The wind violently whips Katherine’s cherry chocolate hair back and forth as the cold slithers underneath her coat and seeps into her bones. Curling her fingers into the pockets of her tattered coat, she waits and watches. She has hunched forward, her back digging into the wall, for half an hour now as this bitter cold stabs her with knives of ice. Within the first five minutes, her teeth started to chatter and full body shivers erupted. Biting down on her cheek, she breathes in a short breath as her body tries to break down on her. Five more minutes, she promises herself as she grits her teeth. Blinking her eyes, she tries to fight her heavy eyelids and the exhaustion settling into her limbs.
The sound of voices tugs on her attention. She rubs her face with trembling fingers as she concentrates on the voices above her. On the lip above, she hears two voices arguing, one bubbling with anger and the other stewing in it. Blinking her eyes open, she looks up, uncaring that they can easily see her. Her shiving, poorly dressed form allows her to be visible but forgettable. She is just another soul lost to the streets.
“You said you would have this handled,” one voice says in a deathly calm manner. The next set of shivers that traveled through Katherine’s body have nothing to do with the cold.
“And you said that Jamth was the informant,” the other voice spits out, sounding like they want to strangle the other to death. “He didn’t know anything.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have taken your time to question him properly rather than act out in anger,” the first voice says, regarding their peer with disdain.
The second voice scoffs, stomping their feet like a child denied a treat.
After a minute of silence, the first voice calms somewhat, understanding the gravity of the situation. “What are we going to do now?” they ask the first voice for direction.
“We are not going to do anything.” The sound of a blade being drawn seems to scream in the quiet winter night. “You messed up, Kaveil. You left a mess behind. I can’t have messy people.”
“You would threaten me!” Kaveil demands, outraged.
“Farewell,” the first voice whispers. The scuffle of feet echo overhead before a choked grunt flees from Kaveil’s lips. The body then drops down. Shaking their head, the first person turns on their heels, departing.
Katherine waits, counting three hundred ice-fire breaths before she pulls herself up from the snow. She sticks her blue tipped fingers into her dry mouth, cringing at the feel of blood on her chapped lips.
Shuffling her legs forward, she pulls her fingers from her mouth as she rubs them together, preparing herself. Robotically, she grabs the ladder and makes slow work of pulling herself up. By the time she has ascended the platform, her lungs are burning and her muscles are on fire. Her legs collapse from under her as she spots the blood seeping into the fresh fallen snow.
Her burning eyes widen when she puts a face to the name. Kaveil Ien Trobenough. The golden boy enforcer from the right family projected to be the Head of enforcers by the time he was thirty. Instead of the future of power and prestige everyone believed was rightfully his, the Sergeant General is dead in a back alley like any gutter trash.
The secrets Jamth spilled to her feel like bricks thrown upon her back. What the hell was he involved in?