After a few hours of backtracking, I made it back to Damian's house. As I walked up the stone trail to the front door he slammed it open, "where the hell have you been?" I rubbed the back of my neck, "I just had to burn some bridges." I walked past him into the house. He looked baffled, "wait, what do you mean burn some bridges?" I threw my coat onto the couch, "I went to my old house, I went into my old room and told my old self to fuck off basically." Damian looked at me like I was crazy, "Cas that's impossible." I furrowed my brow, "what do you think I can't leave that life behind?" He shook his head, "no Cas, the reason why the police found you in that house is that you set it on fire. The police arrived before it went fully ablaze, but by the time the firefighters were there it was too far gone to save." I sat down on the couch with a rock in my chest, "but I just saw it, I went up the steps and everything." He sat down next to me and rubbed my back, "at least you told it to go fuck itself. That's what matters in the end." I nodded, "I guess, but I'm still crazy if I saw my old house." He nodded, "yea kinda, but you are MY nut job." He got up and went to the kitchen. "You're a dick," I laughed under my breath. "He isn't wrong," Ace teased. Chloe jumped into my lap and started to lick my face. He peeked his head around the wall, "well if I'm a dick then I guess you get no pizza buns." I jumped up, "I better be getting some buns." He laughed, "then be a good girl and put on Game of Thorns." I sat back down, "fine, they better be triple cheese too."
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I woke up the next morning to the sound of my phone going off, as I rolled over to answer, Chloe fell off the bed with a soft thud, "hello?" It was the chief on the other end, "Cas, I need you and Damian to come to the location I texted you. Another victim has been found." After that, she hung up. I groaned and raised myself groggily, "Damian!" He came into the room holding his usual cup of coffee, "what's up?" I threw my blanket off and stood up, "chief wants us to go to a crime scene." He sipped his coffee, "you gonna be ok?" I nodded, "yea, after yesterday nothing is going to bother me." He just sipped his coffee and pointed at me, "I meant are you going to be ok going without pants?" I looked down and noticed I was in my underwear and his shirt, "I'm gonna get dressed first of course." He raised his hands in defense, "ok, I want my shirt back though." I clutched the shirt to my body, "no, it's comfortable." He just shook his head and left. I knelt and picked up Chloe, "are you going to be ok being home alone again?" She let out a small bark and then licked my nose. I stood up and put her under my arm, "Alright, well let's get you some breakfast first, and then I'll get dressed." Just before we left I held Chloe up to my face, "no puppy parties while we are gone." She just licked my nose again and looked all innocent.
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When we got to the scene there were cops everywhere trying to stop the civilians from entering. One called out, "do you have Castiel Matthews here to help solve these murders or did she commit them herself?" Damian put his hand on my shoulder, "it's a reporter, I'll handle him. You go on and see the chief." "Ok, don't ruin your rep talking to him. I heard that they can be cutthroat." He grinned at me and went over to the man. All I heard before I entered the house was, "are you and Castiel sleeping together, sir?" My face went red. "They went straight for the important questions," Ace grinned. "I wonder what the answer will be," Thorn laughed with him. The reporters are worse than Kayla. The chief had to pick her jaw up off the floor, "I'm not saying anything." She pointed to the living room, I followed her finger to a body sprawled out on the floor. "A young woman," Thorn said sadly. There was blood at this scene, unlike the others. I saw one of the CSI take a picture of the wall and when I looked up it said, "I know you Cas, and you will never find me." I rubbed the back of my neck, "I feel like I'm in a horror movie." Damian stepped beside me, "that is an understatement." I looked around the room and noticed light blood splatter on the walls and the furniture, "the killer had more difficulty with this victim." Damian pulled out a notepad, "what do you mean?" "Check for wounds on the body," Thorn reminded me. I walked around the left side of the body and bent down, "there is a hole in their neck, like a needle mark. So the killer must drug their victims and take them somewhere else to kill them. But judging by the bruising on the arms and around the neck this victim resisted so the killer had to finish them here. Which will be their downfall." "Check under their nails," Ace interjected. Damian wrote down everything I said but the last part, he took out his notepad and inspected the body, "so they must have left some DNA or a fingerprint." I nodded, "exactly, this murder was not a clean kill and they did not clean up very well afterward. I guess that they were not prepared for the resistance and being in a fight for their life must have terrified them." Damian smiled, "can you guess where any signs might be?" He liked testing me even though he already knew the answers. I pointed at the floor, "well I see a small footprint by the victim, which I assume has already been photographed." A CSI agent with a camera gave me a thumbs up. "They are thorough," Ace chuckled. "So that is one, once they finish examining the scene and the body we might find more, since they got into a fight here we might be able to crack this case wide open," Damian frowned as he held the victim's hand. "What's wrong?" I crouched down to look at her nails too. "She wasn't able to scratch her attacker." "No DNA," Ace clenched his teeth. "Relax friend, there may be hairs or fingerprints. It's hard to think clearly when your victim is fighting with you," Thorn tried to calm him down.
