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New Eyes

Officer Montenegro makes her way down the sidewalks, heading back to the precinct, the man she just encountered haunting her.

“Was it really him?” she whispers to herself. “It’s not possible. People don’t just come back from the dead.”

She pushes her way through the doors of the precinct, stepping into the dim, hazy light. A few of her fellow officers are huddled at their desks, joking back and forth with each other as she makes her way to her own desk, strewn with papers. She takes a seat at her desk, waiting for the computer to turn on and connect, trying to make sense of things. Finally connecting, she begins searching for the files on Jun and Johnny’s murders. She pulls up the report on Jun, staring into the face of the man she encountered only a short while before. Every detail of his face is the same.

“Jun Yung. No siblings. Nothing to really set him apart, other than being a painter. How -”

Another officer approaches Montenegro, looking over her shoulder at her screen.

“Old file?” the officer says to her. “Didn’t we close that one?”

“No, Moretti” Montenegro responds. “It’s still unsolved. We couldn’t find the perps.”

Officer Moretti grins to himself. “Really? Which one of these incompetent fools was in charge of the case?”

Montenegro spins her chair around, glaring at Officer Moretti.

“You were, actually.” she says to him.

Moretti scoffs. “Yeah? Well good luck trying to solve it, then. If I couldn’t get it figured out, they’re long gone.”

Montenegro turns back to her screen as Moretti retreats back to his desk. She continues scanning through the files, flipping to the one on Johnny.

“Amateur Boxer. No known enemies. Nothing. What did we miss?” Montenegro whispers to herself.

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Jun lifts his head towards the sky, the rain falling down freely onto him. As the drops flow down his face, his thoughts as always turn to Johnny, memories flowing like the water upon him.

In the memory, Jun entered approached the chair that Johnny was sitting in. Johnny had just finished a fight, his right eyebrow gashed open. Johnny looked up at Jun, smiling through the pain, and Jun sat down in his lap, reaching to the emergency kit on the table beside them. Johnny winces as Jun begins to carefully clean the cut above his eye.

“How are you feeling, babe?” Jun asks.

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“A little worse for wear, but I’ll survive.”

Jun gives Johnny a wry smile, trying to cover his concern. “You did great tonight, babe.”

“Yeah. I should’ve finished that guy a round earlier. I had him on the ropes, but I just held back.”

Johnny closes his eyes as Jun begins slowly stitching his eyebrow back together.

“It doesn’t look deep, but it may still leave a scar.”

“He got a lucky shot. If I would’ve just finished him sooner...”

Jun places a finger on Johnny’s lip, stopping him.

“Babe, I don’t mind your scars.”

Johnny wraps his arms around Jun, his strong yet gentle hands holding Jun close. Jun collapses into Johnny’s arms, surrendering to the embrace.

“I love you so much, sweetheart.” Johnny whispers as he begins kissing Jun tenderly.

The crow caws loudly, pulling Jun from the memory, back into the present. Jun looks at the bird, its dark eyes watching him carefully.

“We must prepare.” Jun hears in his head.

“How? What are we going to do.”

“Close your eyes.”

Jun does what is requested of him. He closes his eyes, wondering what the point of this is.

“Reach out your mind. Reach out to mine.”

Confused, Jun tries to do so, slowly pushing his consciousness towards the bird.

“See through my eyes.”

As his mind reaches the bird, Jun lets out a gasp as his vision alters. He looks around, everything appearing sharper, shades of yellow more pronounced. Looking ahead, Jun sees himself, standing there with his eyes closed.

“What is going on?” Jun whispers to himself.

“We are connected now. You can see as I see.”

“It’s trippy. I didn’t drop acid and not know about it, did I?”

“We must go.”

The bird flaps its wings, taking off into the air. It glides down the streets, searching. The birds’ eyes dart to and fro as it glides along, finally spotting something through a window. The bird swoops down, landing on the windowsill, looking inside.

Standing alone in the alleyway, still looking through the birds’ eyes, Jun says to himself, “It’s Officer Montenegro. What’s she doing?”

As the crow watches through the window, Montenegro continues scrolling through the files on her computer. She stops on the file for Viper, the man she had told Jun earlier was a suspect in his case.

“I know him.” Jun whispers. “He was one of them. He was one of the guys that....that killed us.”

As Montenegro scans through the file, Jun notices something through the birds’ strong vision.

“Known hangouts, Hayne’s Bar. That’s over in the seedy part of town.”

“Then that is where we will go.”

The bird swoops up off of the windowsill, flying high over the rooftops, to a lone biker bar on the outskirts of town, far from any prying eyes. Neon signs advertise cheap drinks, their lights flickering over the peeling paint on the walls. A crooked sign hangs above the door that simply reads “Hayne’s”. Beneath the sign stand two heavy-set bouncers. The crow spots a lone tree, dipping down to perch on a low branch, watching the bar.

Back in the alleyway, Jun says to himself, “What do we do now?”

“We wait.”

Jun nods, opening his eyes, and making his way towards the bar.

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Inside the bar, the air hangs thick with the scent of cigarette smoke and spilled beer. Sitting at the bar is a man with a tattoo of a snake wrapping around his arm. Viper looks down the bar towards the owner, who is talking to another patron, leaning in close so as to hear each other over the mix of blues and rock and roll coming from the jukebox in the corner. Viper recognizes the guy, of course. Pete. The suit and tie he is wearing making him stand out like a sore thumb in the midst of all of the typical leather and denim of the other customers.

“I don’t care,” Viper overhears the bar owner tells Pete. “You still owe me from last time.”

“Come on, man. I’ll pay you back. You know that I’m good for it.”

“That’s what you said last time. You still owe me.”

Viper picks up the drink in front of him, downing it in one shot, before dropping some money on the bar and heading for the door. He pushes past the two bouncers, smirking over towards the one that he knows as Bubba. He makes his way over to his motorcycle, climbing aboard and kicking back the stand. As he cranks the engine and begins making his way down the path to the bar, the crow flaps its wings, following close behind.