~ In a random alley ~

Moments after Sam had left the alley two individuals quickly ran into it looking around, not seeing anything one of them loudly exclaimed “SHIT! We must have just missed him”, spotting the men tied up on the ground. Looking around to find out what happened they then saw the man leant against the wall with blood flowing down his side through his fingers.

Seeing how much blood had come out they rushed over to the man calling the incident in to get some medical help for the man. He was barely coherent when the man knelt down to speak to him, hoping to get some information about what happened.

“Sir, sir can you hear me? Help is on its way. Sir can you hear me?”, Getting a small response from the man he continued. “Stay with me, keep focused on me, come on don’t close your eyes, it’s alright, can you tell me your name?”

“M.m…mm mark, my name is Mark.” Slurring his speech as he tried to communicate with the man.

“Ok, Mark, thanks for that, can you tell me what happened?” the man said trying to keep him awake.

“I…..I I found some money and took it, didn’t know was gangsters.” Mark tried to say being out of breath and struggling to talk,

“That’s good, keep talking to me Mark, what next?” The man encouraged.

“They chased me……. couldn’t get away…. got stabbed….. then……” trailing off with a wide eyed stare.

“Then what Mark? What happened then?” he encouraged.

“Eyes, big, big eyes, came out of nowhere……….” Staring off into nothing. Standing up in frustration the man paced back and forth and was approached by the woman.

“Anything Coulson?” She asked.

“No nothing more than we already knew, thought he was rambling about eyes for some reason, maybe its related to that entity we’ve gotten reports on.

Barton, anything on your end?” Coulson said speaking into a radio.

“Nothing Coulson, by the time I made me way over to get a good view he was already gone.”

“Damn, alright, Romanov, Barton, I want you two to make your way through the city, start investigating any alley or back street you can, stay within sight of each other and if you can try to make yourself look like a victim, try to draw our man in.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Yes sir.” They both responded moving off.

Meanwhile Coulson remained behind keeping an eye on Mark to ensure he didn’t get worse until the paramedics arrived. It took around 5 mins until he could hear a siren and when they arrived walked the medics through what had happened to the man.

~ Back with Sam ~

It continued that way for the next few hours with us moving around doing our usual thing while trying to avoid the individuals that seemed to be able to pick up our trail incredibly quick and kept us on our toes and moving. It was getting harder to get a break between incidents and despite my aura sense they were just too quick and coordinated.

I had a feeling that I may be the target of one of the intelligence organisations, which I didn’t like the sound of. It wasn’t the right time for something like this to happen, I wanted to be more set up before I had any interaction with whoever it was. Fingers crossed it was just one, though as I had only really sensed three individuals that were coordinating together it made sense that it was a singular organisation.

It was a perpetual game of cat and mouse which was very quickly draining our stamina, despite our reserves being formidable. This would have to end eventually, and I was getting a bit sick of the whole situation, thinking of a solution to the problem, I may have to get a good look at these people to work something out.

Thinking of possible work arounds, I made my way through the back streets and alleys keeping an eye and ear of for any incidents and my constant pursuers. I soon hear someone crying out which quickly got silenced hearing a meaty smack. Moving swiftly in the direction of the noise I came across a young red headed women being man handled by a much larger male near the mouth of the alley.

Something about her seemed familiar but I pushed it to the back of my mind seeing the situation, I had been around the city a lot, so I had probably seen her somewhere in my travels. Calling out Cinder and Gastly, we set into action and quickly subdued the man, tying him up and leaving him for the authorities.

With that done I looked at the situation and started to feel a bit off about it, I had been through this location earlier on tonight and nothing had happened, I had noticed a trend as I went out during the nights. Even when I had to back track to move to another area, there was never an incident in an area I had already moved through.

It was like the criminal elements around the area kept out of the way as much as possible when I had been seen moving around during the night. So if that was the case, how come this had happened? Thinking about it I was getting a bad feeling, sending my aura sensing out I didn’t notice anyone moving in, which set off alarm bells yet again as the ever-present pursuers didn’t waste a chance to chase after me.

Looking around even more I saw the lady on the ground, for what I heard when the man hit her, to still be out cold after such a hit was a bit abnormal, I couldn’t see any blood to indicate she had hit her head and she was too still. Moving around to get a better look at her I kept a distance and walked around until I could see her face in the streetlights at the entrance to the alley.

And I froze………. OH SHIT!!!