Legends of The Waif
Issue 2: Part 1
Wicked Nightingale
Chapter 1
The muffled din accompanied the distant noise of the jammed streets and the beeping of vehicles crammed like beetles. Their glistening surfaces mirrored the shining traffic lights, the tired faces of passersby with hot cups of tasteless instant coffee in their hands or scrolling through phones at the bus stops. The suffocating scent of pollution mingled with the cigarette smoke and the small clouds of mist floating off the mugs. The chatter coming from the open car windows mixed into the cries of babies or children squealing, emerging into an ear-shattering, frustrating composition every big city is embedded with.
But this clamor was distant for the four women sitting in the tiny park in front of their apartment building. The hubbub turned muffled before reaching their ears as they had gathered on a wooden bench, caramel tea rippling in the paper cups in their hands.
Sipping the tea that glided down her throat and warmed her insides like a childhood blanket warming her body on a cold winter night, Munir looked up at the identical short buildings of the suburb. Some windows were brightened by artificial light from inside; some were covered with curtains, while in others, she could discern blurry silhouettes. Somehow, this quiet suburb was melancholy and peaceful at the same time. The grey buildings rose the feeling of emptiness while these tiny apartments that were so close to each other created a feeling of unity - as if the neighbors were one big family. And it was somewhat true; they all knew and loved each other.
"It was worth spending money on this park," Lia's voice made Munir look toward her. "It really came out well."
"Yeah, kids like it now more," Cam agreed and sipped her tea.
They all looked at the three children on the playground. While a little curly boy giggled on the swig, the other two bounced on the seesaw.
"Not only the kids are enjoying it," said Chaz and pointed her chin toward two elderly strolling on the narrow path, their walkers rolling and leading their slow, heavy steps. Smile raised to Munir's lips as she watched the elderly couple gently holding hands and helping each other. She wished she had someone who would take her hand just as gently and lovingly when she got old.
"Well, it's small but not bad for spending half an hour drinking tea after work," Lia tittered and put the cup to her lips. The red stain of her lipstick clung to the cup edge. The trees surrounded wooden benches with one small cupid-shaped fountain in the center, a playground, and a round field of grass for a picnic that would hold no more than ten people.
Suddenly piercing sirens of the ambulance broke the peaceful ambiance, and Milner saw the car driving speedily into the neighborhood, its shining red and blue lights boded for nothing but tragedy.
Springing to their feet, the women watched the ambulance stop and the paramedics jump from it.
"What's going on?" Munir asked as they all rushed toward the ambulance car.
But the paramedics who had prepared the stretcher and were now running into the building where Munir and her friends lived didn't say a word, too immersed in their job.
People gathered around the ambulance, whispering, murmuring, questioning, and predicting. Mostly elderlies had circled the car and peered to the building entrance to see who'd be lying on the stretcher.
Munir shared a look with Lia, their eyes exchanging a worried look, Chez holding onto Cam as they all watched the entrance that was still empty but made everyone's hearts race.
In a few minutes, which felt like an hour, the footsteps came from the stairs, and soon paramedics appeared with the stretcher, hurrying back to the car. People's eyes gaped toward the man lying under the thin white blanket, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open, and his face - completely pale.
"Stevie!" Cam exclaimed, and people gasped as if only now recognizing their neighbor. Munir's heart wrenched as she saw the sixty-year-old man with his grey hair, bushy brows, slightly protruding belly, and old-fashioned sweater rolled into the ambulance car. She didn't want to admit that she couldn't see his chest moving.
"Poor Stevie," Lia murmured. "What happened to him?"
"I hope he'll be okay," Chaz added.
"Let's visit him in the hospital this evening," Cam added.
Munir nodded, her eyes following the ambulance car as it began disappearing at the end of the street. Still shaking their heads with worry and chattering, the neighbors scattered. The thoughts about what kind of flowers she'd bring to Stevie in the hospital pierced her mind, the images of him smiling modestly as he'd talk about a fall that had only slightly injured his hip.
But deep in her heart, Munir felt she would never hear Stevie's voice again.
Chapter 2
The priest's smooth voice flowed over the open grave like a cool breeze through the leaves. His black dress rippled as he read from the bible, murmuring the words without taking a breath.
Munir could hardly see the dirt piled up next to the grave and the casket hovering above it. Her watery eyes only saw the blurry outlines of the white coffin and the bouquet of colorful flowers on top of it.
