( The night after the murder )

What were two unfledged teenagers doing at a cosy cafe like Bean and Bagels during the middle of dawn and dusk?

Business.

Onlookers would have skindered them to be passionate lovers who have come out of their abodes in secrecy. Luckily, no human was insane to leisure outdoors at two in the morning, atleast in Caperwood.

The plum-haired damsel flushed in ecstasy, her lilac eyes glowing in euphoria. Pushing her wavy tresses past her perky transmuting ears, she slammed the maple surface of the café table, loud enough to grab the client's attention and gushed, "And that's when I turned to my left. You won't believe this! I saw posters of myself — headlined wanted!"

Avril turned his weary eyes tardily towards the melodramatic woman and rolled it carelessly.

I should have hired an introvert, he chided his recklessness.

"Safeer was damn happy! He was like 'it's a great feat for a first-timer', and oh, the Obscurians are even organizing a success party! Can you believe this is HAPPENING!" Romine squealed with her newborn popularity cradling in the background.

"Did you call me to brag about your achievement?" Avril snapped the gushing foams of vaunt brutally.

"Is there even a bit of gratitude in your boast?"

"Of course!" Romine attempted to ease his detonating nerves, "You played a major role in this ruse!"

As she noticed Avril's temple loosening it's puckered folds upon hearing her silvery compliment, the shape-shifter bent back on the cushion, crossing her legs insolently.

"But you couldn't have carried this master plan of yours without me, Mr. Avril Alteiner," she simpered, "So I think it should be you who should thank me!"

Avril admired her audacity despite the blazing wrath that mushroomed wild, strafing roots within him. Mockery was used to him, but he wouldn't tolerate anyone and everyone walking past him to ridicule.

Setting eyes on her cool composure, Avril roared, "Thank you!? Are you even aware of how much dollars I have spent for your payment?"

Realization suddenly made a flashy cameo as visions of missing money inquiry from his parents hopped in derision. How was he even going to account for a hefty sum of ten thousand dollars?

"Exactly!" the conwoman warbled, "which is why Pandora is no more safe! I can't walk on the streets flashing 5000 prens out of the blue and moreover, I don't want to be charged for murder and black money at the same time!"

What is this woman made of, Avril vented. Romine made so much sense yet brought him so much trouble.

Parting with a chunk of anger, Avril sighed, "What do you want from me now? Aren't there other places in Etheria other than Pandora? You could hide there!"

His suggestion seemed so stupid and vague that the woman sneered publicly.

Romine didn't know whether her client was actually barmy or acted like one. And if he was acting, he was too good.

"Do you really think the cops would be chilling out in Pandora while a killer is on loose?" she scowled at his insensibility, making him feel inferior, like everyone else.

"So what am I supposed to do? You can't stay here either!" Avril rowed.

"That's your problem, shape-shifter," Romine emphasized particularly, "or supposed-to-be."

When Avril's dignity was being stomped by churlish strangers, all he did usually was stare at them stomping, eyes laced with faint angst. But this time, he didn't want to just stare.

"Fine!" he gritted, averting his attention from the glowing woman.

Romine had a way with her clients. She knew the right nerve to twist and her work would be completed with ease.

The silence between the affiliates braced fury for Avril and waved in merry for Romine.

Two contrasts, for sure, where out to venture the world of sinister and crime.

"Anyways," Romine slurped her coffee (which she had to make because baristas don't work at night and sleep rather), "I deserved that money."

Avril scoffed vividly.

"Metamorphosing itself is a strenuous task, and upon that, a grandmother!" she furiously vented a tirade, recollecting the painful moments of a hurried transformation.

"You have been doing that your whole life!" Avril reminded madly. All this woman knew was to complain!

"And it's not like making a lemonade either, Mr. Avril Alteiner!" the flaring woman snapped.

"You see, I am not just transforming into the character, but also playing it. And it's not at all easy to act like an old woman."

