Ezekiel’s boots hit the desk, leaning back into the creaking, highschool workshop quality chair, skimming over information to retain only what he found important to the case. “How does one simply lose a leg and nothing more… and why dispose of it…” Ezekiel groaned, he didn’t exactly believe the woman they were looking for was dead, there was no body, just a singular limb; they had decided she was dead as it had been a month since she went missing, and why else would appendages surface if the person wasn’t gone. Ezekiel wasn’t even close to a fan of this theory, he believed there was more to this than a classic homicide, but it may also just be his thirst for something interesting, things had been slow lately, he craved something to entertain him.

“Ezekiel, where did you go?” Lucy spoke in a raised tone, not wanting to yell as it would disrupt others who were on the job, but then again Ezekiel’s hearing was more shot than his spinal cord and Lucy had to yell a tad if she wanted him to hear her.

“In here, Lucy.” Ezekiel yawned, slapping the stack of papers back on the table before placing his feet on the ground, his elbows hitting the wooden surface of the Hawthorne collection desk, hands gripping his head before leaning back once more to look at the red headed, now uniformed woman, her hair no longer free, contained in a more than restricting bun, and her jean jacket replaced with navy tinted attire and a badge so lacklustre it could fail to warm up a crowd enough times they’d laugh out of pity.

“Yikes, what happened to your office?” Lucy slowly sauntered into the freshly cleaned, or in Ezekiel’s case, freshly ruined room, now lacking any bit of personality it had; it seems Lucy was carrying a tray of beverages with her, and alongside it a small paper bag, most likely lunch of some kind.

“That pretentious bastard got to it.” Ezekiel’s arms folded over one another while he watched Lucy place the tray down on his desk, pulling out a coffee with his name and order scribbled across the top of the lid in smudged charcoal pencil; ‘Four milk, two sugar.’ the cup was supposed to state, but the letters resembled more of a poorly drawn house and a ‘z’.

Lucy ever so slightly snickered at the idea that Arnez entirely packed up Ezekiel’s belongings just to spite him. “Have any luck with the case?” She inquired, putting the drama between Ezekiel and Arnez behind them for a moment; Ezekiel grumbled at the question, he had gotten absolutely nowhere, there was no evidence, and no highlights, there was absolutely nothing to pick out or take away.

“Dead end, there’s nothing to work with here, I need better documents.” He was certainly not fond of being asked about his progress, especially when he’s gotten nowhere.

“Ezekiel, you wrote your own documents.” Lucy couldn’t tell if he was joking about needing better documentation, considering he wrote them himself. It was extremely difficult to tell due to his monotonous voice.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Exactly how you know they’re good, and yet there’s still nothing.” The detective spoke, ruffling his already tousled hair. The case of Valery North had sent him down rabbit holes that led to nowhere, and none of them entertained him the way he wanted them to. Ezekiel craved a plot to his shitilly written mystery novel of a life, this case felt as if it was conjured within the mind of a daydreaming ex weird kid, now turned weird teen with nothing better to do with their free time.

“So what do you need?” Lucy stared at Ezekiel’s bland expression, she didn’t know whether to feel bad or, feel null. Ezekiel was usually overly cocky about cases he solved or was going to solve, it was refreshing to see him struggle, but also it was a bit sad to see a full grown man grip his hair as if he were going to fall over and cry at any moment; though, perhaps that was just how Ezekiel always looked.

“I think I need a raise and a bottle of Fireball…” Ezekiel glanced up at Lucy for a moment, shifting his hand toward the coffee she’d purchased for him, followed by a more than exaggeratedly long sip; tapping his left foot against the base of his desk.

“Y’know I was hoping that would last you more than four minutes.” Lucy ever so slightly joked, her quip directed at Ezekiel chugging his coffee, completely ignoring his request for extra income, she would have made a comment about how he’d have extra cash if he were to stop spending it all on liquor, but she also knew it was something he struggled with, and something he wouldn’t stop no matter how many times she asked him to.

“It's just, it’s stupid. If I'm being honest this entire case is stupid.” Ezekiel set his coffee down surprisingly gently, just a millimetre off from the thick ring engraved in the desk’s surface by previous beverages.

Ezekiel crossed his legs over one another, he looked around his bland, bright office, it would take him hours to re-decorate. “God, this place makes my head hurt now…” He had pure disgust for the light flooding in and wrapping itself around him, forming shadows he didn’t want to see.

“What do you mean, ‘the case is stupid’.” Lucy tapped her fingers from right to left on the solid mahogany desk top, her left thumb hooked on her belt loop, squinting to block out the sun that shone directly into her irises.

“I mean it's pointless, there’s no way in hell we’re getting any leads on this, for all we know this is some sick elaborate joke by a bored psychopath.” Ezekiel was clearly lost in his own thought, and words. He was staring off into the hall, or perhaps at the wall. He hadn’t a clue of what to do, or what to tell Lucy, he didn’t believe Valery was dead but he also didn’t believe she was alive, it was as if he was purposefully tricking himself into carrying out a case structured on nothing, he had no hope, but he did have police resources, government funding, and nothing better to do.