The small 9mm handgun was balanced in my palms as I pressed the button on it's side to release the ammo cartridge. Slowly I checked to see how many bullets were inside, only nine, Watson never used the gun. I slid the ammo cartridge back into the gun and placed the palm of my hand onto the slide before promptly pulling it to it's rearmost position and then released it to see it slide back into position showing me it had one in the chamber.

The woman behind the wheel looked over at me with wide green eyes full of astonishment, "You're not using that are you Mr. Kogane? You still haven't even told me where I'm driving to!" She exclaimed, her voice rising in pitch slightly, then her eyes shifted to her handgun as she gulped down air, "Do you even know how to shoot one of those!"

I made sure to know the location of the safety button as I nodded slowly, "Of course I know how to use one of these Watson, I am a senior detective at the agency aren't I?" I growled as I glared at the green eyed woman and watched as she looked away to stare at the icy roads once more, police siren wailing in the streets making cars pull over to move out of our way.

"Of course but...who are you going to use that on?" She asked with a trembling voice, as if she were afraid of the answer. Her hands gripped the wheel tightly, turning her knuckles into a pasty white.

I stared out the passengers window with the image of Lance and Kouki in my mind as I thought of Pyxis. "There were only three at the scene last night; Antonio, Irene and William Bennings. William stated there were only three of them to the police officer who spoke to us. You're an aspiring detective aren't you? Piece it together." I ordered the junior and watched as she glanced over at me uneasily.

"Three of them." She breathed out loud as her small black eyebrows furrowed. "Meaning William, Antonio and-"

Her wide green eyes snapped over to meet my narrowed lavender ones as I nodded slowly, "She's been playing me the entire time. She took my gun and committed the crime of shooting Antonio, she forged my name in the public records and who knows what other evidence there is to point the murders to me. This is the only chance we have of taking her down and you're Helping me Watson." I spoke with a hard tone.

She shook her head profusely and struggled to pull her phone out of her pocket, "N-no, we need to call the Chief about this Keith, I... I've never killed anyone or shot someone on the job," Her voice was trembling as her tear filled eyes focussed on me in fright, "I can't start now."

I felt guilty for asking such a thing from a rookie detective, she hasn't been through all of life's trails yet so this mission I was trying to force her into must've seemed like hell to her. She must've thought if she did something unchangeable, she too would walk among the path of sin that Irene had chosen. I lowered my head to stare at the jacket lance had given me, it was a good luck charm from him to me, to make sure I would come back safely. However, now as I wore it on my body, I wanted nothing more than to take it off and place it on him again, to make sure nothing would happen to him.

"Stay in the car down here then Watson, let me take care of it but only call Natasha once I enter my apartment building, not before." I stated as we pulled into the parking lot and switched off the sirens quickly creating an eerily silent world.

"O-okay. But, I need to say something to you sir." She turned to face me, phone in hand and her black hair pushed back so that she could see. "She's trained in hand to hand combat, I watched her in the training academy...you're not going to be able to fight her without a weapon. Good luck and don't miss the shot." She closed her eyes and gripped the cell phone in her right hand tightly as she listened to me get out of the car quickly.

"I won't miss again." I stated bluntly as I slammed the door shut and ran into the building and into the staircase.

You could see where they had desperately cleaned my blood from the concrete stairs days ago, blotches of faded crimson stained them with the memories of my struggle to get to Lance before Irene, the memories of my failures. I can't fail anymore, I can't let Irene get what she wants, she needs to be stopped here and now. My heavy footsteps echoed up the stairway as I slid the gun out and flicked the safety off, holding my finger away from the trigger to be sure I wouldn't misfire and alert Irene of my presence, if the sirens hadn't already. Reinforcements had to have been deployed by now seeing how the young detective had been holding her phone as if it were the only thing keeping her alive. I slammed into the door to my apartments floor and didn't stop as I felt pain biting at my unhealed wounds, begging for me to rest.

When I reached the door I stared at the star carved onto the wood for a long moment, not knowing what I would find inside where no sound escaped. The home inside seemed frozen in time with no wails or whimpering. Please be okay, I can't lose anyone again. I closed my eyes tightly before opening the unlocked door slowly, it creaked open out of old age and I cringed at the giveaway noise that would alert Irene of my presence. Stepping into the apartment was like stepping into a horror movie, the living room couch was flipped over as if someone had crawled over it to get away from something, there was broken glass coating the floor and the lights were shut off, the only thing that made me feel fear in my heart was the fact that both Lucifur and DaFuzzy were hiding under the kitchen table with fluffed out fur, Dafuzzy's white fur held dots of scarlet liquid that sent shivers down my spine. It had already happened, she had already started attack the man I loved and a child who needed a new family, two things I couldn't let slide.

"Irene, come out!" I shouted in anger as I slammed the door shut behind me and locked it slowly, Watson's gun drawn and pointed up so that I could easily shoot whatever moved.

There wasn't a sound as I slowly made my way through the living room and towards the kitchen area to make sure Kouki or Lance weren't hiding behind anything in there. Sadly, they weren't which made everything even worse as I felt my hand tremble slightly, the reality of the situation hitting me like a ton of bricks. I was ready to kill someone in order to save people special to me, something I had been prepared to do so many years ago as my fingers clasped around Jackson neck in pure rage. My heart skipped a beat as a floorboard behind my creaked, my entire body spun around and fired a shot without hesitation.

Behind me stood a wide grey eyed woman with a fresh cut on her cheek from a bullet grazing against it. Her eyes were full of shock and she held a knife in her right hand. The two of us stood there in a moment of shock at the reaction speed I had and the fact that if I had aimed to the right a few more inches then I would've ended the fight right then and there with her lifeless body on the floor.