The neighbors had gathered for the funeral, sobbing quietly.
"At least Stevie had us," Lia whispered to Munir.
She was right. All alone after his wife's death, Stevie had no children or grandchildren. So, the neighbors took turns grabbing the dirt and throwing it into the grave as the casket was lowered into it. The scoops of dirt fell on its spotless white surface without a sound and slowly covered it before the gravediggers began throwing the earth into the grave with shovels.
People dressed in all black started returning to their cars, some rubbing their red eyes, some trying to smile while telling stories about Stevie. But the melancholy cast down on everyone else.
Lia walked to her car, waiting for her friends while they slowly left the grave behind. Looking back, Munir saw a young woman lingering near the grave and watching it slowly filling to the rim.
Munir stopped, looking at the woman staring into the grave, her head ducked, hands placed in front almost as if praying. The long black dress hid her knees, revealing her long, lean arms. Wide-brimmed hat shaded her pale face, and teardrops hung from her dark lashes.
Cam and Chaz didn't notice how Munir separated from them and walked back to the grave. The shuddersome sound of the dirt pouring on the coffin turned stifled as the grave slowly filled.
The woman gently wiped her teary eyes. Munir stood next to her, her eyes fixed on the grave too. She felt shivers trickling down her spine when she imagined how she would feel if she found herself deep under that damp, cold soil, in the total darkness where the squirming of worms and beetles would be all she'd hear.
"People thought Stevie was a bit of a snob," Munir chuckled. "But actually, he was really friendly. You had to just get to know and show him your heart, then he'd show you his heart." The woman nodded, a sad smile curving her colorless lips.
"you are right," she said with a fragile voice as if her words were balanced on a shaky glass. "He was really friendly with me too. Though he was often alone. Kind of outcast."
"Not a lot of neighbors saw how kind he was," Munir added and looked at the woman. "How did you know him?"
"I was his pharmacist," she said. "Gina."
"I see," Munir nodded. "We live on the same floor”.
The grave was filled, and the men had begun to flatten the uneven surface. Soon, grass would grow over the grave, and only the marble stone with his name would stay as a sign of his existence.
"I didn't see him much recently," Gina took her hat off and let her short curly hair down. "He stopped coming to buy medicine. Even though I desperately needed them. "
"Yeah, he had open heart surgery a month ago," Munir agreed. "We visited him in the hospital."
Munir narrowed her eyes, curious. "Do you know why he stopped buying medications?"
Gina shrugged.
"I figured he didn't have money," she sniffled. "I was so worried, and it turns out I had the reason to."
Munir heard her name and, looking back, saw Lia waving from the car.
"Would you like me to drive you?" She smiled at Gina, but she shook her head.
"Thanks, my husband is driving me."
Nodding, Munir shook her hand.
"It was nice to meet you, Gina. Glad to know Stevie had friends like you."
Smiling, Gina headed toward a red car in the distance.
Sighing, Munir looked at the grave again and the square stone with Stevie's name and years engraved on it. Somehow his grave was further from the rest as if even after death, he was an outcast.
As she got in the passenger's seat and closed the door, she turned back at Chaz and Cam. Lia started the car, passing by the graves and following the narrow path. The somehow peaceful atmosphere had embedded between those white stones, green grass, and heavy silence.
"Who was that woman?" Cam asked.
"Stevie's pharmacist," Munir put on the seat belt. "And you know what she told me? She said Stevie stopped buying the medications he needed for his heart condition."
"Why?" Chaz peeled her eyes off the mirror she had opened to reapply her red lipgloss.
"She said he probably didn't have enough money," Munir replied. "But we all know…."
"He received his pension fund a little while ago," Lia finished the sentence.
The women shared a curious, suspenseful look.
"Something doesn't feel right about this," Munir shook her head and gazed out of the windshield. They had left the graveyard and joined the cars in the streets. The silence had vanished, replaced by the city noise.
"We have to figure out what happened to Stevie," Cam emitted.
Everyone nodded. The legion knew if a situation raised even one question, then there would be much more in the depths of it.
Lia slammed the door close as they returned home, tossing the bags aside and flopping on the couch.
Putting on her glasses, Lia opened the laptop and put it on her lap. Munir leaned in from her left while Cam and Chaz peered, sitting to her right. Lia knitted her lips and began clanking on the keyboard. Watching her fingers effortlessly move on the keys like ten feathers that had flown off from a swan's wings, Munir couldn't help but feel at ease that she had such a nerdy, talented friend.
