Cases Of Life And Death (Pt. 2)
Case 003 - Elanor Felix Ladron
Little girl, gone bad, gone good,
Less and more than an amateur,
Maybe she’s just misunderstood,
Good thing her last names suit her,
April 14, 2027, 2:12 AM, the unidentified accomplice brings the subject to the ground, holding her at knifepoint.
"Wait, how does this relate to anything, Lume?" The young man questioned. Lume was getting really tired of him blabbering and wanted to stab him, watch the life leave his eyes and all of that, but a knife this close to her throat stopped all physical engagement for Lume.
"Jeez, I'm getting there just wait," Lume remarked snarkily at him.
"Well, I can't wait any longer, so you better get to the point, or..." He pushed the sharp blade towards Lume, and with a small shriek coming from Lume, a small drop of blood trickled down her neck, which got the point across VERY clearly.
"I understand," Lume responded coldly, reverting to her neutral state, like a robot. "I'll skip to the juicy part.'
"There's something even juicier than seeing me?" he asked, sounding genuinely hurt.
"You didn't think you were the first person I saw again from the orphanage?"
---
June 13, 2026, 3:20 PM, the target is in position, ready to fire.
"Welcome back Lume, have you made any progress trying to recall your childhood?" Viktor asked, with the tiniest bit of pleading in his tone. They'd been over-analysing Lume leaving the orphanage for the past 4 sessions, always coming out empty-handed. Lume silently shook her head while looking out into the quiet streets, taking a small sip of a glass of water. Viktor knew she was lying, but at the same time, he knew that it was a lot for her, dredging up a past so horrible she subconsciously buried her memories.
Lume seriously didn't remember anything but felt like playing a few pranks on Viktor today. She knew he would be thinking about all her small movements so she pretended to look guilty and nervous, like she was hiding something when she wasn't. She hadn't had this much fun since-
BAM
Glass shattered.
---
June 13, 2026, 3:27 PM, the subject is unconscious in Viktor Anglears’s car.
Picking her up and into my car was easy, rushing her into the hospital was easy, dodging several people on the road was okay, but filling out paperwork for Lume, now that was the hard part. Full name, Lume Steele, date of birth, April 14, place of birth, no idea, parents, Emily Steele and...
Who?
Eh, whatever, it probably didn't matter. It also felt strange that she wasn't registered into any sort of system for when she was born, but Lume was very… weird? Mysterious? Scary? Her sudden fainting and that tiny suspicion that she was always hiding something could be some leading factors to her being a bit of a weirdo.
"Lume, how did you turn out this way?"
---
In complete shock, Viktor almost jumped out of his skin, turning 180 degrees and seeing a young woman, who couldn't have been a day over 20. Her long rustic-ish hair naturally contrasted her deep emerald eyes, with her face looking like the in-between of a pout and a frown.
“Oh, did you know Lume as well?” Viktor (not so) confidently asked. “I’m Viktor, Lume’s therapist.” Viktor could tell she had put her guard down after hearing he was her therapist.
“I’m Elanor,” the woman told Viktor, “I was in the same room as Lume when she was at the orphanage.” She wore a scrub dress, mask, gloves, and a Tudor bonnet. She looked like she had just performed a surgery. “I didn’t know she was gonna get a therapist, she always told me she was normal.”
“Well, with her parents splitting, her mom dying, the stress of trying to find a killer, and don’t get me started on Ms. Edith.” Viktor whined to her while counting each of the problems with his fingers. “Speaking of Ms. Edith, did you ever think she was hiding something?” Viktor knew that if Lume couldn’t get answers, he needed to.
“Well, it all started when Lume got to the orphanage,” Elanor blissfully responded, not knowing that the conversation had turned into an investigation. “She started searching for clues about her mother.”
“Yes, I know that she found a file but then was caught by Ms. Edith, what happened after she came back?” Viktor charmingly asked her.
“After she came back, it all went downhill.”
---
November 4, 2013, 10:34 AM, the suspect runs into her confinement building.
Elanor knew Lume would periodically leave every few days since she came to the orphanage, but her being gone for the whole night scared Elanor horribly. What if she ran away, maybe kidnapped? Elanor knew if she thought too hard about this, she would blame herself, like all the other times. Elanor hoped Lume was safe, cause she could not believe she pushed Lume away.
“Elanor?” She heard a voice behind her, “Are you good?” she mentally screamed.
“Geez Larry, you can’t sneak up on people like that!” Elanor told him off. Lawrence (or Larry for short), was one of two people Elanor talked to frequently, with the other person being Lume. He was short in stature, but his ego made up for his height. He kind of looked as if Lume was a guy, the only difference being his messed-up dark chocolate hair. Lawrence had a very similar personality to Lume’s, just a little bit more cautious. “Sorry Larry, I'm good, just a little on edge since Lume’s missing again.”
