Belonging Season

Chapter-3.2: When the past comes crashing down

ALICE POV

5 years ago

‘Mom, I can’t leave you!’ I whined.

‘Don’t be silly, child. It’s matter of few months ‒

'Or months,’ I interjected. ‘Or even years, you don’t know that, I don’t know that!’ I screamed in frustration.

‘Doesn’t matter as long as you are doing fine in your job and at yourself’ She coolly replied, continuing to pack my bag, not even looking at me.

I stormed towards her and sat next to my duffle bag on the bed, staring up at her. Her golden locks are put up in a messy bun with some strands curling its way out. She scrunched her eyebrows in deep concentration, then murmured toothbrush under her breath and quickly left for the bathroom to get it.

‘This is ridiculous!’ I screamed after her ‘I’m going to have a serious talk with Chief Jorge!’ I said flatly and got up to get my father’s bike keys.

‘You will do no such thing!' I heard her scream from the bathroom. 

Like I listen.

When she returned, her lips were thinned, and irritation and disappointment were clear on her features. I sighed and went to her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. With my 5’6 and her 5’4, it’s perfect to place a kiss on her head and that’s what I did.

‘Mom, I love you, you know that right?’ I asked and I felt her nodding against my chest. ‘You’re the only family I’ve got and I intend to stay out of trouble at all cost, though it’s purely an understatement. I can do this undercover job when you are all too grey and old for me to love but right now, I just want to arrest school kids that go heyway and local gangsters and have a proper salary every month’

She looked up at me and narrowed her eyes.

‘So you’ll throw me in some old age home after few years?’

I gave her a toothy grin ‘Is that all you heard? And yeah, I was planning on to’

‘Oh, yeah?’ She asked, pulling herself back and placing her hands on her hips.

‘Yeah. How does Home for Gray and Old or Seasoned Citizens Nursing Home sound?’ I backed up as she stood to her spot.

‘Then how about I drop you to a center called Adoption of Bratty 23-year-old or Adoption of Trashmouth?’ she exclaimed.

I chuckled and threw a purple plush unicorn pillow at her. It landed straight on her face.

‘Oh, you didn’t!’ She squealed and came for me.

‘I did!’

I laughed as she pushed me on the bed and literally mauled me.

‘Help me! There’s a monster that’s trying to eat me out!’

I laughed as she tried to push and hit me as hard as she could but they were all futile to me.

‘Alice, Alice!’ Chief Jorge’s voice snapped me out of my reverie.

I stopped turning Jorge’s unique paperweight and looked up to him. He had an irritated look but at this moment, I didn’t care.

I looked back to the paperweight in my hand. It’s in a shape of diamond, dark bluish inside with a small unicorn in it.

‘Have you been listening?’ Chief Jorge questioned as calm as possible but I can hear the storm miles away.

‘I’ve done this before, didn’t I?’ I said ‘I know what I’m dealing with’

‘Last time was a failure ‒

‘Everything came into light! Every f*****g thing. I was the one who went undercover and searched through and through in the organization and finally Owen Reese Brennan is reeking in the Rikers Island! I did something no one in your damn department were capable of!’ I snapped.

‘But the bombing did take place at the concert!’

‘Good riddance, I never liked that singer’ I muttered.

‘Shut up, Alice! Hundreds of lives ‒

‘Saved the nation and I will always honor them. All his deadly future plans went in vain and he’s f*****g putting off with his inmates. He planned for a terrorist attack here in New York, at the place where you have your family residing at. If I didn’t catch him 5 years ago, you would’ve ended orphan and also it would’ve terrorized the whole country. Hundreds or millions, Chief Jorge?’

And that made him to shut his damn mouth.

‘I know what I'm into. Be f*****g glad that I accepted this operation. I know how badly you wanted me to do it’ With that said, I stood up and stormed out of his office.

It’s 10:30 p.m and the department looks like a local supermarket with all the workers scattered, running and rushing up. Cops and media are piled up at the crime scenes, at the club as well as at the meat house and Jorge wants to discuss about the operation right away and brought me to the department.

It all goes down to finding the criminal and the department gets name and fame; it doesn’t matter whether the one who goes into the depth of s**t is dead or alive. They give a long list of rules and regulations stating these in them like pieces of puzzles for us to find out.

I took my spare leather jacket from my place and got out through the back door when I saw the media taking pictures and questioning rapidly to Houston at the entrance door.

I dialed Koa’s number as I got onto my bike.

‘Hello, Alice’

‘What’s the situation?’ I asked.

‘Not a good one. Commissioner is here. You better come here right away’

I cut the call and revived my engine.

Joyce and the dead girl in the club, are taken to the autopsy center while Alex and his buddy to the department’s forensic lab. They will be disposed soon after anyone turns up or just burn them on the cost of the government.

I asked John to stay at his place with Anna and not to come to the crime scene. The lesser we are at the scene, the better it is.

My heart wrench’s when I think about Anna. I know she loved her mother, in spite of what she was and what she did to her. She was the one and only family she ever had. Anna will be interrogated and I will make sure that she’s far from trouble and from foster care. I can’t keep Anna with me all times. My work is a hectic one and since I’ll be going to undercover soon, I don’t see it’s a best way. But I don’t have any better option. Foster care are not good, at least most of them. I’ve seen and dealt with a lot. Many kids we find are taken into foster care and I’ve seen many kids suffering and coming back to us. They are least of them who have got a good family.