"Are you hacking into Stevie's account?" Chaz asked, her eyes searching the laptop screen.
"Yeah, to see if he still has that pension fund," Lia responded. "And if he has, then he didn't buy the medications for some other reason."
As the window opened, all four women gaped at the number on the bank account.
"0," Munir murmured.
"Someone had drained everything out all at once," Lia pointed at the withdrawal date. "see?"
They nodded.
"Stevie wouldn't withdraw all this out," said Cam. "Why would he?"
"Yes, I think so too," Lia nodded. "He didn't need that much money unless someone forced him to take it out or took it out themselves."
The legion fell to thinking, pondering where their neighbor's money could have vanished.
Chapter 3
The tall white walls almost shook with the noise embedded in the hospital. The nurses hurried from spot to spot, their fast steps blending into one another like a blurry photograph. The patients complained, sniffled, sobbed, or smiled at the nurses who tried to help everyone at the same time, their energy slowly draining. The doctors rushed into the emergency room with white gowns rippling behind their legs.
Chaz held an elderly woman's arm while escorting her from the hospital. The lady's skinny hand lightly lay on Chaz's strong arm, and she could hardly feel the patient's grip. Smiling at her, Chaz kept nodding at her questions while the woman murmured endlessly. The long black dotted dress fluttered around her ankles, her grey hair tied in a bun behind her head. Chaz could hardly hear her low voice as the woman couldn't even reach her shoulder and, hunched, got even shorter.
"Do you feel well, Ms. Gutierez?" Chaz asked as they walked out of the building at snail's speed.
The evening had brought a cool breeze, and the cars that had been parked since the morning had begun leaving. While some patients headed home, new ones arrived. The hospital yard was noisy and full.
"I feel all right," the elderly nodded before Chaz waved at the nearby taxi.
She opened the back seat door and let the woman get in. The lady waved at Chaz as the car began driving by, and Chaz waved back with a smile.
Finally, when the car disappeared from her sight, Chaz sighed and turned around, returning to the hospital. She had hours left to work, and opening her shoulders, she prepared to do so.
The different voices mingling with one another reached from the hospital rooms as Chaz walked down the hallway, peeking at the doors. Suddenly she noticed an unfamiliar woman standing in one of the rooms, the rooms where she knew exactly which patients lay and who his usual visitors were.
Opening the door, Chaz stopped in the doorway. The nurse and patients chatted with smiles before looking at Chaz. It was just a nurse, and Chaz felt embarrassed for doubting everything.
"How is everything going?" Chaz tried to hide her embarrassment and walked inside. "How are you, Charles?"
The patient nodded with gratitude, his bald head moving like a bouncing ball. The white blanket hardly covered his round body as the IV dripped next to him.
"I'm good, Chaz," the man smiled, showing his tiny, yellowish teeth. "How are you?"
"Fine, thank you," she said, and Charles raised his hand to hold hers. Not to disappoint the patient, Chaz held his hand - small and fragile.
"Chaz and I are good friends," the man turned to the other nurse. "Even our names are so alike!"
"They are," the nurse agreed.
Char looked at her. The young woman had tied her thick hickory-brown hair into a ponytail on the back of her head, her big dolly eyes gazing back at Chaz.
Chaz tried to remember if she was someone she knew: a nurse who had worked here before or an intern who had decided to start working, but she couldn't remember. The nurse's oval face, small, round lips, and slightly hooked nose were unfamiliar.
"I haven't seen you here before," Chaz said politely.
She peered at the woman's notebook and the few scribbles made on the blank page.
"I just started," the nurse smiled and spread her hand toward Chaz. "Angel."
"Chaz," she shook her hand, her young and smooth skin noticeably more pleasant to touch than the patient's.
"Nice to meet you," Angel fluttered her long lashes. "I'm happy to be working with you."
"Me too," Angel smiled. "Now, if you excuse me, I have to check on another patient.
Saying goodbye to Charles, Angel walked out with light steps.
Chaz stared at the closed door for a few minutes before looking back at the man who was still smiling.
"What did she ask you, Charles?" She said and checked his heart rate.
"She just asked my full name, birthday, and things like that," Charles nodded, amused by Chaz checking his pulse.
"What else?"
"I don't remember," Charles didn't even try to recall as he continued fingering his iv cord.
