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“Detective, there’s a meeting in the briefing room in a few minutes, don’t be late.  From Captain Miller.” I read out the sticky note message that had been stuck to my computer monitor.

Looking around from my seat I noticed that my co-workers were slowly one by one making their way to the briefing room.
“Hey Bryan, you coming?” I looked up to meet the eyes of Andy, my best friend and partner, looking at me with hope.
“Oh yeah, sorry. I’m just tired,” I replied quietly.

Standing up, I followed him into the briefing room. Taking a seat next to Andy, I tuned to face the front of the room. Not long after us, the Captain walked in and up to a small podium at the front of the room. Next to her, stood the new Sargent clutching today's briefing notes in shaking hands.

“Good morning everyone,” The Captain spoke, taking the clipboard from the shaking Sargent, placing it on the podium in front of her.
“Let’s begin today's briefing so that we can get to work as soon as possible. Everyone will continue with the cases that they were assigned last week, not to mention that any calls you get regarding Giggle Pig are to be taken very seriously. Speaking of Giggle, as you all know the head of the Giggle Pig task force was killed by one of the many dealers out on the streets, so we are in need of a new task force leader, and because he asked so god damn much and wouldn’t leave me alone, the new task force head is Bryan Davis. Congratulations detective.” As the Captain finished her speech everyone began to applaud me, I was over the moon with excitement.

"Congratulations Bryan!" Andy had a bright and proud smile across his pale features.

After the Captain finished her morning briefing, she left the room to head to her office with a very shy Sargent following close behind. Everyone walked past where Andy and I were sitting; congratulating me once again on the way past; heading out to get to work, leaving Andy and I alone in the room together. I spun in my chair so I was fully facing Andy, a big and proud grin plastered on my lips. Looking into Andy’s bright blue eyes, I found traces of worry and slight sadness. My expression soon changed into one of confusion and concern.

"What's wrong? Aren't you exited?" I asked him, making sure he knew that I wouldn't drop it until he told me what the problem was.
"It's just... This is a big job and a dangerous one at that. I guess I'm just worried that you'll get hurt, or worse."  Andy looked me dead in the eyes, tears threatening to fall. I grabbed his hand in a desperate attempt to get him to calm down, but that only caused him to look down at his lap so I couldn't see the tears fall from his eyes.

"Hey Andy, look at me," I lifted his chin with my free hand, making him look me in the eye.
"I promise nothing bad will happen to me or you, I promise." My words seemed to calm Andy down slightly, but he was still pretty shaken up.

Cupping his face with the hand I had used to lift up his head, I wiped away a stray tear with my thumb. Closing his eyes, Andy leaned his head into my hand slightly, a light pink blush spread across his cheeks. I slowly leaned in towards Andy, closing my eyes as I did so, pressing my lips gently against his. Andy slightly kissed back shyly, ‘How cute’, I thought to myself as he leaned in a bit more.

I pulled away looking down at him smiling warmly, wrapping my arms around him for a hug. Pulling out of Andy’s warm embrace, I could still feel the heat of his blush radiating off him.“Come on, we need to get to work,” I said with a big grin, walking out into the main office area, sitting down at my desk.

--◊◊◊--

Half an hour had past and we already on our way to a crime scene. Looking out the car window, I saw the house we were heading to. The wooden boards that made up the walls of the ominous structure were moldy and slowly rotting. The roof wasn’t much better, as it had slightly caved in towards the back of the house.

Pulling into the driveway, I stepped out of the car and looked towards Bryan as he got out the driver side door. After making brief eye contact with him, I quickly turned away to face the house. I really wasn’t looking forward to going in; but I had to for the sake of the investigation, and to prove to Bryan that I wasn’t scared.

The inside of the house was worse than the outside! Walking through the door, the powerful smell hit you like a bus. The stench of rotting blood and human flesh caused both Bryan and I to gag. Soon getting accustomed to the harsh odor, Bryan made his way toward the body.

The victim was an African American male in about his late 20s to early 30s. It looked as if Jack the Ripper come back from the dead. The man’s throat had been sliced clean open and he had been disemboweled, as the contents of this torso was now at his feet.

“Oh my god! Ewww! That’s disgusting!” I choked out, my vision was becoming blurry because my eyes were watering so much.

“Ewwww! That’s disgusting!” Bryan mimicked, forcing his voice to a higher frequency. I slightly turned away from him, a blush of pure embarrassment on my cheeks and a pout on my lips. I mean, I knew I had a higher voice than him, but that’s just rude.

“Heyyy, what’s with that grumpy face?” Bryan teased, looking up at me from his place on the blood soaked carpet. Huffing and folding my arms across my chest, I turned to face further away from him. I looked down after feeling something nudge my leg, and saw Bryan looking up at me with a fake pout.

“Come on, what’s up baby?” He spoke with a sly tone in his voice, causing my blush to darken. I didn’t like it when he teased me like this; I mean, I did, but I didn’t.

Grabbing my bare hand in his gloved one, Bryan gently kissed my knuckles. His deep brown eye staring into mine the whole time. I quickly pulled my hand away and covered my beet red face with it, causing Bryan to chuckle.

“Stop it, you bastard.” I said jokingly, smiling down at him. He laughed slightly and got back to work as I left the living room.

