Lian waited for a good ten minutes before tossing the leftovers she was saving for the homeless young guy she had caught scrounging earlier today. “ I guess he wasn’t really that hungry”. With her work bag slung over her shoulder she made her way to the front of the building. Neon Lights flickered, Go-nuts 4 Do-nuts, in pink cursive with a white background before turning completely off. Only the lights of the parking lot showed the way to her beat up Toyota camry. The red paint had been peeling for months but she kept putting it off. Slamming the door shut she was homeward bound with the radio blasting the rolling stones’ wild horses as she sang along.

Entering her beat up two bedroom two bathroom apartment her mother was passed out on the couch with the tv playing some friends reruns. A bottle of wine precariously in between her legs. Placing her things down on the island table beside the kitchen on her left when she entered. She efficiently began her daily routine. Picking up the empty wine and prescription bottles, washing and putting away the dishes, turning off the tv and emptying the trash bins. “Why did you have to be such a slob mom,” with a sign she made sure her mother was laying on her side after double checking she was still breathing. Using an air freshener to cover the smell of weed Lian turned on the lights of her room and shut the door. Her room was a mash up of punk and emo band posters that covered every inch of the walls. The furnishings were tightly spaced in the small room. Turning on her phone she read the time on her lit phone screen. 12:43am, finally letting out a small breath to relax she began to read through her messages and social media.

Robert, “Heyyyy” Next

Jim, “ Sup Girl” NOPE

Jessica “Sunday fun day?” YESS!

Expertly typing, “ yessss gurlll i got the day off tomorrow. I’m craving those endless mimosas!”

“Of Course! My Lili deserves the best! Text me when you're up.”

“K night boo,” Lian replied.

“Nite”

After a couple more minutes of funny videos and text screening she changed to her pjs doing her bedtime ritual of bushing, flossing, makeup removal,skin moisturizing and dozing off to enjoy pleasant dreams.

The light of the mid morning sun shone through the living room window into her face. The door to her room was wide open letting in the smell of eggs bacon and fresh coffee. . The odor was enticing to Lian, so much so that she awoke and made her way to the island table in the kitchen.

“ Morning mom,”

“Hello sweetheart!” her mother replied cheerily, Great , she's in one of those moods. Lian thought to herself. For the last couple of years Lian had been dealing with her mother's increasing mood swings. Going from hyper emotional states to deep drug addled depressions. Though Lian had done what she could to keep her mother stable she refused any typical medical treatment. Preferring to use what she referred to as sacred and nature based remedies. Despite this Lian was respectful of her mother’s choices. Picking up after her emotional highs and propping her up during her lows. “So what’s on the menu?”