Avril remained silent, compressing his expressions. It felt happy to see Romine rant. And moreover, the fact that he was the reason added more bliss.

"I couldn't run back after rebounding to my original form, I had back pains for Pandora's sake!" Romine shrieked.

Avril didn't want to subdue his glee anymore. He chuckled softly, earning a grimace.

"Why? Just why an old woman, out of all the possible characters in this world?" she beseeched.

This feels good, Avril grinned. The fact that someone else pleaded to him made him feel powerful. Feel superior. And ultimately, feel worthful.

"To earn the trust of your victim, Romine," he seated his words wisely. Romine's intellectual launched rockets to contemplation and surveyed it's fissures. Of course, the delicate dupe fell at once for the gentle character she exuded.

"Hmm," she returned, "You do have a brain after all."

Avril was too tired to rebuke. He let her take his reticence as her weeny victory.

"Next question, why her, that girl, her name was something like —"

"Pristine," Avril divulged. How could he forget his lovely prey?

Romine nodded ardently. After performing her order with full compliance, she finally wanted to know the actual motive.

"So that it would be easier to divert the attention away from my household."

Romine blinked in ambiguity. She didn't even know Avril's family members. What was he expecting from a foreigner?

"Pristine is lovesick for Andrei, so it would navigate the case into something like Pristine turning into a psychopath and killing her beloved upon facing rejection!"

"That makes too much sense," Romine nodded in bewilderment. Was Avril the same boy she had seen few years ago, visiting Pandora frequently for psychiatric treatments? The fragile lad cloaking within his mother's warm figure, branded as an innocent product of Mateo, incapable of manifesting powers was mastering the vilest plans with such ease!

Enamoured by her client's finesse, Romine concurred with Avril's hypothesis of the case. Pristine was surely a lovesick woman, prying for Andrei's attention. Romine snickered on discerning the fact that Pristine was prepared to give only her life for her love and not take.

"And the million-pren question," Romine held her slender chin with her loosely clenched fist and leaned forward, dragging the curtains of curiosity along, "Why that handsome chap?"

As Romine gazed intently at the viriscent eyes, Avril simpered.

"Andrei Lawson!" Romine chirped upon recalling the dead's name, expecting Avril to give some incredible reason that would make her fall for him again. Her gleaming eyes set sight on his tousled russet locks that casually covered his thin forehead, the crescented dimples ensconced in either side of his argent cheeks exuding a plethora of elegance, and..... wait, are we in the wrong train?

"Andrei Lawson," Avril repeated, his voice faltering in intensity, mildly increase the air of inquisitiveness that hovered his recruit. Romine looked extremely attractive when she was curious, so Avril decided to prolong it.

"Because..." his words trailed in lethargy, as he inclined forward to glimpse the twinkling eyes.

Romine's excitement showed no diffidence as she almost jumped when Avril leaned. Was he going to kiss, she coyed.

After deftly tempting his fascinated witch, he bluntly reclined backwards. Piqued by his desertion, Romine still expected the humane part of him to atleast reveal the reason. Why Andrei?

"Because it's none of your business!" Avril snapped the fluffy clouds of Romine's expectations into vapours of chagrin.

Avril laughed blithely witnessing Romine's flaming glower. Relishing her vexation inch by inch, Avril's inner persona alerted that he wouldn't say it no matter who asked.

Clouded visions of his parents' conversation crossed his mind as his eyes blurred in actual tears. He laughed more louder — a secretive attempt to sleeve his grief as gleeful tears.

How could he possibly tell that he had heard his father's plan to make Andrei as a shape-shifter, a shot to restore his blemished dignity? How could he shamelessly tell that his father would have replaced him with that bastard, if he had been a day more alive, breathing with his impudent nose?

***

"Pristine?"

A deep voice reverberated her name in proximity.

Pristine. The criminal. The killer. The psychopath.

As the crouching woman decided to address the call, her forlorn face viewed the owner.