Chaz took her hands down and sighed. She had to ask around about this Angel. She couldn't help but feel that the nurse was everything but an angel.
"You wanna watch the tv?" She asked, and the patient nodded
While she arranged the fresh laundry and the patient kept giggling at the TV, Chaz couldn't l stop thinking about the mystery nurse.
Cam sat at her computer, the loud music banging in her ears distracting her from the noise in the police office. The officers kept scurrying back and forth, uniforms clinging to their bodies, guns lightly bouncing on their belts.
Focusing on her work, Cam raised the volume of the song and wordlessly followed her lips along the lyrics. She kept typing, her gaze blurring the surroundings while she immersed herself in the tiring process.
Suddenly, she felt someone tapping her shoulder, and looking up, she saw her partner Larisa talking to her. But Cam could only see her lips moving, her tense look fixed on Cam. Her short, boy-styled hair had begun to grow over her ears. Larisa's pink lips didn't stop moving like two tiny energetic animals.
"Sorry," Cam pulled the earphones out. "What were you saying?"
"There was a robbery near the 6th avenue," Larisa sucked her teeth from frustration. "But luckily, there's CCTV footage from the nearby store."
"Oh," Cam exclaimed and turned back to her computer while Larissa leaned in next to her. Cam felt the subtle scent of cigarette and green apple shampoo radiating off her skin.
"Tell me the address data," Cam said and closed the file she was working on.
Larisa murmured the numbers, and Cam hastily typed them on the keyboard.
"Oh, here they are!" Cam exclaimed as the camera footage opened up and a woman appeared on the screen.
From a distance, she was hard to discern. Cam and Larisa narrowed their eyes, zooming on the silhouette running across the street. Cam's eyes sipped up the thick brown hair partly hidden under a cap and a tattoo on her slender arm.
"Quite a big tattoo," Larisa whispered. "Point for us."
The black ink screamed on her pale skin: a mixture of a flower and a wolf howling to the moon. Cam nodded before she resumed the video and watched the woman disappear into a dark alley.
"This is not enough to identify her," Larisa growled from anger and turned around. "I'm gonna search for other CCTV near the area."
Nodding, Cam didn't take her eyes off the video, watching it over and over again. The robber's silhouette kept flashing by on the screen like a ghost.
Chapter 4
The evening turned damp and humid as the clouds cast the sky, the sun slowly sliding behind them and hiding under their thick layers like a turtle going to sleep in its shell. It was still early, but the gloom seemed to take over the light, spread on the sky, and hang in the air above the city.
The darkness slowly growing in the room began to shroud Lia sitting on the couch. Her bored face was brightened by the phone screen and the cold white light illuminating her half-lidded eyes and downward lips.
She peered from the window, her eyes reaching the buildings and the brightened windows flickering like jewelry, the streetlights lined up on the busy roads, and the sky that came closer and closer to the ground.
Sighing, Lia looked back at her phone, her thumb moving almost instinctively as she scrolled through the social media she hated so much but was so addicted to - though she didn’t want to admit it.
As the street noise reached her - the inaudible blend of people returning home and the cars beeping to rush in the same direction- Lia wished she had an office job like others, like her friends. Working from home always seemed like the best-case scenario, and at first, when she really did start it, it seemed fun: working in the comfort of her room, near her kitchen, a step away from her books and TV. She had thought she could keep a perfect balance between work and play. But eventually, as time passed and work grew, Lia realized how hard it was to have the home as her workplace: soon, she began wasting days and pulling all-nighters, unable to separate her personal life from her professional one.
And now, too, as her laptop lay open next to her with the undone work open on it, Lia continued scrolling through her phone, her thin-framed glasses reflecting the speedily moving feed.
Suddenly, unfamiliar noise reached her ears, and Lia pricked them, realizing it came from the hallway.
Tossing her phone away, she pushed her glasses close to her eyes and stood up, the messy bun hanging from the side of her head, warm hoodie reaching her knees. Without putting on the slippers, Lia hurried to the small square screen next to her front door.
The white-framed screen was open, lit up. Lia got closer, staring at its screen as it showed the life of what was going on outside her door.
Lia had installed the tiny camera above their door to control the hallway and keep an eye on the strangers. The tiny camera eye was hardly visible and only shone in faint red in the dark.
