"How is she doing?" I ask, my gaze trained on an immobile Julia with Jade sitting next to her as she tells her mom about her day at school.

"Still the same but I did hear that she is doing a little better though it'll still be a while before she's taken out of the medically induced coma," Victoria answers. "But how are you doing? Or specifically, how are things with Nash?"

"Better, I decided to give him a chance and told him why I was on the fence about being in a relationship," I tell her.

"I'm glad to hear that, you two really work well together and I think you balance each other out," she says nodding her head with a smile.

"Yeah, he's my first relationship in a long time, I don't want to do anything to mess it up," I tell her, a small sigh escaping from me. 

"If I didn't know you two, I would have assumed that both of you were already together so I think you'll be fine," she says with a wave of the hand. 

"I know, I know," I answer as my phone starts to ring. I pull it out of my pocket seeing Jason's name flashing on the screen. "Chief, what do you need from me?" I ask him and Victoria steps back, probably going to leave and give me privacy since this is most likely work-related but I grasp onto her wrist stopping her in place.

"You're at the hospital right now, right?" he questions.

"Yeah, I'm here with Victoria right now while Jade is with her mom," I tell him. "Why, what do you need?" 

"I need you to head down to the forensics lab, we just got word of another victim, this is our seventh but forensics has also worked out some symptoms victims had before they died. Nash is heading your way with Aurora," he answers and I nod my head wordlessly. 

"Alright, Victoria is still on her break but I can ask her to keep an eye on Jade for me while I go downstairs," I ask looking at her while she gives me a thumbs up.

"Tell her thanks for me," he says to me and I can hear the love he has for his girlfriend in his voice, they're so sweet, nauseatingly sweet but it's cute.

"Tell it to her yourself," I reply as I hand her my phone before walking into the hospital room. "Jade?" She looks up at me in question and moves to stand but I shake my head as I walk over to her, my hand on her shoulder gently prompting her to sit back down.

"Are we leaving yet?" she questions, her heterochromia eyes looking at me in curiosity. 

"No, not yet. You can stay here to talk with your mom but I have to go do something for work right now but I'll try to be quick," I say in a reassuring voice. "The nurse that's standing outside right now is going to stay with you until I come back. If you need me, you can ask her to call me, okay?"

"Okay, bye Natalia," she tells me as she gives me a quick hug.

"See later kid," I chuckle as I ruffle her hair before walking back outside. "I'll try not to stay there for so long, whatever documents they have I'll take a better look at it when I'm at the station," I tell Victoria as she hands me my phone.

"She'll be safe here. In case my break finishes and you're not back yet I'll get Haruto to stay here and guess what I overheard him saying earlier, you won't believe it," she tells me, a smirk playing on her lips.

"What happened?" I ask as I walk in the direction of the elevators.

"Well besides telling Julia that she was strong for surviving, I heard him say she was also gorgeous and he didn't understand why someone would do that to her," she calls out. "Is it love at first sight?" 

"Shut the fuck up, we're so going to embarrass him later," I call back to her as I quicken my steps. Haruto calling Julia gorgeous, now that's going to be an interesting conversation. I wait for less than a minute for the elevator and it's another fifteen seconds as it goes down to the ground level. 

I quickly walk through the emergency area, bypassing all the people waiting to be checked or moving to a different ward to get checked for whatever brought them here. I've been to the hospital so many times, I know it like the back of my hand. The hospital doors slide open and I see Nash's car already waiting out front, the passenger seat empty. I tap my finger on the window as he unlocks the door and I slide in.

"Hey," I say to him, ignoring the other person in the back as I shut the door. He leans over to kiss my cheek before starting the engine and driving out of the hospital.

"How's Julia?" he asks as he drives out of the hospital. It's a good thing the lab is only five street lights away from here, the facility is situated at a close distance from the hospital and the precinct. 

"Better than yesterday, I left Jade with Victoria since she's on her break," I answer.

"You took your time getting here Natalia," Aurora sneers from the back seat. "Don't you know cases take priority, at least the two of us understand that."