“It’s probably fine, she always comes back either way.” Larry told her, failing to comfort her, but still with good intentions. As Lawrence said that, Lume barged through the door, screaming and shouting. Elanor couldn’t make out anything she was saying, only,
“We’re all living a-” Before she could finish her sentence, Ms. Edith had shouted,
“ENOUGH!” before returning to her calm and relaxed look. “Let’s talk in my office Lume.” putting on the fakest smile Elanor had seen. Right when Lume was dragged into Ms. Edith’s office, she looked right at Elanor and blinked thrice. Elanor knew this was their secret sign, but they had to meet after she had her ‘talk’ with Ms. Edith.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Lawrence asked, with a twinge of fear.
“Probably.”
---
November 4, 2013, 11:38 AM, the suspect enters her confinement cell, room 14.
KNOCK KNOCK
“Hey.” It had been an hour since Lume had gotten in trouble, but it had felt more like a month for Elanor. “How are you?” Lume asked, with her voice sounding soft like she had been crying.
“Good,” Elanor said, on her bed, exhaling a large sigh. “What did you find out?”
“One, there's a file on everybody and their family in Ms. Edith’s office.” Lume calmly told her. “Secondly, we’ll need more people to sneak into the office if we want to get something.”
“Like ten?” Elanor sarcastically asked.
“Not possible,” Lume responded, not even noticing the sarcasm. “We don’t know enough people well enough to keep it a secret, and if we did, ten kids would make a mess.”
“So, three?” Elanor had already thought about three people, and she knew Lume would agree with her. Elanor had only been sharing a room with Lume for a few weeks, but she could track her body language and unconscious thoughts better than Lume had.
“Exactly,” Lume told her, with a tone knowing that she already knew how many people were going. “Do you know anyone who could help us and keep a secret?”
“I might.”
---
November 9, 2013, 8:16 PM, the suspect seems to be forced to do chores after sneaking out.
I hated cleaning, especially other people’s mess. Ever since I sneaked into Ms. Edith’s office, she’s given me more and more housework to do. Sure, you could say it’s because of my (almost) successful attempt to steal the file about my mother, but having me clean the toilets, kitchen tables, and the library all in two days is crazy.
As I scrubbed one of the thousands of plates in the sink, I heard that the sink next to me had turned on, meaning either someone was also made to do work, or the orphanage was haunted.
“Hey Lume,” A voice came from my side.
“Jeez, Lawrence,” Lume jumped, “You can’t keep scaring people like that.”
“Sorry,” Lawrence told her embarrassedly. Lume had seen Lawrence a few times in passing, and sometimes with Elanor, but she never had a real conversation with him. Only with her having to do all these chores, could she connect with him better. After all, Elanor said he would be the perfect candidate for breaking in, so she shouldn’t feel goosebumps every time he talks.
“What did Ms. Edith make you do this time, Lawrence?” I asked while cleaning one of the plates to perfection.
“Tables and toilets, for the third time.” Lawrence groaned, cleaning the countertops a few feet away from me.
“I hope you don’t mix up the towels again,” everyone remembered the smell of toilet water when dinner came. A little-known fact about me, I HATED small talk, so I needed to get this conversation to the point. “Lawrence?”
“Yeah, Lume?” he turned over to face me. “What’s up?”
“What are your thoughts on crime?” I hoped this question didn't make him too suspicious of me.
“Well, it’s fun, even with the consequences,” Lawrence said while wiping down another table. “Why ask?”
“I have a plan to steal ‘the files’, you want in?”
Case 004 - Lawrence Morrison
The boy who cried wolf,
Then cried and cried and cried,
They left him with a broken foot,
He was the only one left alive,
November 10, 2013, 1:17 PM, the suspect is confiding with Elanor Ladron and Lawrence Morrison on how to commit theft.
The dining room was packed at this hour, like always, and in the centre sat three misfits, who would go on and individually commit more crimes in a year than the rest of the kids’ whole lives combined. For now, they would
“So, to recap,” Larry started, “We wait until midnight, hope that Ms Edith isn’t awake, somehow manage to break in even though Ms. Edith has upgraded security, and look for some hidden files, and sneak out of her office all in thirty minutes?”
“Finally you understand! It’s been 3 hours!” Elanor exclaimed, “How does it take you this long?”
“Actually, Elanor, it’s been ten minutes, and it only took so long because you are horrible at explaining things.” Lume finished, “Also, yes, Larry, do you have any other comments?”
