Chapter Text
Drip, drip, drip, drip.
It’s not often that New York City is quiet enough to hear the steady trickle of rainwater falling from the gutter in one of its alleyways. There’s always traffic and activity all night long, and the city lights cast eerie shadows on the streets, keeping the alleyways hidden in darkness.
Tonight the normal noise of the city muffles the high-pitched scream of a young woman followed by the sickening thud of her body slamming against a concrete wall. It allows a masked figure to slink away into the darkness, leaving the woman’s lifeless figure alone in the cold.
And it ensures that no one hears one teardrop fall from her eye as it mixes with her blood on the pavement.
~*~o~*~
Daylight is barely beginning to break over the city skyline when OA steps into the coffee shop and asks the barista for a black coffee and a double ristretto.
It’s so early that the shop isn’t crowded yet, and OA is grateful for the quick service because Jubal wants them all in the JOC in half an hour. From the text messages so far, it sounds like NYPD is handing over a couple of homicide cases to the FBI, and Jubal wants his team on it as fast as possible.
“Omar? Omar Zidan? Is that you?”
It’s a voice that OA hasn’t heard in a very long time, and he would still recognize it anywhere.
“Johnny?” he exclaims, looking up in surprise.
“Yeah, it’s me!” The young man sitting at one of the tables jumps to his feet excitedly, and a wide grin breaks out on his face as he recognizes his old friend. Johnny is quite a bit shorter than OA, and he has brown hair that flops in his face and blue eyes that brighten as he grabs his friend in a manly hug. “Wow, Omar, I haven’t seen you in…I don’t even know how long.”
“Before West Point,” OA guesses.
“Yeah,” Johnny confirms. “Before you went off to West Point and left your old pal Johnny all by himself back in Queens.”
“Hey, you could have come to West Point, too,” OA argues.
Johnny frowns. “Yeah, I don’t think West Point and I would have gotten along too well.”
“That’s because all you wanted to do was sleep late and play baseball.”
“Like I said, we wouldn’t have gotten along. But obviously West Point was good to you. You still look the same,” Johnny says admiringly. “Well, I mean, I almost didn’t recognize you with that facial hair thing you’ve got going on, but you’re still about a foot taller than everyone else down here on the lower plane. So what are you up to these days, man?”
Johnny’s eyes widen when OA reveals the gun and badge attached at his side. “Wow,” he whistles. “You’re a Fed? So you chase bad guys for a living?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Just then, the barista places two cups of coffee on the counter and calls out OA’s name.
“Two cups of coffee,” Johnny observes. “You got a hot date with your girlfriend at six in the morning?”
OA laughs a little. “Not my girlfriend.”
“Well, then either you need a hell of a lot of caffeine to be a Fed or you’re buying coffee for someone else at this hour.”
“She’s my partner…my work partner,” OA clarifies quickly when Johnny’s face lights up a little too mischievously.
“Well, if your work partner has got you whipped enough to buy her coffee, I’d say that’s a pretty special partner. Well, I gotta run. It’s really good to see you again, Omar. Call me some time and we’ll go get a beer. Hey, bring that partner of yours along. I’d love to meet her.”
~*~o~*~
When OA arrives at 26 Fed just a few minutes later, he hands Maggie her coffee which she sips gratefully.
He hadn’t been lying when he told Johnny that she’s his work partner, but honestly, OA isn’t sure if they’re more than that right now. They’ve been spending a lot of time together outside of work, and he wonders if it’s been sneaking up on them slowly, like how eating dinner together one night turns into working out together on a weekend which turns into sleeping overnight on each other’s couches.
But he doesn’t have long to think about it because Maggie tells him this case is a bad one, and Jubal is calling them into the JOC.
“All right, listen up, people,” he says. “NYPD has been following the cases of two young women who were abducted and found dead this past week.” Jubal points to the large screen at the front of the room. “Ian, if you would, please.”
Ian quickly posts the photos of two young, pretty brunettes up on the screen.
“The similarities between the two cases have led NYPD to suspect that we might have the start of a serial on our hands. He’s killing them with blunt force trauma to the head and leaving them to bleed out in dark alleyways. Nice guy,” Jubal mutters sarcastically.
“Jubal, NYPD just got a call.” Elise sounds urgent as she hangs up the phone in the back of the room. “Someone spotted another young woman being dragged down an alleyway. They say she’s still alive and they’re sending the location now.”
Jubal spins around and points to his field agents. “Maggie, OA!”
“We’re on it,” Maggie assures him, and a quick nod to OA has both of them on their way out the door.
~*~o~*~
The black federal SUV with its blaring siren comes to a screeching stop in the alley, and Maggie and OA are out of the car quickly, shielding themselves behind its doors with their guns drawn.
“FBI! Let her go!”
They take the masked figure by surprise, and he seems to panic for just a split second, but then he simply shoves the limp body of a young woman against the wall and vanishes into the shadows of the alley.
“Go!” Maggie yells at her partner, rushing forward and dropping to her knees beside the victim. “I got her. Go!”
OA doesn’t miss a beat, sprinting down the alleyway in pursuit, dodging the trash cans and boxes that have been thrown in his way, and when he comes out on the other side, there’s a black car with no plates tearing through the intersection.
OA takes the shot and the rear windshield shatters, but the car still speeds faster and its tires squeal as it skids around a corner and becomes instantly lost in the sea of city traffic.
“He’s gone,” OA tells his partner, his frustration evident as he returns to the alley. “Black sedan, no plates. I hit the windshield but not the driver. You?”
Maggie is still crouched over the young woman, applying pressure to her wounds, but she shakes her head, and OA knows that means their victim didn’t make it.
“She was already bleeding out before he dropped her here,” Maggie says. “The ambulance is on its way, but she’s gone.” Quickly, she pulls out her phone and makes a call. “Jubal,” she says. “We’re too late. He got another one.”