<span style="font-weight: bold"> LA city streets </span><br/>Declan was running back from the peer. Footsteps thudding continuously against groaning planks. Could crossing the board walk take any longer?!<br/><br/>He gritted his teeth as he nearly slipped upon a smoother plank. Or perhaps some seaweed that had managed to grow across the surface of that particular timber.<br/><br/>He grabbed onto one of the posts that was keeping the peer afloat. His heart skipping a beat which left an unpleasant burn in his chest.<br/><br/>“Far out…!” he gritted through his teeth, before looking through the mist again as he collected his thoughts. Albeit for a few seconds.<br/><br/>He was returning from a potential crime scene. A pool of blood found at the end of the peer. With no signs of the body.<br/><br/>His safest bets were that either the body had been thrown into the water- or the person committing the assault had taken him away.<br/>Unless it was hidden somewhere?<br/><br/>At this point, it didn’t matter. He had to find Athena. Something about the atmosphere was hounding and tormenting.<br/>He finally touched upon land. Forgetting about the flowers he had discarded next to a couple of street lamps before the entry of the peer.<br/><br/>“Atheeeeena….” He shouted out.<br/><br/>Turning in a circle.<br/><br/>“Athenaaaaaaaa…?”<br/><br/>Nothing was to be responded to except for the echo of his calling.<br/><br/>“…damnit…” he cussed under his breath. Mist creeping in to make the city become more of rat maze than the familiar corners of the streets that he knew off the top of his head.<br/><br/>“Wait…” he peered over his shoulder. Hope in his voice as he ran towards a shop. The florist?<br/>His heart sank when he found it was a Pawn shop. Locked, closed, and cold looking.<br/><br/>“Dgeeze…” he shook his head and turned on his heels again. He just couldn’t catch a break.<br/>He rounded off the next avenue. Eyes longing and hopeful as he finally recognised a reference point.<br/>The barber’s shop which was only across the road from his work place! Now all he had to do was just go in a straight line and he’d find the florist.<br/><br/>Perhaps Athena would’ve gone back there to check up on him?<br/><br/>A muscular weight came crashing down on Declan before he could make any more deductions within his head.<br/><br/>Staggering backwards into the alleyway, he found himself capsize into a skip with trash.<br/><br/>Bottles colliding and clashing whereas tin cans came flying out. Disturbed rats could be heard screeching and scuttling about.<br/><br/>“What the hell?!” Declan found himself pinned down. Claws beginning to scratch at his arms and hands. He felt himself spill blood.<br/>He had no choice but to reach into his pocket and snatch his revolver.<br/><br/>Too dark and locked down to take too much precision, he simply jammed the gun into the creature that was on top of him and fired into his side.<br/><br/>The creature screeched like chalk that run off a black board and scattered away. Leaping out of the skip. Knocking over trash cans and scattering glass bottles.<br/><br/>He didn’t like that.<br/><br/>Declan heaved. Before coughing and spluttering quite violently.<br/><br/>His wary eyes scanned the scene as he lay there in the skip. Holding his breath so as to not give away his position to whoever, or whatever that was. Or if there were more of them.<br/><br/>The odd apartment light on. Peripheral light from the streets. Plastic waste strewn over him.<br/><br/>The fox cop carefully lifted himself up. The noise of the trash amplifying in his own ears. Simply created by his own fear that whatever that thing was… it would come back.<br/><br/>He took a moment to investigate his wounds.<br/><br/>Just his forearms and upper arms bore crimson scratches. Not to mention a nasty strawberry gash on his right clavicle.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Was he going for the jugular vein?’</span>Declan asked himself as he scratched his head. Which was getting sticky from the blood he acquired on his hands from his wounds.<br/><br/>He peered over the side of the skip with morbid eyes.<br/><br/>A trail of blood leading out of the alleyway and elsewhere.<br/><br/>Dare he follow it?<br/><br/>_________________________________________________________________________________________________________<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">Elsewhere on the city streets </span><br/><br/>“French huh?” Athena said more to herself than to Olive. Then again, it was Los Angelos. There were people with names of all sorts of origins. But Tonkenisian as well?<br/><br/>Athena followed where Olive had been pointing and her face broke out with fear.<br/><br/>“Oh my god… we can’t go there!!!” Athena pulled Olive’s hoody clad shoulder back.<br/><br/>“Why not?!” Olive demanded “your friend is likely there and in danger, you do realise?”<br/><br/>“I was there myself… somebody got assaulted there…” Athena explained. Olive turned around and faced her. Folding her arms.<br/><br/>“Are you going to just stand here then and await the tragic news involving YOUR friend?” Olive questioned sternly, trying to knock some sense into her.<br/><br/>“No but…” Athena hesitated “I just feel quite unprepared for this."<br/><br/>Olive simply beckoned for Athena to follow her, before making tracks again. There was no time for indecisiveness. The night continued to maintain its pitch black mood with ghostly mist continuing too ooze through the streets. The only saving grace of vision being the collateral street lights.<br/><br/>“I would’ve thought that with your experience of being a cop, one would expect the unexpected…” Olive deliberated with Athena.<br/>The two arrived within the docklands area. Waves serenely lapping against all within it as well as the former kahing of seagulls that could be heard in the background.<br/><br/>Olive walked over to one of the street lights and picked up a bouquet of flowers. The very ones she had made up earlier for Declan. She read the card.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">’To dearest Athena, I need you to keep strong. Everything will work out in the end.</span><br/>Olive looked away and sighed. They were wasting time here. The purple aura she was picking up from Declan had fallen out of her reach.<br/><br/>“Wait… wait?!” Athena said, glaring down at the floor. There was a trail of blood that went all the way to the docklands.<br/><br/>“…that wasn’t there earlier!” she turned to look at Olive. Wide-eyed.<br/><br/>“We should go and check the end of the peer… maybe Declan’s there!”<br/><br/>__________________________________________________________________________________<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">Elsewhere</span><br/><br/>The predator panted and grunted as he clawed his way across the boardwalk of he peer. Blood still spilling from the gunshot wound that was dealt to him minutes earlier. Luckily it had hit his upper arm. Given the point blank shot though, it was a deep wound and he knew it.<br/><br/>Stupid civilian. All he wanted was to get some answers. Like demand why James was still alive. And who it was that slashed the record store boss earlier on the peer without him noticing. Who was this other hunter?!<br/><br/>And if the cop didn’t have the answer, he’d just kill him and devour his bones. He didn’t care much for blood but bones were really what nourished him. Too bad they were more tedious to get to in his victims.<br/><br/>The predator found a lone yacht. He leapt onto it and rolled under a stack of sheet covering which was probably normally used to protect the boat's engines. To him, it was somewhere hidden, and blanket in a way.<br/><br/>Exhausted from the injury and the rest of the events from tonight, he passed out into a deep slumber. His hood still veiling his face that was yet to be seen by anybody.<br/>Lurker, civilian, or angel.