As Lia examined the video on the camera, her eyes scrutinized the people gathered in the hallway. A small group of neighbors. But they were not gathered at her front door but around Stevie’s, right before Lia’s and her friend’s apartment.
Confused, Lia narrowed her eyes, her nose wrinkling from questions as she watched the middle-aged men and women drag boxes out of Stevie’s home. She couldn’t hear them, but the movements of their hands, the expressions, and the hurried steps raised an eerie feeling in her. These people she had known for years now seemed like a group of thieves trying to complete their job before getting caught.
Without hesitation, Lia stepped into her slippers and pulled the door open. The loud thud made the neighbors look toward the door. For a few seconds, silence ensued as they stared at Lia quietly, and she gazed back silently, too, her eyes jumping from one face to the other: different but the same. Wrinkles around the mouth, lines in the forehead, saggy or sunken cheeks, brownish age spots on the hands, grey or dyed hair, thick glasses, and the old-fashioned, hand-knitted sweaters.
“Hello,” Lia tried to sound casual and smiled.
Slowly letting the door go, she plodded toward the group, who slowly slackened, too, smiling back.
Lia looked at the carton boxes, some small, some big, piled up on each other, organized. Some were still open with objects peeking from the top, and some were so huge as if fitting a whole wardrobe. Two armchairs stood outside, and Lia remembered Stevie and her sitting in them, drinking tea and watching football. The spotless green velvet surface and wood details made the armchairs a true discovery for any antique store.
“Hi, Lia,” one of the women smiled.
There were five of them, and while the two talked to her and seemed to block the entrance, the other three continued scurrying through the apartment, speedily moving from one room to the other.
“What’s going on?” Lia asked.
“The landlord told us to remove Stevie’s items,” answered the man. “And move them to the storage facility.”
“Also, there will be a new tenant soon,” added the woman with a grin.
“Oh, I see,” Lia nodded and peered through the open doorway again, seeing how empty Stevie’s home was - as if they were trying to erase every sign of him.
Nodding, Lia walked back to her apartment and closed the door. But she didn’t move from the camera as she watched the neighbors gathering the items.
The dark was already deep, and the night replaced the evening when they finished gathering Stevie’s belongings and pushed them down the stairs.
Quickly putting on her shoes and a jacket, Lia grabbed her car keys and quietly opened the door, gaping over the people who had reached the first floor. They moved quietly as if trying not to draw any attention.
Lia, too, followed with quiet and careful steps, watching from behind the wall how they pushed the boxes into a truck and then got in, driving away.
Getting in her car, Lia followed the big white truck, her eyes pinned on it as she felt that it would soon lead her to a new, unfamiliar destination.
After a twenty-minute drive, the van finally stopped in Chinatown, and Lia parked her car nearby, in the corner of the building, watching the people hop out of the van one by one like monkeys jumping from tree branches.
Pushing her glasses up on her nose bridge, Lia gaped at the three-story building with dark windows and only one door - metal, huge, and locked from the inside.
The neighbors stood impatiently, waiting with their feet tapping, fidgeting, and murmuring before the door opened with loud noise as if it had been dragged across the door.
Lia squinted as she saw a chubby, short man coming out of the door with two tall, muscly men dressed in the same black tank tops - clearly, his guards. They followed the older men with their buffy arms tense as though ready to protect their boss at any moment.
The older Chinese man stood at the van and folded his arms, sizing up the van with scrutinizing gaze. Lia noticed the fear infused with respect on her neighbors’ faces as they stepped back to let the guards open the van.
The two men opened up the van doors, and the older man walked closer, peering inside as if making sure he was seeing everything he expected to see.
After two long minutes, he waved his hand at the guards, and they began taking the boxes out of the van and into the dark building while the man handed out cash. Lia felt the flash of anger and disappointment rising up in her as she watched her neighbors take the money with modest smiles and red faces. She couldn’t believe they had traded Stevie’s cherished belongings for cash.
Lia narrowed her eyes, trying to see through the open door what was inside the building, but only darkness seeped out of it.
She sat unmoving while her neighbors crammed in the van and drove away. The older man walked back into the building the locked the door from inside.
The night didn’t bring anything but more work to Chaz as she sat at the hospital reception, filling out the forms for her new patients.
Some of the hospital rooms had gone silently, and lights had gone dimmer as the patients fell asleep, lulled by the medications or the nurses’ hopeful words. Some had turned their small TVs on, watching the news, some read books and newspapers, and some lay awake, staring at the ceiling, aching with fresh pain or depressing thoughts caving on them.