“Uh,” Larry fidgeted with a plush dinosaur, “It feels too short, will we be able to do all this in thirty minutes?”
“I don’t know,” Elanor quickly snatched his dinosaur plush and pretend-throwed it out the door. “Just hope.”
“Hey!” Larry shouted at Elanor, “Why’d you do that?!” Lawrence’s thin New York accent had seeped through his speech.
“The next part of the plan,” Elanor explained, “A distraction.”
---
As the trio of misfits walked over to Lume and Elanor’s room, Lume felt the same itching feeling she had when she saw her mom again, a feeling she knew well, a warning. It wasn’t a spine-chilling frost or a cold sweat, it just was.
“Hey, Lume?” The hallways reflected Larry’s voice, making it sound louder and more powerful. “What did Ms. Edith talk to you about?”
“Nothing, really,” Lume responded, walking down the hall a little slower than the other two. “She just told me not to do ‘it’ again, but didn’t specify what ‘it’ was.” They were almost at their room, but then all the lights died for about 5 seconds and Lume swore she saw someone exit her room.
“Who was that?” Lume shouted. “Was that a monster?”
“Ooh, suspicious-” Elanor started, then screamed. “What's on the wall?!”
Their room was completely destroyed, with desks and chairs flipped over, beds scratched like a hundred rabid cats appeared and messed them up, wallpaper being torn to shreds with barely any left on the walls, and the weirdest thing was a thick dark red liquid stretched on the walls and floor, spelling out,
“I KNOW.
-L”
---
June 13, 2026, 2:47 PM, the suspect appears to be under surveillance in a hospital.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The first thing I heard was the synchronised sound of beeping at a steady pace. It wasn’t a good sound, but after listening to it so many times, it was like Stockholm syndrome. After a few minutes, the sound became relaxing to me, and I wanted to drift back to asleep. Five more minutes, Mom. But, like always, I have a job to do.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The first thing I heard was amazing, but the first thing I saw was the complete opposite. Weirdly, I felt my heart beating faster and faster, hm, that’s weird, that hasn’t happened since I was sixteen, but after all my experience, I knew what to do.
Hospital room. Light blue buzzing lights. Orange-yellow hued light. Stale food on a table. Cannula in my right arm.
Cardboard bed. Soft and solid blankets. Cold handles on both sides of my body. A white, black, and orange blob of fur on my chest.
The sounds of crows shrieking. The hum of fluorescent lights. The beeping of my heart monitor.
The flower’s pollen. The toothpaste-scented air.
The taste of blood in my mouth.
Breathe in, breathe out. I’m fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.
“Oh, you’re finally awake. I’ll tell your family.” A nurse popped her head into my room, then almost immediately left.
“Wait,” I stopped her, “Who’s out there?”
“Um,” The nurse put her head through the door again, “Some guy with brown hair and a girl with green eyes-”
“Don’t tell them.” I sat straight up, ignoring any pain in my body. “I don’t want to talk to them.”
“Okay,” The nurse looked around embarrassedly, “You’ll be discharged in an hour or so, we only need the paperwork.”
I couldn’t see her again, I can’t. After what we put each other through,
why would she come to see me after I almost killed her?
---
June 13, 2026, 3:39 PM, the suspect escaped her confinement in the hospital.
Just as Elanor had gotten to talk about Lume’s room, with the blood splatter and everything else, Lume had appeared like the devil, hobbling out of her hospital bed, like always.
“Oh my god.” Elanor gasped, “She changed so much and so little at the same time.”
“DON'T TALK TO ME,” Lume shouted, walking right past Elanor.
“What’s up with her today?” Elanor murmured, with the rest of the crowd of people gathering around her.
“Can you just get out of my face?” Lume pushed her, almost knocking her off balance. “Let’s go, Viktor.”
“What’s wrong with you, Lume?! Why are you treating me like this?!” Elanor broke through her calm demeanour, justifiably so. “What happened?!” Before Elanor could get another word in, the door slammed shut, in her face.
---
“Hey, Lume,” Viktor broke the silence, “Are you good?” Lume stayed in silence, like the rest of their walk/stomp out of the hospital. They had been walking for about an hour now and had reached Central Park, Lume’s 2nd least favourite place to visit, right after the orphanage.
“Yea, yea” Lume muttered, still speed-walking through Central Park. “It’s just… Elanor.”
“What happened?” Viktor got the courage to ask, after another long period of silence.
“We stole the files, and everything else fell apart.”
---
November 11, 2013, 3:48 AM, the suspect and the accomplices step foot into their life of crime.
