Chapter 3

"I'm telling you, I don't kn-"

Thwack. The sound of a satisfying crunch resonated and lightly bounced against the walls of the interrogation room.

Genevieve retracted her hand from the battered face almost immediately, giving the man nothing more than a second to recover before her fist connected with his face once more. His head tipped backwards from the impact of the blow, eliciting a long and pained groan from him. At this point he could barely keep his eyes open, and when Genevieve braced her hand to land another punch, he decides that he has had enough.

"Wait. Stop." He barely managed to breath the words out, and the interrogator dropped her hand to her side with a satisfied grin. Genevieve was sure her knuckles were bruised by now, since it took a lot more than two strikes to get the man to speak.

"I suppose your memory has gotten a little foggy, so you might have forgotten my question. Let me repeat it for you." She leaned in slightly, with her left hand clutching the edge of the metal table. The man's wrists were shackled to the table's leg just below her grip, so all he could do was sit idly.

"Who is he?" Genevieve hissed, and her glower burned into his face. He cracked an eye open at the query and scanned her entire face before he burst out laughing. His guffaws echoed against every surface in the room. She just watched him with a bored expression. Once again, her hand itched to cave his face in.

"You think... I'd be here if I knew the answer to that?" He wheezed in between his chortles, which earned him a crooked smirk from Genevieve. Of course she didn't think that way.

"He's called 'Shadow' for a reason, sweetheart. He follows you like one. And when you shine a light on him, he disappears. Poof, like magic."

Had the situation not been so dire, it would have been amusing how the nickname matched with the characteristics of that masked crook. It almost seemed like a superhero story, where the villain was some bad guy called Shadow. But Genevieve knew this wasn't made up, it was very much real.

Shortly after, she realized that the man cuffed to the table was a hopeless case. He was just a pawn in Shadow's game, and he helped contribute by stalling her.

Genevieve took a step backwards with her lips pursed in deep thought. There were so many unanswered questions that loitered in her head, but she knew that receiving a helpful response to any of them from the shackled troll was impossible.

She let her gaze linger on the man in front of her for a few seconds. In a last minute decision, Genevieve swiftly rounded the seated man and stood right behind him. He couldn't even register her deft maneuver in time before his forehead collided against the top of the table with a loud bang, and a loud wail of agony erupted out from him. She didn't wait to watch him as his head burned in anguish, she simply stepped away and strolled towards the door of the interrogation room to leave.

A faint stinging had settled atop her hand. She swiped it against the pants of her uniform to remove the blood that coated it. Genevieve didn't know if it belonged to her or the battered buffoon, and quite frankly she didn't really care.

"That... was for calling me a sweetheart."

_

*Flashback*

"What do you mean there are no files on him here?"

Daron clicked his tongue at Genevieve's naivety. She just stared back in a look of anticipation, with her eyes pleading him to answer her question. For a dispatcher, he sure was well informed of all the things that went on in the police station.

"You can't possibly think that he managed to stay under the radar on his own. He has connections, Gen. I heard he has someone working for him in here, who took his files and discarded them."

The hopeful look on Genevieve's face fell, and her mood deflated like a balloon. Now what? She had taken it upon herself to catch the bastard that got away because of her, but everything led to a dead end.

The notion that Alec had been on this case for several months and he probably knew a lot more, suddenly arises. But just the thought of conversing with him put a bitter taste on her tongue.

Daron snapped his fingers in front of her eyes, and Genevieve aligned herself with reality in an instant. While he did manage to catch her attention, a part of her still brooded over the revelation from earlier.

"Did you hear what I said?" He asked as he withdrew his hand and rested it on the desk. He leaned in as if to tell her something confidential, but an endearing smile rested on his lips. The drop in Genevieve's morale reflected on her face, and Daron never failed to notice that.

"There's a rumor that those files weren't actually thrown away." He began in a hushed tone, and his grin widened when the fire of dedication returned to her eyes.

"And that they were tucked away somewhere in Precinct 20."

Genevieve couldn't physically stand there after learning that. Sure, it was a rumor, but there was a slight possibility that the files still existed. If she could get her hands on even one of them, she'd know where and how to start investigating.

Without a word she whipped around, her legs carrying her down the hall with haste. Daron watched her retreating form with an amused grin, before the ringing of the telephone on his desk distracted him. It was his job, after all.

As Genevieve weaved her way through the corridors of the building with her destination being the main gate, she passed by a few holding cells on the way. One of them caught her attention and she backed up by a few steps to have a better look at the prisoner. She recognized him immediately. He was the drug dealer that Alec found at the abandoned building, along with Shadow.

The files can wait.

________________

"Precinct 20." Genevieve read out loud. Her gaze was trained on the bold letters that decorated the building's entrance, and she all but jumped out of her car after cutting the engine off. Her hand reached towards her waistband to check for her beloved pistol. There might be a chance of an uninvited guest greeting her inside the station, so she knew she had to be prepared for anything. It was a known fact that being a cop called for all sorts of life-threatening scenarios.

It was a shame that an entire building was cast away to rot, with its only purpose to contain unneeded files and documents. Most of which were unsolved cases, and rap sheets of crooks who were never caught.

Upon entering the actual building, Genevieve realized why it was deserted. She pulled her phone out and turned the flashlight on in order to illuminate her surroundings. The absence of light never deterred her, but the idea of walking face first into a wall didn't sound very appealing.

The building itself didn't look too old, so it was assumed that it was abandoned just recently. Random stationery items like papers and pens littered the floor occasionally. Other than that, the place wasn't a huge mess. The main problem however, was that Genevieve had never been here before. Everything was entirely new, and she should have sworn she walked down the same hallway twice.

Her shoulder had developed a tingle of discomfort. She was on the second floor now, and the doors had labels on them. Every time she came across a labeled room, the hand holding the flashlight automatically sprung up to brighten the letters. The up and down motion tired her arm out, but it wasn't anything she couldn't endure.

In the end, Genevieve's wandering paid off.

"Record room." She voiced with a faint grin, her whisper prancing along the walls near her. Her vacant hand reached out to grab onto the handle, but she never got the chance to open the door.

A gasp of shock ripped from her when two hands gripped her shoulders from behind and tugged her violently, ultimately slamming her against a wall. She felt a forearm position itself firmly against her throat which nearly cut her air supply off. Genevieve heard a click, then felt something cold against her temple. She didn't need to see it in order to know what it was.

"Give me one good reason as to why I shouldn't blow your brains out."