The mist-slicked concrete near Bill Curt's shop smelled of old grease and stale exhaust. Ryan wiped a smear of grime from his jacket, his breathing still slightly jagged from the sprint across the lower district.
Dressed in a dark coat which did well to hide her sharp profile, Claire stood tucked into the overhang shadow alongside Fiona, whose arms were crossed tight against her chest.
"You took your time," Claire looked at her brother , Ryan, with similar drain in strength.
"Traffic," Ryan muttered, casting a quick, wary glance down the block.
"What happened with Lira? Fiona's message made it sound like she was about to rain terror all over."
Claire let out a heavy breath, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag. "Things were bat shit crazy, I've never seen anything like that. She was burning up just like Molly during her transition with the difference being that her muscle spasms were so violent it took both Damon and Molly pinning her shoulders just to keep her from breaking her own wrists against the floorboards. She was blinded by the haze—blood before the fifth day. We barely have hours before whatever Bill is building in that shop completes its cycle."
"It hard enough that I can't even tell who it is after going through the whole local news about missing persons" Fiona added.
Ryan leaned back against the brickwork, his mind racing. "So the plan is to follow him home? Catch him outside?"
"It's the only clean shot we have," Claire sighed.
"If we hit him at the workshop, our headquarters security feeds will flag the breach in seconds. But if we trail him to his private residence, we might be able to isolate him from his network."
As she spoke, Claire's eyes finally drifted over Ryan's disheveled state—the torn clothes along his shoulder, the faint specks of dried blood near his collar, and trembling of his hands finally attracted her attention.
She frowned, stepping closer. "Ryan... what happened to you? You didn't get into bad business with the cops, right?."
Ryan glanced sideways at Fiona, who was watching the street traffic with an unbothered posture. He didn't feel comfortable laying out the Sue Lux disaster in front of her just yet—not while the group's dynamic was already strained to a breaking point.
True to his thoughts, Ryan pulled his phone from his pocket, opened a draft, and handed the screen to Claire.
Claire took the phone, her eyes scanning the brief, blunt text which described the encounter with Scarlet and Rose, the new ballistic rounds, Holly's injuries at the clinic, and the razor-thin escape under the collapsed fire escape.
As she read, the color completely drained from Claire's face. Her hands trembled, forcing her to grip the phone tighter to cover up the shaking. The memories from years ago—the brutal Gaspe Peninsula manhunt, left a lingering terror of being hunted down like preys were in the sight of hunters.
"They're... they're actually in the city," Claire whispered, her voice barely audible as she handed the phone back to Ryan. "Did they track you down or was it just an accident."
Fiona, catching the sudden shift in the atmosphere, didn't pry. She looked between the two of them, her expression calm, observant, and entirely tactful.
"I'm going to get a coffee," Fiona said smoothly, gesturing toward the small, dimly lit corner bar across the street. "You two look like you need a minute. I'll have the waiter bring a couple of cups over."
She crossed the street with unhurried steps, stepping inside the quiet establishment. Sitting down at the worn counter, Fiona struck up an easy, pleasant conversation with the elderly bartender, ordering a hot black coffee without sugar for herself while orchestrating a distraction to give Ryan and Claire space to regain their footing.
Through the rain-streaked glass of the bar window, Ryan and Claire kept their eyes pinned on Bill Curt's shop across the avenue.
Inside the well-lit showroom, Bill was moving between display racks with a disturbing, energetic enthusiasm. He was smoothing out the drapes of fine silk gowns and arranging high-end scarves on velvet mannequins, a broad, bright smile plastered across his face.
To his customers, he was more of a passionate boutique owner preparing for a grand opening. But to Claire, knowing what he had done to Detective Quive and what lay hidden beneath his operations, that cheerful smile looked utterly grotesque—an eerie, hollow mask hiding a monster.
After a few minutes, Bill stepped up to the front glass, flipped the hanging sign from "Open" to "Closed", turned off the main overhead lights, and locked the double doors from the outside.
"Finally," Ryan muttered, tapping the glass window to signal Fiona and in response, fiona left a tip on the counter, stepped back out into the cool air, and joined them at the curb. She raised her hand, flagging down a classic yellow city taxi idling near the intersection.
They slid into the back seat, Fiona leaning forward toward the driver. "Follow the avenue toward the south residential district. I'll direct you as we go." She didn't offer an address, relying instead on the quiet, intrusive hum of the "voices" which filled up her mind—the subtle directional tugs steering her toward Bill's unlisted bungalow.
Bill's dark sedan pulled out of the workshop alley a moment later, entirely oblivious to the yellow cab maintaining a discrete three-block buffer behind him.
Ten minutes later, as the commercial storefronts gave way to quiet, tree-lined suburban streets, Fiona had the taxi drop them off at a corner block. Ryan paid the driver, and the cab pulled away, leaving the three of them standing under the overcast sky.
Bill's sedan glided past them down the street, turning into the driveway of a modest, isolated brick bungalow surrounded by overgrown hedges.
"Keep your footsteps light," Claire whispered, her posture straightening as instincts took over.
They moved on foot through the quiet neighborhood, using the thick hedges and parked civilian cars as cover until they reached the rear perimeter of Bill's property.
As Bill stepped out of his car, carrying a heavy leather briefcase toward his front porch with that same lingering, cheerful expression, Claire closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She used her ability a sound manipulation ability, reaching into the atmospheric vibrations around the block, Claire manipulated the ambient acoustics, capturing the distant, low sound of emergency sirens three miles away and amplifying them tenfold directly over the immediate neighborhood.
A sudden, deafening wail of police sirens roared through the quiet street, echoing off the surrounding houses like a full fleet of cruiser cars descending on the block.
The cheerful smile instantly vanished from Bill Curt's face.
His posture went rigid. Cursing under his breath, he spun around on the porch, his hand darting into his coat toward his sidearm as he stepped down from the porch to scan the street in a dark, furious frown—completely unaware that behind his house, Ryan, Claire, and Fiona were already slipping through his back door.