"You think wagging your tail like a dog and trying to talk me down is going to make you look better?" I ask turning to look at her, my face blank. "It's okay, we already know you're a piece of shit," I add, a smirk on my lips and Nash lets out a huff of laughter before clearing his throat acting as if it never happened. I turn back around but it's worth seeing the embarrassment on her face since the man she's after finds this amusing. It's another five minutes before we reach the lab and we're authorized to drive in. We get out of the car, Nash jogging up to walk beside me and taking my hand in his to give it a quick squeeze before dropping it as we walk into the building. 

"Natalia, Nash, you two are working this case? Aurora didn't tell me this," a voice calls out. I turn my head and my face brightens when I see the one analyst we normally work with.

"Georgia," I call back to her as she stops in front of us, a glare set on her face as she looks at us.

"So an old woman like me only hears from you two only when it comes to cases now?" she asks crossing her arms over her chest and I hear Aurora gasp in surprise at the fact I know one of her superiors.

"Georgia, you're only in your early sixties and minus the grey streaks you're still kicking it," I scoff and she rolls her eyes. She looks over at Nash and he gives her a sheepish grin before letting out a sigh. 

"You children need to learn it only takes one phone call to see how people are doing but for now it's time to get to work, follow me," she says pivoting on her heel and we follow her to her office. Georgia Hamilton was one of the first people I met when I came to the city and you could say she took me under her wing and taught me the basics of forensics, what to look for in a crime scene among other things. 

But besides that she was the type of person that would stop by my apartment to see how I was doing if I was overwhelmed from a case or if I wasn't feeling well, she'd be the first person to bring me a hot bowl of soup. My mother left me when I was a kid and I never had a mother figure growing up, but if I ever did I'd want it to be someone like Georgia. When Nash and I started working together, she got used to seeing him around, hell, she was the first person who told me that Nash was attracted to me.

"Jason told us your team found some things," Nash says interrupting my thoughts.

"Yes, there was a pattern with all the victims and we could conclude a timeline of what organs are first affected when the tablet is ingested," she says sliding her card key into the lock and we follow her inside the lab. "This what we have so far," she tells us and she hands me a stack of papers and I sit down on one of the chairs in front of her desk as I skim the words on the paper.

"Fuck, you're team already investigated this much," I say under my breath as my brain wraps around what I'm reading. 

"We're the number one lab in the province when it comes to toxicology and this is a priority case otherwise we'll have deaths throughout the city and it will most likely spread," she says as she sits down across from me. "Thought I'd be retiring by now but instead here I am, I better get a promotion once we're done with this, fastest I've ever had to work in my life."

"What can you tell us about this drug, this tablet?" Nash questions.

"I can answer that for you two. Right now we can conclude that whoever is making it is combining different chemicals with the goal of getting high but we all know that it's having fatal consequences," Aurora answers slipping into her professional persona. "What we know right now is that when it's consumed the first thing the drug attacks is the nervous system, we estimate it takes at least ten minutes for it to take effect and render the person immobile."

"So in other words it's a fast-acting poison?" I question, my eyes never leaving the papers.

"In a sense, yes. After it attacks the nervous system, it starts killing the cells in the body and targets the major organs such as the kidneys, and the liver, to name a few, we calculated it takes at least an hour, maximum. The next thing that could happen is either the heart stops from overworking with whatever is happening in the body or they could suffer a major stroke," she adds.

"How major?" Nash questions and I look at her, the same question on my face.

"Enough that the person could be clinically labelled brain dead, they wouldn't be in the state of mind to realize that their body is rapidly dying but only four victims had a stroke before they passed," Georgia says answering for Aurora. "This isn't a drug, this is poison and whoever is producing they need to be prosecuted for what they've done."

"Don't worry Georgia, we're going to find them, you can count on that,"  I tell her, my voice filled with determination.