And that's when realization hit hard as a hammer. She was no more that carefree sophomore that everyone adored, all lively and lovey-dovey. She was no more the lovesick woman who blindly stalked Andrei wherever he was known to breathe.

She was a gruesome murderer. And not any ordinary type Caperwood had seen, she was capable of neatly chiseling a pumping heart from the adamantine ribcage like an adept surgeon(even though her major was journalism), or that's what the people presumed.

Alan. The superhero. The manipulator. The friend of the deceased.

Standing afore her frail body, Pristine viewed whims of wicked elation infusing in those warm eyes, or that's what her tangled brain hallucinated.

Oh shit, I am caught, a feeble voice alerted her.

"Pristine!" he repeated in a honeyed tone. His sapphire eyes fountained pious sympathy, good enough for any foreigner to fall into his arms. More like a cobweb.

Oh boy! Isn't this his field of specialization?

Pristine gradually got to her feet as her enervated figure trembled in dread and hunger. Alan immediately offered to aid her balance with finely designed gestures of goodness spreading through his credible guise. Pristine denied in anxiety and slowly succoured the remaining stamina nature had left in her body as a sign of pity.

Run, Pristine!

Turning her back to the empathizing visitor, Pristine sprinted with high bars of fleetness through the myriad tombs and trailing menace.

"Pristine! Wait!" the superhero's concern resonated as Pristine internally confirmed that she had surely travelled a longer distance, measuring the echo's intensity.

After pathetically believing that she had escaped, Pristine turned behind amidst her intense bolt to see how small Alan looked from afar; another way of confirming that it would be nearly impossible to catch her.

To her stupid stupefaction, the manipulator was nowhere to be seen within the poor sight her brain projected.

Am I that far? she witlessly primed.

This was the same foolishness that tainted her name as a killer and still she hadn't learned her lesson.

Pristine shifted her sight afore and halted her pace, slanting backwards like cartoon characters would in the horror that awaited. Alan stood firmly, obstructing her trampled path, calm and composed with no shades of exhaustion.

The enormous energy made her cease her race right in front of his firm torso, almost knocking him.

How did I forget that the man was a lightning himself?

Pristine stepped back, placing her slender fingers on her tensed temple, and confined herself within the tracks of trepidation. She was not going to run back foolishly, and begin a new loop of chasing as if the number of problems weren't good enough.

All the doors to escape had been lucidly shut and Pristine was left with the last straw a victim had to pick — plead.

"Alan!", she panicked, her voice plucking all sorts of apprehensive weeds that grew in her tattered soul.

"It wasn't me!" Pristine sobbed unconsciously, the grievous day's events flooding her destitute mind. How could she possibly kill the man whom she admired? Who would even believe that she was completely oblivious to the murder committed under her name?

"Really!" her wail continued, deepening the intensity of pain her heart held. Albeit being aware that no sane man would believe that she had been a victim of a vile witchcraft, she still decided to vent it to her hunter, paying no heed to whether the man lined with her or not.

"I — I was with — with — Ara!" her voice glitched as memories of the mishap barricaded her ruesome lament.

"That night— I —" Pristine took long breaths, her stamina dwindling in her voice. Her tone strained in fathomless anguish but despite all the physical hurdles, her conscience urged her voice to reveal the truth.

It's better to cry out loud, instead of locking all the secrets within the sensitive flesh of ours, Priscita's mellowy advice looped her senses.

"I—" her third attempt ceased as Alan beckoned her to stop.

What was he going to say? Stop lying? I am done with these stories? I know where to hand you over?

Her mind plagued in anxiety pounded back and forth, anticipating the next set events waiting to occur.

"I know Pristine," the mild baritone sweeped the swelling forebode to nihility. Eyelids brimmed with gushing tears, Pristine lifted her gaze to meet the one's that abruptly washed her fear.

"I know Pristine, that it's not you who killed my friend. I believe you."