It was time. Lume readied her position against Ms. Edith's door, while Elanor and Larry were at her sides. Lume signalled a three, two, then one, and slowly opened the door, hoping it didn’t creak. The three of them hastily went through each and every single file, even with the lights off. Quickly, Elanor’s file was found, and Larry’s file too, with their parents respectively. The only ones missing were Lume’s family, and probably the most important. All of them scoured through each file cabinet twice, trying to find Lume’s file until they found a file for Sandra Allen Frances Elliott, which Lume immediately recognized as a badly disguised acronym of safe. Lume tried to pull it out, but it stopped midway through. A very quiet whirring sound came from the centre of the back wall, a safe, Lume thought, and ran to the safe. The safe required one key, and Lume slightly panicked until Elanor picked up a tiny key, covered in dirt. Lume shoved it into the keyhole, turned, and swung the safe door open. The only thing inside was two files, Lume couldn’t check who it was, as she was out of time.
They grabbed the files and ran, barely noticing the small amount of light coming from the room next to them, she’s awake, Lume realised and they all ran in different directions, Larry going left, Elanor going right, and Lume climbing down the centre of the stairs. When Lume dropped down, she felt she had stepped in a tiny drop of liquid, and she knew there were no leaks from the roof. The only other substance Lume could imagine was…
Blood.
---
Lume ran. She knew Ms. Edith was asleep, but still, the tiny droplet of blood on the floor put a pit in her stomach, did something happen to Elanor? Or Larry? Lume didn’t want to dwell too hard on the blood as she kept running. She was already out of the manor and was headed toward the place the three of them chose, a little bench next to the graveyard when she saw Larry, on the bench, anxiously tapping her fingers.
“Hey, Larry!” Lume called over, “Over here!” Lawrence noticed her call and stood up, a moment later, Lume stopped running.
“Lume!” Larry walked over to her, “Have you seen Eleanor?”
“No,” Lume asked, questioning him in the friendliest way. “Do you think she…?”
“I don’t think so,” Larry said, filling the empty space while walking back and forth. “But she's usually earlier than both of us.”
A few more minutes, or seconds had passed and Elanor was nowhere to be seen, even after shouting for her into the cold, dark, foggy abyss. Finally, after what felt like a millennium, from the corner of Lume’s ear, she heard the smallest thump-thump sound coming from the direction of the orphanage. Lume wanted to look, she wanted to not be scared, but the impending footsteps and the other fear right next to her. The footsteps got louder and louder until
“Lume?! Larry?!” broke Lume out of her trance-like state. Lume saw a little figure run up to her, closer and closer. Lume knew all of this was just Elanor and a dash of anxiety, but it calmed her nerves greatly. Elanor ran up to Larry and hugged him so tightly for the longest time, that Lume thought they were glued together.
“Now then,” Lume broke Elanor and Lawrence out of their reunion. “Let’s start our unboxing video, shall we?”
Elanor’s files were up first, to save the best for last, Elanor told herself. They were exactly what was told to Elanor, Marcero Ladron, her father, and Bella Felix, her mother, who had died at their wedding after drinking a poisoned bottle of Dom Perignon. Weirdly, Ms. Edith’s Haven of Hope was already put into their will for where Elanor needed to go, which did scare Elanor a little bit like her parents knew they were going to die before Elanor was older.
“So,” Elanor asked, after reaching the end of all three of her files. “Who wants to go next?”
“Not me.” Lume and Larry said at the exact same time, very childish, all three of them thought.
“Fine, rock, paper, scissors.” Lume folded, but played rock, losing to Larry’s paper.
Lume didn’t want to open her files second, maybe because she thought they were the most important ones out of the three, or maybe because she was scared to find out what was inside. Lume took a peek at her mom’s and…
Nothing. Twenty blank pages neatly fell out onto her lap. She checked her own file and the same thing, except this time it had one word, WATCH. Invisible ink? Lume thought to herself, but pushed that thought to the back of her head, dealing with that later.
Lawrence Morrison was Lume’s least favourite friend, and that was saying a lot because she only had two. His parents, Tyron and Gloria Morrison, had randomly disappeared before Lawrence was sent to the Haven. Lawrence’s family was not just rich, but rich rich. However, Lawrence was still sent to the orphanage instead of anyone else in the family. Lume didn’t, no, couldn’t believe that Larry was clean, there has to be something about him, Lume thought. She snatched Larry’s parents’ files from and and went through them, over and over and over and over again. Nothing was out of the ordinary with the story Larry told. There had to be something about him, he couldn’t have been normal. There’s no way an upper-class heir to the (hypothetical) throne could’ve dropped all the way down to the lowest low. There had to be something.
And there was.
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