"I know you will but one more thing I want to tell you before I forget, we are currently working on an antidote and testing various formulas to counter the drug plus but time is not with us. If we do get a successful formula and there's a chance we have to treat hundreds if not more patients, we'd run out of supplies fast. We're also working alongside  W & W Pharmaceuticals when it comes to later distributing the treatment but the time is ticking," Georgia says in a grim voice. Nash and I look at one another, both of us have frowns on our faces when we hear that. We have to get this off of the streets before more people die.

"I think we need to announce to the public, let other officials know what's going on," I say aloud. "I'll have to talk to Jason about that," I muse as my phone rings and I see Haruto's name on the screen.

"Haru sensei, is everything going with Jade?" is the first thing that's out of my mouth.

"Out of all the people I've ever met, you're the only person that calls me that," he chuckles and I can picture him shaking his head.

"You know you love it but no joke, is Jade okay?" I ask him. 

"Yeah, and I was supposed to go on my break right now but I'm needed for something. I only have a couple of minutes before I have to get back to work so if you could come get Jade that would be awesome. Plus the doctors that are monitoring her want to check and see how her healing is going so she'd have to go anyways," he explains.

"Alright, we'll be back soon," I tell him as I hang up the phone. "I need you to drop me back at the hospital to get Jade," I tell Nash.

"Sure, are you staying here Aurora?" he asks turning to the woman in question.

"Yeah, I have some things I want to look over," she answers and he nods his head while Georgia looks at me in confusion.

"Who's Jade?" she questions and I glance at Nash as a smirk slides onto my face.

"You said it's been a while since we talked right? So why don't you stop at my place tonight and see for yourself."

✘✘

"So you became a parent since the last time I saw you which was two months ago," Georgia says in a deadpan voice as she looks at Jade who's been on the sofa reading a book for the last hour. Jade gave Georgia a quiet hello before going back to her reading, probably a little shy at the stranger here.

"Wrong, Nash and I became her emergency temporary guardians," I answer as I go back to the kitchen.

"You and him are taking care of a kid? This coming from the woman that said there was no way Nash was interested in her," she says mimicking my voice as she follows me.

"Hey, I don't sound like that," I say rolling my eyes. "And as for how we became her guardians, her mom is currently in the hospital so we applied for temporary custody and got it."

"And Nash was all for it?" she asks raising her brow in question.

"Well they both know one another and since he'd be around often to help, it only made sense," I answer and she narrows her eyes at me for a moment before looking at me as if she just solved a puzzle.

"You two finally got your shit together, didn't you? It's about time you did," she chuckles.

"Oh shut it, we had some things to talk over first," I answer rolling my eyes again as my phone rings and when I see Nash's name on the screen, I can't help the small smile that grows on my face.

"And that's lover boy, I'll leave you to talk to him while I get to know your kid," she says as she walks out of the kitchen and I shake my head as I pick up the call.

"Nash, are you coming over right now?" I ask him as I look over at the time on my microwave. 

"No, I'll probably finish late tonight but Felix just got a lead and it's somewhere you already know.

✘✘

AN First and foremost, please don't mind the mistakes or grammar errors!! It's been a minute everyone and my exhaustion is at an all-time high but a new chapter is here!! I've been swamped with school I haven't even had the time to even think of writing, my plan for finishing this story by December, I'm pushing to finish it next year. 

I updated earlier than scheduled because the writer part of me was eating at me and I just had to complete this chapter, took me a good fifteen minutes to write this out and I'm sure there is over a 100 mistakes but that's okay, this is still just the first draft after all. And I made one distinct feature for both Jade and Julia, they have heterochromia eyes, meaning one eye is grey, the other is green. I wanted them to have something unique.

 I'll leave the note to this but be sure to leave your thoughts of the chapter in the comments, I miss you all so much! 

P.s THE EX-CONVICT IS PROBABLY GOING TO REACH 1 MILLION VIEWS BY THE END OF THE YEAR, like s*** 1 million, mind-blowing. I'm so tired right now but inside of me is screaming!!! So yes, thank you all for reading, and I get messages from users whose friends recommend my works so thank you all who've done that, sending you all hugs for your support!!♥♥♥