“Well we have scrambled eggs, bacon, soon to be buttered toast and fresh cuban style cafe con leche’!” Serving the coffee first Lian took a deep inhalation of the fresh cafe con leche’ when the TV behind her caught her attention. A man was in frame with a suit and beside him was a woman behind them was a CGI of the words ufo encountered and the typical alien disc ship. “ Today we have footage given to us by one of our dedicated fans,” said the woman. The screen jumped to the sight of shaky phone footage of three lights in the night sky and several people pointing at the oddly moving lights. Two seemed to be brighter and suddenly one disappeared and covered the distance instantaneously towards the smaller light. Then the smaller light was sent shooting across the sky too fast for the person filming to keep up and it was lost off screen. The image returned to the two news anchors. “This is another strange occurrence in the last week here in New York since the strange sightings of lights were spotted over the Empire State Building moving in strange circles. We will keep you informed if any new information is found on the strange phenomena but that ends our segment on Wild and Weird New York. What do you think of John?” She said, “ Well Jenny I can’t say I’m shocked this is still New York, the strangest and best city in the world. Now in other news,” the camera switched to one of just John with the blurry image of a man in a hoodie in front of an open warehouse. “Police are still on the lookout for a man that fled the scene of a gang related shooting in south bronx. Everyone is advised to watchout for this vigilante since he could be both armed and dangerous.” The bottom half of the screen showed a number to contact the crime tipper hotline. Suddenly the familiar feeling she had clicked into place. The man outside of the donut shop had the same thrasher hoodie on. A hold shiver ran down her spine. “Now we have our very own Lupe Fransica with the latest on the children saved from the incident. The image cut to a view of the court house that zoomed out to reveal a young woman, maybe Lian’s age with microphone in hand. She had a professional looking nude colored sports coat and white shirt. Her hair was in a bun and she clearly looked latina and wore a press badge hanging from her neck. “Thanks John, this morning we got the exclusive from the witnesses of the massacre that occurred in the abandoned warehouse district. “Several men thought by investigators to be a part of the Latin royalty syndicate are in critical condition. Five men ,” their images and names were put up on the screen. “ Where part of an elaboration scheme to entice young families into allowing their children to travel out of their home country in what they called a modeling agency which acted as a front for the sale of minors for wealthy clients. Currently DA Johnathan Bieglemen is keeping the lid shut on the bulk of the investigations but we were able to get an interview with one of the older minors.” The screen changed to that of a young girl in her early teens. “He came out of nowhere and used some weird tool on the end of his fingers to break the chains and told us that everything was going to be ok. I was very scared but the man was very nice. He did look a bit strange but they had given us something that kept us all very dizzy and I am just happy to be free.” The young girl had a deep European accent but answered the last part with a smile that had a couple of missing teeth common in that age. The image returned to Lupe “ As you can see the children are in good hands and with high spirits. The justice department is currently trying to find records of where these children were taken from so as to reunite them to their families. If you ask me, this man deserves a medal. The total account of missing or displaced children is staggering and the number becomes worse every year due in part to organizations like the syndicate that take advantage of disenfranchised families. I am Lupe Francisa with the latest crime in the city- back to you John.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Thanks Lupe in other news…”

Turning back to the coffee Lian noticed the small mountain of food in front of her. “That smells delicious mom! Thank you.” Taking a bite from the toast and eggs sent happy tinges through her body. Sending a quick text to Jessica

“You up?” followed by a string of drinking GIFS.

A couple hours later, Lian is in a loose fitting my chemical romance t-shirt and jean shorts. With checkered vans shoes and a small matching book bag slung behind her. Lian waited anxiously in front of the bistro spot Jessica and she had agreed to meet up at. Looking at her phone screen she noticed that Jessica was running at least ten minutes late. Typical Lian thought to herself, why am I always waiting for everyone else in mylife. What’s so difficult about staying on time for things. With a huff and cross of her arms Lian went inside the open concept bistro. She was quickly led by the hostess who wore a white shirt with the restaurant's logo on the top right and black pants with matching shoes and apron. Upon sitting Lian sent a quick text to Jessica,

“ I got us a table for when you decide to get here.”

“Sorry I got caught up with Justin” she quickly replied with a sad face emoji.

Jessica arrived a bit later. Her dirty blond hair was in a messy top bun and she wore large butterfly style sunglasses. A blue and white dress with white nike air force one sneakers and matching oversized purse clutched to her side. “Hey girl!” Jessica said breathlessly as she took a seat at the table beside her. “About time Jess I almost called the police!” Lian replied with a barely restrained smile. “ Oh gosh don’t get me in trouble like that!” They both laughed as they acclimated to their usual and familiar roles. Jessica was an old friend, they had both grown up in the same neighborhood. Their lives had split after highschool when Jessica had won a full scholarship to MIT. Lian was never the scholastic type but had supported Jessica when she was hesitant to leave her life behind. They of course had stayed in touch and Jessica had moved back after graduating early with a degree in networking security and information technology and getting a job in some fancy company that according to her was involved in some top level government agency type stuff. With the usual back and forth catching up Jessica said with her head in one of her hands, “How’s the artist’s life treating you? Have you decided whether to become the next Carrionton or Frieda ?”

“Ha ha very funny,” Lian replied dryly. “ I wish, I’m still trying to figure out how to tell my mom I want to move out. She’s kind of helpless without me. Plus it’s not like people are handing out money to people with fine arts backgrounds that can’t use photoshop to save their lives. “

“Oh don’t be so negative Lili, you're amazing! Annnnddd on another note could you do me a favor?”