I’ve got an aunt, my mother’s older sister in central Dallas. She’s got a son and daughter. Her daughter is married and settled down while the son’s working. She’s the only family I’ve got and only hope at the moment. If I come out alive after the operation, I will adopt Anna and maybe quit the job and take a harmless one and live a peaceful life for the rest of my life, else I need to make all arrangements for Anna.

When I reached the crime scene, the guards made space from the reporters and media as I drove to the meat house. Koa soon made his way to me.

‘Commissioner is blowing off his steam’ He said.

‘What’s wrong?’ I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. The temperature immediately dropped down when I entered the eat the house and I had to resist the urge to shiver.

‘He’s questioning about the need to the shoot Alex and his friends’

I frowned at him.

‘They shot themselves. We made did up, didn’t Houston say that to all?’

‘He’s not buying it’

‘Why does it even matter, Koa? Alex was a criminal, a drug dealer and so was his buddy’

‘I know, I know,' Koa released a sigh of breath, looking into my eyes 'It’s just that the media and the reports are already hyped up about our department not working hard on the subject, it’s hard for him to keep them on line’

‘His problem, not ours’ I replied curtly.

We spotted the Commissioner, Wally McConaughey near the fridge I stuffed Alex in, talking to Sheriff Logan.

‘Great. Just when I thought it can’t get worst’ I murmured under my breath.

‘I don’t understand why he attends all our damn case right on time, only to ruin it’ Koa said.

‘He’s got no better job. He sticks his nose where it’s not necessary'

The Commissioner was having a serious conversation with Logan but he turned deadly when his eyes landed on me.

‘You,’ He pointed his finger at me ‘Come here’ he said as calm as possible, thought I saw the rage storm in his eyes.

Chief Logan had a grave expression on his face as he scrutinized me.

‘What the hell do you think of yourself, lady? You shot five men down’ The Commissioner whisper yelled at me, his brown orbs staring down at me with anger.

‘I didn’t. They shot themselves’ I replied as a matter of fact.

‘Don’t try to act smart with me,’ He snapped ‘I know what goes on in the department. It’s all a merry go round. You’ve been using the gun for no reason. Last time at the warehouse, you shot a man at his arm. At the highway case, you shot two other men’

‘Isn’t that why you’ll provide us the gun?’ I asked ridiculously.

‘Alice!’ Sheriff Logan snapped.

‘I’ve heard that you’ve got IBS, doctor Deliana is still at her shift if you just manage to reach the New York City hospital like now’ I replied immediately to Sheriff Logan before turning to the Commissioner, ignoring Koa’s deep breath at controlling his laughter beside me.

‘I know my job and I know I’m good at it. These people are not the best citizens who need a damn golden medal from the President. They are criminals, the type of criminals who will never change their way of living. It doesn’t matter if they are dead but it does a lot of harm if they are alive. I did nothing wrong in killing them’

‘You are not the judge and every crime scene are not your goddamn court!’ He barked, no longer keeping his emotions up.

‘I wouldn’t have studied my Masters in criminology if I wanted to become a judge!’ I snapped back. ‘FBI, CBI, CID, SWAT, Police, Military, Navy, every damn department works only for one purpose and that’s to eradicate all the wrong doings and make the country a better place for all. It doesn’t matter whether I’m an Agent or a Constable, everyone’s got only one motto.’

‘Don’t talk politics to me! We have a system and we are in the system. They are rules and regulations, I can’t keep neglecting your fault ‒

I gave him a sadistic smile. ‘I left the system the day my mother left me. I don’t play by your rules, it's your damn rules that has killed my mother. I gave you a number of reasons from the past 5 years to throw me out the department, out of my job and yet you didn’t do it, why? Because you know you’ll not find a one like me. I’m one of a kind’ I turned my back to them.

‘By the way, I agreed on the mission and this time, the rules are mine’ I added before disappearing among the blocks of ice cubes, to the room where we found Joyce.

‘IBS, huh?’ Koa chuckled. I laughed back.

Bending down from the barricade tapes, we made our way towards the room. The forensic and photographers were already searching for evidences and collecting the details. I ignored the outline body mark done in white for Joyce and the other men I killed. The forensic head doctor, Leo nodded his head to us and we approached him.

‘Anything at all?’ I asked.

Leo scrunched his eyebrows, the stretch marks at the sides of his eyes tightening and he looked older than 52. Pushing up his glasses, he wrote down on his notepad before turning to us.

‘Not yet, but damn what have you done, Alice?’ He asked astounded. ‘I couldn’t believe it when they told me and the horrors I had to witness when we arrived. I’m getting old day by day, young lady and everyday things keep getting worse and I always hear your name spoken out loud.’

I sighed, feeling tired all of a sudden. ‘I’m just so famous’ I shrugged.

‘When will the post mortem reports be back?’ Koa asked.

‘My assistants are working on it now while we we’re talking. I believe the lady; Joyce’s must be out by tomorrow in the evening,’ He said.

‘Did anyone take her picture?’ Koa asked the question I was dreading to know.

The look on Leo’s face told me what I wanted to hear.

‘f**k!’ I cursed.

‘They got in faster than us and some of them were successful. I can’t imagine tomorrow’s headline.’

‘It’s going to scare people. We got to stop them; we can’t have it on papers’ I said to no one in particular.

‘You think they are going to listen? Their TRP rating is much more important for them’ Koa remarked.

‘People got to know about it anyways, Alice’ Leo reasoned.

‘It’ll increase the fear in them and that fear is what these criminals need. It’s their fuel’