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For the next couple of hours, we had to sit in the police station and wait for lab results and the autopsy. While I waited on Damian to get lunch I sat at his computer and researched myself, I saw the article in the paper where I was found in my burning house. "So it is gone?" I whispered. "What's gone?" it was the chief standing right beside me. "She needs to wear a bell," Ace squealed when the chief first spoke. I jumped out of my skin, "chief! I was just looking into something that Damian told me." She leaned over and looked at the screen, "the day of your arrest. I read about that in your file, but I know that you didn't set the fire." I looked at her curiously, "what do you mean?" She set her coffee down, "you were inside the house in your room, but the fire was set outside by the back door. There is no way that you could have set it and made it to your room without getting hurt on the way. Someone else set it." My eyes grew wide, "who could have set it?" She shrugged, "I've been looking into it in my free time because I'm a little curious myself. When I find anything out I'll let you know. But do you remember anything from back then?" I shook my head, "not really, when I think back to then it's kind of fuzzy." She nodded, "I figured as much. We didn't find all of the bodies of your family. One of them was missing." "Missing? Who? Does that mean they might be alive?" She put her hand on my shoulder, "calm down. We found your father and mother, we were not sure which one of your sisters we found. But the fire could have just destroyed the body. We don't know yet." My mind was racing, "what if one of my sisters lived and they wanted revenge?" She shrugged at that question too, "it may be possible. I know that you had killed your family and hid them in the house then murdered more people. So it could have just been an angry family member of a victim that set it. At the time of the fire, you were well known and being hunted." I slumped my head, "now I just have more questions about the fire." She patted my shoulder, "well we can both search for answers. If anyone is going after my new detective they will have to go through me first." I smiled up at her, "thank you, I'm glad I have made some really good friends." She smiled back at me and then turned around to go to her office. "The chief seems like she wants to help you," Thorn said. Ace chimed in, "let's hope it's not fake and it doesn't come to bite us in the ass." "That would hurt," Thorn said sadly.
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Damian walked into the station with two bags and two drinks, he stopped when he got to his desk, "what are you doing in my seat?" I nervously laughed as I closed tabs on his computer, "just doing some research." He glared at me, "you were reading fanfiction weren't you?" I gasped, "why would you accuse me of that? I have things that I need to research, like this killer. I don't know all the facts." He set the food down, "fine, I guess I'll just check the search history to find out." I grabbed one of the bags and placed it on my lap, "fine, if you must know it was Callout fanfiction." He raised an eyebrow, "why?" I bit into a burger, "because I like reading about the history of the alternate universe." He sat down in his chair, "you know you can learn that in the game right?" I shook my head, "I don't read books or terminal entries, I just kill and loot." He said in a deep voice, "Castiel, the brave pillager of the radiated lands." I giggled, "pillage and burn." He took his burger out, "oh you devil. Give them a chance to live."
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After we finished our lunch Lance came by and put a file on Damian's desk, "so you're not ok with your brother being your partner but you're ok with your new girlfriend." Damian choked on his drink, "she is not my girlfriend and I'm not doing the good cop bad cop thing with you because you'd be the bad cop every time. I don't need a partner like that." He just rolled his eyes, "whatever. Those are the lab results." Damian picked up the file and set his feet on his desk, "let's see what we have here." I tried to lean over and take a peek at it but every time I saw a glimpse he would move it away. He laughed at my frustrated face, "I'm just messing with you, you look cute when you're mad." My cheeks got hot as he put the file down on the desk to where I could see it, I punched him in the arm. "Ow, I was kidding geez," He rubbed his arm and then pointed at the picture of the shoe print, "looks like a woman's shoe." I pointed to the notes on it, "yea, it says it's a size 7 in women's. They said they think it is a boot by the tread pattern." "That's the same size you wear," Damian nodded, "but let's see if they found any other prints." He flipped through a few pages, "well it looks like there are about five different prints in the house that do not belong to the victim." I smiled, "male or female?" He rubbed his forehead, "all-female, which means that is five women that we have to question. Oh boy." He looked over at my grin, "why are you smiling? We have to question more suspects." I shrugged, "I find the questioning process entertaining when people try to lie their way out of their guilt." He just shook his head, "you are so weird."
