Chapter 8: Who knows?

Konstante returned handing me a piece of paper with a bunch of words in it and a doodle of a face with hairy eyebrows. I tried not to sound too ungrateful and she touched her head.

"He's not cooperating, he just tells these random details about creases and a brown shirt"

"At least you're in one piece" Quinn passed her the leash and she smiled.

"Can we walk?"

It was getting till dusk and we arrived at her house. She hurried past Pietro who was waiting by the steps and he stood. "I told him everything"

"You've got to set a good example for your brother, do you know how worried we were?"

Vince scolded and she twisted the end of her shoe with her eyes on the floor, she held up the paper and he scanned the sheet and scoffed.

"What sketch artist drew this?_nevermind"

"You shouldn't be worried about me, I know my place"

"Cara, you know Pietro meant well when he told me about your visit"

"Sure he does"

***

It was getting to eight and we were settled in a guestroom with beds around a circle with a griffin relic in the middle.

Konstante stepped in surprised to see us in the room. I smiled

"Thanks for letting us sleepover"

"I didn't invite you?"

She flinched when Pietro pushed her into the room and shut the door.

"I did"

"What do you want?"

"The paper, I've been wondering about it, and dad was making some sense after all"

He held a sketchpad and pencils, he sat in the middle where we were with a pencil and we watched as he sketched an outline.

"Blond hair, a nasty beard, and all that nonsense he wrote here are details to draw him"

"Creases"

"It could be anything"

Pietro drew his shoulders and a few medals with a cap then tore it off, Konstante reached for it and flinched when he dumped it in her hand.

"Just take the dang paper, creases, and a brown shirt, John Doe must be from a military background and he's German. You tell me what you were doing back there?"

"Thank you for your help but it's still not your business"

Pietro looked shocked when she spun him around and pushed him out the door.

"Wait, I need to add some color"

***

I took a good look at the edit Pietro made and put a hand on his hat. Part of his face was in a shadow cast and he looked dangerous, Quinn slapped my hand away

"This looks like the captain"

"No, we'll be toast if we point fingers at him"

Konstante laid glumly on the chair, she recognized him too getting in on the action from her house.

"Why would the captain send you to Friday in the first place?"

"He was leaving his office when we came"

"He was probably going to grab dinner and we're wasting our time"

"That's the dumbest theory besides Pietro's educated guess" Quinn watched Mondel bend around the corners while I watched from the shadows.

"He's heading east, Covert will cut him off in approximately 12.2 seconds"

"He's the expert" Emma teased putting on a ski mask.

"You better hurry or you'll miss your cue"

Emma sprinted around the building and it looked like Mondel was waving for a taxi, she ran faster when the door opened and jumped over it with his bag running.

"Hey!"

"He's coming after you, take a right"

She glanced at the stairs on a terrace of a building and the right, there was a dam that was still flowing at full force.

"What a nice way of saying go fuck yourself"

"You need to go where he won't_Emma, go right!"

She gasped when Mondel climbed the stairs and she was running out of steps and jumped on a balcony where a woman screamed and whacked her off.

She dropped on the second to the last floor balcony and clutched her side at the hurt and pushed back when he grabbed the bag.

"You're going to get what's coming to you crook"

He frowned reaching for her mask and squinted at the red laser in his face and Emma swiped his bag and flung herself over the rail to slide down the ladder, she went far then hid beside a cart and saw a cat hunker down hissing at her.

"What?"

***

"This can't be right"

Quinn searched the bag and only found

a present.

"Of course it isn't, I jumped two storeys down the building and I'm going to need a donor for a second kidney"

{To my loving daughter, Edna}

"God, you couldn't be a more heartless bastard Quinn" Emma quoted the tag on the present.

"Quiet down" I said as I passed her ointment to rub her side as she was fussing, she pouted putting back on a shirt while Quinn shook the gift.

"Shoes and not very heavy ones"

"Flats?" I suggested shrugging.

"All that sprinting for shoes?"

...

Mondel rubbed his hand over his face, distressed, he stumbled in the dark alley and patted to a building dragging a gate open and slipping in with a bag.

The faces were still floating about his eyes after someone pointed those lasers in his eyes but couldn't see the person behind it because there was a bright light from where the lazer was coming from.

He dropped on the floor when he realized those shadow faces that lurked were real and he groaned when one grabbed him by the collar making sure the end hooked up his throat, he felt a gun pressed to his stomach while one approached him with a smile on her face, you wouldn't believe it was a woman if anybody told you.

"Well well, it's the traitor himself, I was wondering when you'd show up, what's this?"

She snatched the bag checking the replacement present he got for Edna, she was clocking five today and she needed something special to say the least and he just had to have a thief snatch it and one with air for that matter.

"You've got some faith thinking your daughter might live today, open up the box" She tossed it to the third guy and Mondel watched as he ripped the bag open with dull brown paper and pulled up two sneakers, he dumped them back.

"Who are these for, Michael Jordan?"

"Give them to the girl"

"I wanna see my daughter_" He flinched when the gun cocked and her face was close to his when she reached forward

"You don't make any demands here, Schmidt, you work, if you do that for five weeks without missing a day then you get a chance to see her, now I'm not completely dispassionate, it's just that you've been busy lately and your pupils are on to you. You wouldn't want the league to know that you're distributing mutant serum and drawing funds from the bank would you?"

"I don't care about the league, I just wanna see her, you can't keep her away from me, she's five and she doesn't deserve this treatment"

"You've got nerve saying that but you know what the league will do to you when they find out there's a crack in the numbers and you won't be alive to watch what your daughter might turn into"

She pulled up a network showing her in a stray jacket hanging upside down, a device was driving a needle into her neck and she cried when the contents in the container drained into her system.

"No, you promised!"

"You and I both know, we don't keep promises around here"

She nodded and the men pushed him to the boxes on a table and she forced him to open it and saw canisters inside full of purple liquid. She pointed her gun at the boxes and a truck that was waiting to be filled up.

"Load up the truck"