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They say the eyes tells all, Gustavo once told Troy. The eyes are the one thing to look at if things weren’t going smoothly. Gustavo once pointed out that his son’s eyes were hollow and dark; nothing factual actually flashed in Troy’s eyes. Troy was hurting. His eyes were hurting. But Troy didn’t care.



“I am looking for Linus? Officer Linus?” Troy asked the closest person as he entered the station. His voice grew hoarse and weak. Maybe this was pointless, he thought.

He scanned the precinct, searching for the man who may or may not know anything about his mother’s killer. He didn’t know how Linus looked, but Troy decided to look around. The men around him held their guard, clutching tightly onto their weapons. They looked confused. Troy held back a laugh, realizing that they all had the same distressed look.

This Linus guy couldn’t hurt, Troy thought. He continued to reassure himself and played with the thought of updating Jackie. She’d yell at him. But that wouldn’t stop him.

Troy let out a small cough, pushing his hands into his jacket pockets. Curiously, he looked past the officers surrounding him and gazed directly at the girl sitting in an open room. She was playing with her fingernails, sighing every thirty seconds. She looked beautiful. Troy began to wonder how pleasing she would look if she were to smile. But her beauty was the kind of beauty someone would notice a second time, like, no one would notice her if they only glanced at her once. She was the type of person who deserved a second glance.

He stared at her too long.

Dropping his fuzzy stare, Troy snapped his attention at the sound of two humans loudly conversing.

“Whoever they are, tell them I left for the night. I have more important things to worry about.” Troy noticed how the man’s words didn’t match his tone. The man sounded distracted, yet he was forcing himself to sound focused.

The first officer who Troy talked to began walking towards Troy with another figure next to him. The man was thick, almost like his voice. The new officer looked distressed. Maybe it was his job that was causing him stress. Or maybe it was just his personality. Troy thought his voice didn’t match his face. A lot of things didn’t match his face.

The new guy just stared. For a while, he looked confused, then he looked peeved.

“Are you Officer Linus?” Troy breathy asked as he shifted his weight onto his right leg.

Before moving an inch closer to Troy, Linus called out to the girl he spotted in the other room, demanding her to wait in the car. The girl moved fluidly, dropping her head as she passed by. As her eyes scanned Troy’s eyes lightly, he noticing that her eyes lacked the light it deserved. Her eyes were blank, but it seemed like she didn’t mind it.

Troy looked at the suited men, as they were dismissed by Linus. He wasn’t soft, even towards to his own offspring. It was obvious how he used harsh words to make himself seem concentrated. Humans are weird, Troy thought.

Linus lead Troy back into his office, motioning for him to take the seat where the girl once stayed. “It’s Detective Linus Finn.”

Troy stared at the detective closely, watching him as he placed a tan folder near his elbows. He didn’t break his contact with Troy.

“Troy Vladimir, age twenty-one, birthday not so long ago.” Detective Linus crooked an eyebrow. “Birthday on a leap year, second eldest son of Ava and Gustavo Vladimir, mother kidnapped and murdered, oldest brother murdered, father vanished from Earth, needlessly to say your file is clean, so what’s your business here?”

His confidence surprised Troy. Slightly.

“I’m curious to know your plan,” the detective mused, as he popped his elbows on his desk. “Coming back to New York, I mean. If the file isn’t wrong, it says that not a single person from your family has had any contact with you since you left town two years ago for a vacation.” He was getting somewhere. “Your father left with you too and no one has seen him since, so, dare I say it but this town thought you were a goner.”

The detective looked at Troy smugly, but that didn’t mean anything to Troy.

“I would like to apply for a position here,” Troy said flatly. He expected more from Linus’s reaction, but all he got was a stupid grin. “I think I would be a valued aspect in your program.”

“We don’t have any spots available. Even if we did, what makes you think you can barge in here, demanding for a position with, as much as I know, little experience in this workforce?” Linus said gruffly. He began to poke fun the thought. “This isn’t some job. You need the skills.”

Leery of Linus’s vague response, Troy pushed his elbows onto the chair and straightened his back. “Where’s you Chief? I wasted my time talking to a detective like you. I’d rather speak with your command than a lowlife like yourself.”

Linus’s eyes narrowed at Troy. “Why did you request me?”

Troy marbled at his peevish attitude.

Troy shrugged, leaning back into his chair. “Because I thought you would know about my mother’s murder, her killer, and the reason why you have people sampling Vladimir blood.” Troy began to crack his knuckles. “I’ve done my research, Linus, and I kept up with the investigation since day one. I’m only back because it seems that my mother’s case is open again. And you are sampling Vladimir blood? Who the hell are you extracting blood from if the only Vladimir member available here is me?”

“You are making some crass assumptions about your mother’s case,” Linus defensibly said, standing on his feet. “You don’t know anything about her death or what she’s been through before her murder.”

“And you do?” Troy snapped. “You are a detective, not her husband!”