<span style="color: #FF80FF"> <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><div style="text-align: center;">Lea Stevens</div></span></span> </span><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn24/SociallyToxicBeauty/036e0d3a-b28c-47ec-b858-0eaea6c67e4d.jpg">[ img ]</a></div><br/><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="color: #FF80FF"><div style="text-align: center;">"Jazz"</div></span></span></span><br/><br/>Lea waited with bated breath as she listened to Carlos. She knew before he had even began to speak about Diana again that he would break down. She could tell it in his body language, the tightness around his eyes, his clenching and unclenching hands, and the slight shake of his body as he recounted the environment of the precinct to her. He was right, though, she was just as angry as he was about the way everything was being run.<br/><br/>Carlos didn’t deserve the way he was being treated, and that poor woman who had tried to help didn’t deserve what happened to her either. Lea could only imagine the betrayal the woman felt as she realized no one was coming, that all her dangerous work was for naught and she would die the same way as the very girls she was trying to bring justice to.<br/><br/>Lea leaned over, twisting her body some so as to embrace Carlos in her slender arms. How could so much go so wrong in such a short amount of time? In all her years of knowing Carlos, very few events made him this upset—and she could only imagine what he had found when he stumbled across Diana’s skinned, mangled body. Just trying to imagine what Carlos had described would likely be enough to blend into her nightmares as well.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF80FF"> “I will help you, Carlos. We will catch this guy, I promise…”</span>Lea whispered into his hair. She also had a plan to expose the precinct, but she couldn’t tell Carlos about it. She had to be careful with it, or else she would bring him down too, and it wasn’t something she wished to risk. She would have to figure something out to keep Carlos looking clean while the rest of the department was dismantled from the inside out. She had plenty of things against them already, but they hadn’t been a big deal to her. She, they had left her feeling disgusted with the precinct, but overall she had viewed their work as more good than bad…but now knowing everything Carlos was having to deal with, she was rethinking that particular view point.<br/><br/>Carlos would get his promotion, regardless of whether or not he was planning on quitting. She would make sure he at least got that much before he stepped down. She said nothing, though, as her hand rubbed Carlos’ back soothingly. His sobbing was ebbing down, but still she did not let him go, letting him stay in her arms as long as he wanted.