"Hey Keith." She smiled before lunging forward with the knife pointed at me.

Dodging it I rolled onto the floor and pointed my gun back up to fire another shot, this time missing completely as it went above her and into the ceiling as she fell into the table. "Dammit." I clicked my tongue as I hurriedly forced myself to my feet in order to take aim again. Only seven more shots left in the magazine.

Irene must've realized the severity of the situation as she wiped her cheek and turned around to me to duck right as a bullet sped past her head, she then instantly darted to might right and threw the knife directly at me in hope that it would hit me. As she did so she managed to turn to launch herself at me, giving me only two choices for the moment; dodge the knife and risk getting tackled to the ground by the psycho bitch or block the knife somehow and shoot her as she rushed at me.

There was only a second to decide as the knife hurtled towards my face and the grey eyes demon prepared to grab me by my throat, her eyes filled with bloodlust as her entire attitude different from the once hopeful junior to the killer that had been making memories I tried to forget resurface and the killer who had tried to take away the life of a young boy and detective. There was only one option now that I stood there with wide eyes, shoot her and risk dying.

My arm shot upright and the hand holding the gun fired four consecutive shots leaving only two left in the chamber. A shooting pain erupted in my forearm as both Irene and I let out loud shrieks of pain, one from a bullet being shot into their thigh and the other from a knife getting lodged into their arm.

Both of us stumbled away from each other in pain as we tried to do something about our wounds. I looked down at the knife for a brief moment and decided that it would be best to leave it in instead of bleeding out. Slowly I glanced up to see Irene crouching on the floor in pain, tears threatening to fall from her eyes as she bit her lip with so much force that she started bleeding slowly. Her eyes were beyond pissed as she slowly met my eyes once more, her hands covering the bullet wound as she pushed herself to her feet.

The gun rose up once more and I allowed my injured arm to fall limply at my side where blood dripped down my ring finger and onto the floor with quiet splish noises. "Why would you want to do all those murders?" I asked her with resentment.

Irene frowned as she stepped forward however she abruptly stopped at I focused the gun onto the ground and shot where she might've stepped next. The room was filled with silence again until sirens filled the air outside the apartment building. "I'm not joking Irene, I will not miss the next one." I growled in anger.

"I did it to make you notice me, to give you a mystery only you could solve. One where the two of us could be happily solving together." She stated with a small smile crossing her face.

"You wanted me to notice you? That's one of the most idiotic excuses to take a life away from this world. If you weren't content with the praises I gave you and how much I would boast about your skills to the other detectives then you should've spoken to me about it not kill people for my approval." The gun shook slightly as I tried to control the rage growing inside of me. She was the classic psychotic killer, she didn't have a real reason for her killings, they were there to get attention.

Her eyes became hurt as she looked at me in despair, "W-what? I did it for love... Love isn't- it isn't stupid!" She wailed with a hint of anger.

"It is if your love will never happen, you better pray to god that this next bullet misses you if you dare make a move towards me. Now where are Lance and Kouki?" I shouted loudly as I stepped forward slowly in hopes of being able to restrain her.

She dropped her head and stared blankly at the ground as she began to mutter something in Russian to herself. Then once I got closer she snapped her head back up and bared her teeth at me, "I'll never pray to god in a world as corrupted as this." She yelled and grabbed the knife from my arm, yanked it from my sensitive flesh and managed to slap the gun away from my hand causing me to misfire it.

Of course, this was all my luck, the moment I was able to save someone I loved, I was stopped. I watched as Irene began to moved the knife up to stab me however, there was a flash of blue behind her which caught the two of us off guard. "Fuck. You!" Lance's voice rang out as he slammed a wine bottle onto the top of Irene's head automatically knocking her out and she fell onto the ground, grey eyes rolling to the back of her head.

I stood there with purple eyes full of surprise as I stared at a pissed off Lance McClain holding the base of a shattered wine bottle in his hands, his blue eyes blazing with adrenaline and determination and his new blue sweatshirt he kept at the apartment hugged his slender figure. Kouki poked his head out of the bedroom with wide eyes, a scratch going across his chest hinted at a knife wound however it didn't seem serious since he stood there curiously.

Lance the the broken bottle to the ground and slammed his foot into Irene's wound in anger, "Don't screw with my soul mate or my child, bitch!" He shouted.

I looked at him in surprise as a smile painted my face slowly, my heart was beating in admiration as Lance yelled something about 'dad squad' and how he had been wanting to bust a bottle over Irene's head since the day he met her. Then his blue eyes shifted over to me as he breathed heavily, his brown eyebrows pinched together into a frown as he raised his index finger to point to me, "Why do you look like a love struck dog?" He asked with a tried voice.

I couldn't control my body as I stumbled over to him and jumped up to press my lips against his. He stepped back a few steps as the two of us kissed, his blue eyes wide in shock and mine were shut in pure passion as I held my breath and felt the shock of what I was doing run down my body. This kiss was different from the first, I felt something there, I felt something warm and fuzzy and it brought tears to my eyes as I felt Lance slowly kiss me back, his hands on the back of my body and head as if he were holding me near him for a hug that would last forever.

By the time I pulled away to look up at the now teary eyed man with freckles that looked as if they could be a star constellation, the police rushed in to quickly secure the scene with Natasha and Watson close behind. I stared at the astonished lance for a long moment, taking in all of the details I failed to notice over the years like how his beautiful blue eyes had flecks of green in them, how his ears would grow red when he felt nervous and how large they were, how his freckles not only touched the sensitive skin of his cheeks but also stretched to cover his giant ears.

I sucked in a breath as I felt a tear fall from my cheek, "I look like one because I'm in love with you. Dumbass."