I stepped out of the room to look for clues, but mainly to get away from the body. It really was gross. I entered the kitchen and found it a complete mess, it was as if a tornado had torn up the place. Looking closer, I found what appeared to be a dented metal bowl, it had a small amount of blood splattered onto the side it had obtained the dent. It looked as if the victim had grabbed the closest object to defend himself.

“Hey Andy. Come here,” I heard Bryan call me, following the sound of his voice, I found myself in the bedroom. I waked around the room trying to find him.

“Bryan… where are yo--! Arhh!” I was cut of by a yell of shock as I tripped over something on the floor. The floor board under my feet had given out, causing me to fall.

“Stupid old rotting house,” I muttered to myself. Looking at the hole in the floor, there appeared to be something in there. Reaching for the object, I found it was a book. Opening the book, I found what looked like pages and pages of names, phone numbers, dates, times and prices.

“What is this…?” I asked no one, so I was surprised to get an answer.

“looks like a record of people who have done business with someone who calls them self ‘Slicer’,” I fell forward in shock, falling flat on my face, at the sudden response out of nowhere. Peeking over my shoulder from my position on the floor, I saw a snickering Bryan.

“h-Hey! It’s not funny!” I yelled at him, sitting up properly. He burst out laughing and my comment, miming wiping away a tear of joy. I threw the book at his face, hitting him. Now it was my turn to laugh, the look on his face was priceless.

“You think you’re so damn clever,” he laughed, reaching out towards me and wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me into his lap. Leaning my back against his chest, I turned my head to look at him. Smiling sweetly, I leaned up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Still siting in Bryan's lap, I grabbed the book and began flicking through it.

“So why did you call me in here anyway?” I asked, not looking up from the pages of notes. I didn’t get an answer in words, I just received a light kiss on the cheek and a tighter hug.

“Very helpful,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes, but still not removing them from the book.

“Hey Bryan, I think we might have some pretty good leads here,” I said, gesturing to the tattered book in my hands. He just hummed in response, taking the book from my hands. Looking at the watch on my arm, my eyes widened, and I stood up from my spot in Bryan's embrace.

“Bryan, we got to go. The trauma cleaners will be here soon, and you know they don’t like it when cops are still around.” I exclaimed to the annoyed looking man sitting on the floor. With a sigh Bryan stood up, book in hand, and followed me to the car.

“When we get back to the precinct we should take a good look at the names in that book and see if we can trace any of their number.” I said looking at Bryan in hope he would want to actually work when we got back. He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road.

--vvv--

It had been three months since Andy and I went to that house and he found that log book. Since then he and I (and the rest of the task force) had been working non-stop to find and arrest that ‘Slicer’ guy. But that was kind of hard to do dew to the fact there were reports of violent crimes coming in every eight minutes. This really seemed to stress Andy out, so I had to help him relive that stress every so often.

But, finally, after three months of nothing but work, we found our man. Andy, two other men from the task force, and I currently had ‘Slicer’ cornered. He was a man who looked like he was in his 40s, grey hair grew from his head in random directions, and he had icy blue eyes that would make the toughest of men sake with fear (So God knew what he was doing to Andy).

“Give up Slicer, we have you surrounded!” I shouted, I was full of both adrenaline and anger, this man had caused the love of my life countless sleepless nights, nightmares, and anxiety attacks, and this was my chance to get revenge.

“Oh, it seems you do… hehehe,” Slicer giggled to himself, that laugh was terrifying. We all gave him a puzzled look, glancing at one another to see if anyone understood the crazy old man.

“Cut the crap, we’ve got you, there’s no escape!” Andy yelled, he was desperately trying to sound confident, but his eyes betrayed him. I could tell that he was completely terrified.

Slicer kept laughing, then stopped abruptly. An eerie silence swept through the warehouse. Slicer raised his arms and hung his head in surrender, I was shocked. Throughout our entire investigation, he claimed that he would never submit to us. Suddenly, Slicer swung his arms down to his sides, and looked up smirking at me.

BANG!

I hadn’t realized I had pulled the trigger until it was too late. Slicers body fell to the floor limp, thick red blood leaking from the hole in his head onto the floor. Andy screamed, terror taking over him. He had never witnessed something so horrific in his life.

BANG!

--◊◊◊--

BANG!

“BRYAN!” I screamed in terror a I saw the snipers bullet fly through Bryan's chest. Dropping his gun, he grabbed his chest where the wound was, falling to his knees. Abandoning my position, I ran to his aid, grabbing his hand.

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE! GET THE PARAMEDICS!” I yelled at the two task force workers who were just standing there, they quickly ran away to do as I said.

Helping Bryan lie down, I held his hand, repeatedly telling him ‘Everything will be okay’ and ‘I told you so’. He just lied there looking up at me with a big, but pained, smile on his face.

“What are you smiling about?” I asked worried but intrigued. The tears I had been trying so hard to hold back were now flowing freely.

“You were right, and I hate it when you’re right,” Bryan said jokingly, his voice raspy dew the pain he was in. I shook my head, crying. This wasn’t the time, I loved it when he would joke about things like that, but it wasn’t the time.

“Shhh… it’s alright, don’t cry.” Bryan, no matter how much pain he was in, was trying desperately to calm me down and help me through this. Reaching up with all his strength, he cupped my face with his left hand, gently pulling me towards him. Leaning up he pressed his soft lips lightly against mine, I kissed back on instinct. This was the last kiss we would ever share.

The last word he ever said to me were the sweetest, but I couldn’t help but cry in despair…
“I love you, Andy…”