Lian tilted her head up in a mock indignation, “I had a feeling this invitation had come with strings attached.”

“Come now Lili, you know I love spending my time with you but seriously,”

Jessica’s face became very serious and she pulled her sunglasses off her face to stare directly into Lian’s face. “ I need you to hold on to something for me. It’s a usb drive and promise that you won’t tell anyone I gave it to you and you can’t look inside it either.”

“Now you have my attention,” replied Lian with eyes wide.

“This is serious Lili, I could get in a lot of trouble if anyone knew I had this and you're the only person I can trust right now.” Jessica said in a near whisper.

“Ok but you have to tell me what this is about.”

Jessica took a deep breath and explained the situation. It seems that for a couple of months now Jessica had been with a team in charge of dealing with some attempted breaches in her company's network. The bulk of which had been focused on attaining very sensitive files kept in one of the server rooms. When she one day let curiosity get the better of her she accessed the files and what she found had deeply frightened her. So much so that in the off case that it blew back on her, legally speaking, she was taking precautions by having back ups to prove her innocence. Lian had tried to get her to go into detail but Jessica had only responded with “ Trust me Lili, you do not want to know.” The rest of the day had been filled with jokes catching up on relationship issues or lack thereof in Lian’s case and bottomless mimosas.

The following days were more uneventful. Being a Thursday she had to double at the donut shop. The morning passed in a blur as well, with an endless sea of customers ordering coffee and an assortment of donuts. Glazed and not glazed, jellified or with sprinkles. The day flew by and before she knew it, night had fallen and the store was empty.

Todd, her coworker, was quietly typing into his phone as per usual. He wore the same white and pink pin-stripe shirt but with pink pants with a name tag that read hello my name is Todd The manager. He was well into his forties and a recent divorcee. Having also discovered the wonders of online dating he had been regaling Lian with his many exploits of late. Most of which ended with “ and she completely ghosted me. '' Seems like all Todd does is play on his phone, how did he ever become manager? Lian would constantly ask herself.

“Did you hear about the UFO sightings the other day?” Todd asked out of the blue.

“Yea i heard about that on the news the other day. It’s pretty silly if you ask me.”

“How so?” Todd asked.

“Well if there is intelligent life in the universe why would they bother coming here? It’s not like we are much more intelligent than the rest of the animal kingdom. We are basically killing ourselves with fossil fuels.”

“Not this again... “ Todd said while facepalming. “ I swear Lian you can’t have a conversion for more than five minutes without you going on a tangent about the global warming conspiracy.”

With a swint in her eyes and a bit of redness to her face, Lian replied “ it's not a conspiracy Todd, global warming is a scientific fact! I swear..” the last bit she said to herself mumbling about idiotic middle management.

“Lian, mind closing by yourself today? I started talking to this beauty and she’s telling me we can meet up but only if it's in the next thirty minutes.” Facing Lian, Todd made his best impression of puppy dog eyes. “Please please please please”

With a heavy sigh Lian replied, “I’ll do it for thirty bucks.”

“Twenty?” Todd counter offered.

Going back to her phone and scrolling through her social media she said “Sure, Deal”.

“Thanks Lian! I still owe you though, payday is tomorrow.” Quickly taking off his white and pink name tag Todd made his way to the back room to grab his stuff and headed out into the clear night towards his car in the parking lot.

Taking advantage of the quiet moment she decided to start her closing duties. Emptying out the trash cans, sweeping, mopping, refilling the napkin holders and wiping down all surfaces throughout the store. While in the midst of this the bell at the door had gone off.

Turning she said “Sorry I must have forgotten to lock the door, we closed a couple of minutes ago…” Lian’s face lost all its blood when she saw her next customer. The man was at least six feet tall and had a novelty president Trump mask on, a generic red hoodie and black sweats. In his left hand was a gun, a 9mm ruger pistol, pointed right at Lian.