Chaz looked across the hospital, making sure no patient was wandering through the corridors, sleepwalking, or searching for a nurse. But everything was calm; the hallways sunk in gloom, and the nurses, finally able to take a breath, stood at the coffee machines or fridge, taking a few minute breaks before one of the many patients would call for some help.
Chaz’s eyes returned to the paper, and she checked the last parts of the form before putting it aside on top of a tall tower of other papers and taking another blank one to fill.
Suddenly, she noticed the new nurse hurrying from the entrance toward the hallway with patient rooms. She walked hastily, gripping the edges of her scrubs. Chaz’s eyes narrowed as she watched Angel’s wide brown eyes and lips slightly parted from huffing. Where was she hurrying to?
Springing up from her seat, Chaz left the form, dropped the pen, and scurried toward Angel, blocking her way with a sweet smile. She faked her polite expression and lingered before Angel as though accidentally appearing in her way.
“I thought your shift ended,” Chaz said, trying not to reveal her curiosity too much.
To look casual, she turned and began pouring coffee from the machine. It whirred, breaking the awkward silence.
“I work the night shift today,” Angel responded but didn’t smile. Tension began to turn her face stiff.
“You know, Sophie, the receptionist?” Chaz stared at Angel and felt the hot liquid warming up the cup. “We are good friends. She told me there were no job applications sent out recently.”
Angel stood quietly but impatiently. Chaz could feel how anxiety began pulling on Angels’ nerves.
“Did you get the job through a recommendation from someone there?” Chaz chuckled and looked up. “You know, higher-ups.”
Angel swallowed, now completely unable to hide the pressure, and she stepped back, her eyes scanning the surroundings like a rat in a trap trying to find a way out. Chaz felt that Angel was about to run away and let the coffee cup go. The mug fell on the hard floor, breaking into pieces with a screeching sound.
As soon as the cup shattered, Angel pushed Chaz away, thrusting her elbow into the side of her stomach, and hurried away. Groaning with pain, Chaz looked behind, seeing Angel almost running toward the elevator.
She saw one of the nurses furrowing with confusion as she saw Angel speeding away, and Chaz bent over with her hands on her stomach.
“Are you okay?” Ashe asked and knelt to pick up the glass pieces.
Still feeling the tinges of pain, Chaz nodded and straightened her back.
“Yeah,” she knelt too and gathered the tiny pieces in her palm. The wet black ceramic pieces reminded her of Munir’s black, teary eyes.
“What’s her problem?” The girl asked and threw the glass into the trash. She jerked her chin toward the direction Angel had run to.
“Nothing,” Chaz snickered. “She’s just weird.”
She watched the nurse walk away and then pulled her phone out. Chaz walked toward the empty corner and dialed the number she knew by heart. In a split second, Cam’s voice tickled her ears.
“You remember the new nurse I told you about?” Chaz whispered. “She got really tense over my questions and ran away like a child. She is suspicious.”
Cam sighed, and Chaz heard the sound of her computer shutting.
“Yeah, we got no lead with the thief either,” Cam sounded disappointed. “The one who stole from Mr. Thompson.”
“Thompson?” Chaz asked. “It is the same name of the patient who was discharged early.”
Cam fell quiet, both thinking.
“Tell me what the thief looks like,” Chaz exclaimed as she began to connect the dots.
“We don’t know anything about the thief, just her dark hair, skinny shape, and a tattoo on her right forearm.”
Chaz frowned, biting her lower lip.
“Tattoo on her right forearm?” She repeated. “What does it look like?”
“Hmm,” Cam pondered. “A weird mixture of a wolf howling at a moon while rising out of a flower, something like that. All black.”
Chaz felt her heart skipping a beat, her mind filled with the image she had seen a day before: Angel standing at the patient’s bed, writing, and the sleeve sliding down her arm to reveal a snippet of her tattoo - the open mouth of a wolf and flower stems.
“Oh my god, I think you’re searching for Angel,” she said quietly. “Send me the picture!”
Cam didn’t need even a second to send the picture of the thief from surveillance footage. Squinting, Chaz put her phone close to her face, studying the low-quality, blurred image but it was enough for her to recognize Angel in the black cap and tight overalls.
It’s her, she texted Cam.
Thank you for your support!
Check back for part 2 of Issue 2: Wicked Nightingale