deal that you even came down here for me. Can you get me back to my apartment?, I need to pick some stuff up." Alex nods in confirmation. Both of you walk towards your bike. At the FBI precinct, Charlotte gets in an heated argument with Detective Avery about bringing Alex into this case. Avery argues "That guy is bad news. He is reckless, dangerous and not to be trusted cause he always does things his way, even if someone's life is at stake. I don't want someone like that to be part of this investigation." "Wilson specifically asked for Alex to be part of this." states Charlotte. "Well, I don't care what the dead guy thinks Charlotte, I don't want that guy on this case or any other. Even after 10 years since his sister dies, he's still suffering from PTSD. He snorts s**t up and drives into danger evey single fuckin time!" Avery responded. Charlotte sighs, "Sir, you out of everyone here knows that Alex is one of our best agents, I hate to break it to you but we need him to solve this." Unwilling Avery reacts, "God, Why do you always have to be right, Charlotte. Ok, he can come on the case but he's your responsibility. If he does something out of control, you are to answer it and he's no longer working alone. Get him a partner who is capable of following orders." "But Sir" Charlotte reacts. "That's an order Charlotte, if he's up to it he can come on board" Avery remarked. Charlotte nods and walks out his office and starts to call Alex. Alex and Stacy reaches her apartment. Stacy ran up to her apartment to collect some of her clothes and books before going back to the agency. Alex said he'll wait for her and drop her at the agency. As he was waiting for Stacy to come back down, he started looking through his phone and came across an old picture of Stacy, Her mother and Alex. Alex was amazed by how much happy they were at that time. At the moment, the phone buzzes up with a call, The name Charlotte appears. Alex answer's the call, "Alex, There's been a gruesome murder near the old factory. It's Officer Wilson." Charlotte answered. Alex slowly processing what she just said, and trying hard to understand "No, I won't come. Not for that son of a b***h" Alex responded. "He's the one that busted me last time, and got me almost out on the roads. I don't care if his balls were cut off and sewn to his mouth, the cunt deserved it." Charlotte sighs, "Alex, I know what he did and am I asking you this not as colleague but more of as a friend. Please, Alex I need you on this one." Alex about to respond hears a scream down the road, "Charlotte, I'll call you back." Before she responded Alex cuts the call and walks towards where he heard the scream. Three guys are trying to mug a young woman, One of them spots Alex coming towards them. He whips out his gun, soon one of them grabs the girl's throat. Three of them were the wearing same kind of dress, a kind of black sweatshirt. Looking pale as if they were already dead. "Drop the gun or I'll break her throat in half." One of them responds. "Calm down, and don't do anything that we aren't capable of." Alex remarks, clicking the gun. Their eyes filled with red bloodrush, "You don't know what I'm capable of Throw..The..Fuckin..Gun away!!" His rage visible to everyone. Alex throws the gun to the floor. "I thought things would've come to this." All three of them starts to approach Alex Alex pops some pills, and snorts the rest of the cocaine. Then four of them starts to fight each other. Alex gets punched in the face and gut. He grunts. Stacy gets out of the apartment and sees Alex down the street. Gruntingly, he gathers himself and punches them. Blows repeated punches on the 1st one's jaw. Kicks in the groin of the second one and grabs the third one shoves him to the pavement. Three of them panting on the ground. Alex goes to help the woman on the floor, one of the guys gets up and is about to attack Alex, Wham! Stacy rams a shovel to his head saving Alex. Alex surprised by Stacy, and chuckles at the act. Both of them help the woman up and turn around to be surprised to see three of the guys have disappeared. Stacy calls 911 for help, and they wait for them to get there. "Thanks for helping me out, kid" Alex say's. Stacy smiles at him. Alex picks up his phone and calls Charlotte. She answer's "Where the hell had you gone off?" "Got stuck in some work" Alex replied. "So Alex, did you think about it..the case?" Alex looks at Stacy trying to comfort the girl, and answer's "Yeah, I'll come on it, but I need you to do me a thing in return." Alex explains the whole "Stacy" situation to Charlotte. "I'll see what I can do, Bring her to your home, and I want to see you at the office tomorrow morning." Charlotte replies and cuts the call. Alex walks up to Stacy to tell her she can stay with him, but overhears the girl and Stacy talking. "They were all over me,tryin...t..to..." say's the girl. "It's alright, they're gone. Nobody will hurt you" Stacy replies. "No, you don't understand, they weren't trying to mug me.." cryingily the girl responds. "Then what were they doing?" questions Alex. "They...they were trying to grab my throat and...and, were going to suck my blood." The girl still in complete shock...stares at Alex. The same night, at a distant place. The group of guys whom attacked Alex gathers up. They're in total panic and confusion of what just they experienced. "What the hell just happened right now, How...How did that godforsaken mortal beat the three of us..us?" One of them asks. Three of them looking at each other in confusion. "Maybe it might be cause we hadn't got some juice inside us. Most of the others has already joined Lucius and The Ring of Darkness, so they all are getting enough rations they need. We on the other hand are running from them and trying to feel up our own meter." Another replies. "Hey, Michael..Hey! What should we do now? If we keep going like this we'll either starve and die or Lucius will kill us." He continues. Michael stares into the darkness, void of the conversation the others just had. "That guy...I have seen him before." Michael answers. "What? seriously, you know that asshole." asks another. "Yeah, I know him but not like this, Not this way. I don't even know if he's the same guy I think he is, but the way he attacked us. The way he launched on us and hurt us. It's the same way years ago, it happened." Michael continues. The others staring at him not able to understand what he meant. Michael continues, "That guy..he seems like the ancient hunter, who was once my friend. Until...until I betrayed him for Lucius." The others gasp in horror. "What did you do?" One asks. "I don't know, I can't understand..but one thing I know I was there until every drop of his blood was spilled, but how is he back?" Michael mumbling to himself...