Puncturing My Trust

                                    

                                          
Hailey drove down the familiar roads of her neighborhood as Jake sat motionless in the seat next to her. She didn't even spare him a glance as she drove. She turned onto the street she lived on and drove slower. She spotted her house ahead and approached. As Hailey reached the front of her house, she continued to drive, not stopping. It was now that she glanced at Jake and the syringe in his left arm that she had injected him with once they got in the car. She only glanced for a moment, but in that moment, all the events of the past few days flashed in her mind. Everything at the police station, the strange men that attacked them and finally, the enigmatic, unsettling man that had approached Hailey with an offer that forced her hand. They had appeared at her front door when Jake had bolted away that same day. She remembered that the encounter was brief and off putting, yet she had seemingly no choice. She continued driving for hours, watching as the sun fell over the horizon and the sky dimmed. Eventually, Hailey arrived at a huge fenced off location in the middle of no where. She was stopped at a gate where someone walked to the drives side of her car. Hailey rolled down the window for the man to speak. "ID or Pass please." He asks in a monotonous tone. Hailey froze for a second, wondering if possibly she was at the wrong place. She looked towards Jake and then back at the man but before she could speak, he said. "Ah, You must be Hailey. Please, continue." He opened the gate with a remote and signaled for Hailey to drive through the gate and into the main property. Hailey did as instructed and soon enough, a man in black seemingly materialized out of thin air. Hailey stopped the car when he stepped in front of it as she recognized that this must be the same man she had talked to earlier that day. "Hello, Hailey. Good to see you." He smiled at her as if he was just a friendly acquaintance. Hailey didn't spare a glance for the man. She stared ahead, refusing to make eye contact. "I brought him here like you asked." Hailey said, monotonously. "Now can I go?" The man smiled again. "Bring him to the main building and you are free to leave." He told her and directed her towards a large, dome shaped building.

Atlas sat at her desk, arms crossed and frustrated. She was sitting in her bedroom at her house, since she had no where she could go on account of her station being blown up. She stared at the file in front of her. It was quite a small file for a case that had been piling up for eight years, yet she knew this wasn't it. She turned her glance down and to the left and she saw a box with hundreds of files like this one, each one connected to the same case that the Lieutenant had been working on for so long. Atlas sighed and rested her forehead on the desk in front of her, knowing that trying to figure this out would be hopeless. Their Lieutenant was the most observant, intelligent and coolheaded guy that their police force had ever seen. If he couldn't figure it out, she would have no hope. Her head lay on her desk for a few minutes until she heard a loud knock on her door. She jolted upwards, startled, and stood up to answer her door. She opened the door to a tall man, wearing a black jacket and black track pants. She looked up at him and smiled. "Hey, Trevor." She stepped aside and let him in. "Hey Atlas, how have you been?" asked Trevor as he made his way into her living room, after taking off his shoes. "I've been alright." They both sat down in Atlas's living room, across from each other. "Atlas, I need to tell you a few things." Atlas got an uneasy feeling, sensing that this wasn't another one of his attempts at a confession. "earlier today, the Lieutenants house was set on fire. By the time we managed to put the fire out, everything was destroyed." Atlas sat there, confused, wondering if this was some kind of trick. Then, all at once, it hit her like a truck. "Wait, what happened to the Lieutenant?" Atlas asked, stunned. "He's fine. His friend Hailey took him to her place so he could spend the night." Atlas relaxed a bit upon hearing that. Though, something still felt off. "Hey, where did Sterling say he knew her from?" Trevor thought for a minute. "Highschool, I think." Atlas began piecing things together. "If he knew her that long ago, isn't it a coincidence that she just randomly showed up here, of all places?" She asked, deep in thought. "Well maybe she just never moved?" He responded skeptically, seeing where Atlas was coming from. "If that was the case, shouldn't he have stayed in contact with her? Or at least seen her around before now?" Atlas stood up and rushed into her room and picked up the box of files. Trevor entered the room a second later to see Atlas dropping the box on her desk and sifting through it. "What are you looking for?" Trevor asked, curious. "This." Atlas responded, pulling a single file from the box. The file was titled "Suspects". She opened and flipped through the lists of names until she found one she was looking for. "Look, Trevor." She shifted to the side, allowing him to read the file. He read the name and tried to place it. When he did, his eyes shot wide in surprise. "Wait are you serious?" He asked in disbelief. "Trevor, this must be the one responsible. He has access to all our files, including where we live." Atlas looked at him fearfully. Trevor's face went grim. "If that's the case, then-" He was cut off as there was a loud bang, followed by two more. "ATLAS GET DOWN!" He shouted, crouching beside the doorframe, drawing his firearm from the holster on his waist. He peeked around the doorway and saw someone, dressed in all black, holding a small handgun pointed at the door. He shot at the doorframe as Trevor ducked behind the door once again. He heard the footsteps approaching and knew if he didn't time this, he would be dead. He heard a final footstep, and tossed a chair passed the doorway. The man blind fired at the chair, thinking it was a person. By the time he realized it wasn't one, Trevor had knocked the gun out of his hand and took him out by hitting the side of his head with the backside of his gun. Trevor secured the mans gun before turning to evaluate the situation. Atlas was crouching, positioned behind a night stand, with her gun drawn. "Atlas we need to leave. Now." He said, voice steady and steeled. Atlas stood up and followed him out of the house and into his car. "Where should we go, Trevor?" Atlas asked, watching the front of her house for another assailant. "First, we need to go make sure the captain is alright. Then we need to go make sure Sterling made it to Hailey's house." With that, Trevor pulled out of the drive through in front Atlas's house and began driving.