Chapter 53 - What do you think, Watson?

Note:

- This somehow turned into a murder mystery and I'm all here for it. It was completely unintentional though. this arc was meant to be short. Not this long. I'm not lying when I say I'm winging this as I go

- Uni is starting so you won't see me for a while again. Big rip.

----------------------

POV: Aiden

"What do you MEAN she left through the front door?"

"It's quite literal. She came out of the office, said bye to me and then went down the elevator, with no other baggage or people." The man looked contemplative, now that he somewhat calmed down. I, on the other hand, felt a raging headache coming my way and rubbed my temples to try and prevent the inevitable.

"You've got to be kidding me. Look, this would usually put all suspicion off her but I'm 99% sure it's her, even if I don't know what the relationship is between the other two."

"But she–"

"I know she left through the front door but there has to be a way. Erwin has teleportation on his side so maybe they used that. Wait, no. He was knocked unconscious. Look there is some sort of way. I know it."

"HE WAS KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS?!"

"Well, he was drugged unconscious but not the point. The point is–"

"HOW IS THAT NOT THAT FUCKING POINT?!"

I ignored his outburst. "The point is, how she got away..."

"I honestly don't know why you're so adamant about it being her."

"Because there is something in the room that kind of incriminates her. Before we go there though, do you remember how long they were together?"

"Uh, about... well she came out about five minutes before you came."

"Well, that's a long fucking while..." After a while, "I have a theory."

"... which is...?"

"Somewhere during their meeting, she took him away, came back and then left through the front door to avoid all suspicion."

"See now that would work, if there was another exit from the 40th floor... through Erwin's office!"

"And that's what we're going to try and figure out," I brought the English accent back, "to the office, Watson."

Shinsou just sputtered out gibberish before glaring at me and following behind. We go back to the scene of the crime and to my disappointment, the office was still in the same state as it was a couple of moments ago. I thought the case would have another twist to increase the thrill. Shinsou immediately began scampering around, looking at all the abnormal features of the room. The painting caught his attention immediately and his face morphed into realisation. It seems he figured out why I asked that bucket question.

The other man kept glancing between the painting and the carpet as he directed a question at me. "Is this the reason why..." he trailed off, not finishing his sentence.

"Yeah," I breathed out, "That's the reason why she's linked to this entire ordeal. Quite damning evidence if I do say so myself."

"Hmm, I can see why..." Shinsou turned around to face me, his questioning eyes bored into my own. "So, how do you think she got away?"

"That's, what I'm trying to figure out." Sherlock Holmes mode ACTIVATED.

Unfortunately, Shinsou didn't appreciate my fabulous role-playing and had to have some sort of input on it. "Is it really necessary to play around, especially finding out the CEO of the fucking company has been kidnapped?"

"I'm not playing around. If you do recall, it was I who found out about all this in the first place. A little bit of role-playing doesn't hurt. The progress would be the same regardless."

The other man released a surrendered sigh and resumed analysing every object in the room. Knowing the conversation had been shut down, I went back to investigate. If I was a kidnapper, where would I leave? Well, if I was a kidnapper, I'd probably make sure that nothing fucking points towards me as the suspect. Like Jesus fucking Christ, this girl did not even TRY to hide her tracks. Anyhow, the only viable option is through the window but all the windows are intact. I shuffled closer towards the clear wall and studied every single pane. All of them seemed perfectly fine, no cracks or scratches.

All except one.

The windowpane right behind Erwin's desk and chair looked perfectly fine from a distance but when you observe closely, you can actually find a very clean cut through the glass, outlining a rectangular that's large enough for an average sized woman. The cut was so clean, she was able to put the two pieces of glasses together perfectly. Hence why you couldn't notice anything from a distance.

The discovery of this newfound evidence brings a joyful laugh out of me which startled the shit out of Shinsou. He looked over at me with wariness. "What...? Why are you laughing like a lunatic?"

'Because, my friend, I just found the solution to all, well most of our problems."

The other man perked up. "You mean you found how she escaped?"

"Indeed I did," I stripped off my blazer and drape it over the leather chair. I loosened my tie, unhooked the buttons of my sleeve and the top couple of the shirt's, as I continued to add, "Now that I've more or less proven that the kidnapper is Ms. Wendy Hayes, I have an Erwin I need to bring back."

"Uuuuhhhh." Shinsou was at a loss for words due to the unexpected actions done on my part. He more or less managed to say what he wanted to say though. "Do you know where Erwin is held? Why are you stripping? How do you plan to bring him back? And it's Mr. Fonzo to you."

I faced in front of the damaged window once again and with all the power I could muster, I concentrated it to the bottom of my right foot as I kicked at the closed open way to the outside. The glass moves out quite smoothly and falls straight down, hopefully into a very empty alley. The action also caused the assistant to gasp out loud and he looked at me with shook eyes. The face caused an amused smile to form on my lips.

"I don't know where he is being held so I'm just going to go to her place and go from there. I'm sure I can find it relatively quickly (Plus, I can hack into cameras and see if she passed by or whatnot). I'm half-stripping because it's suffocating to be in that all the time and I have some movement heavy tasks coming up real soon. And how do I plan to bring back Erwin? Well, by flying of course. Oh, and don't call the cops."

With that being said, I built up all the static and power into my legs and bolted across the sky, leaving behind a frozen and befuddled assistant.

♤♧♡♢

POV: Erwin

Fuck... my life. I... want to die. I... should've stayed home. Fuck... my life. This is an embarrassment on my name.

I'd been chanting the same four sentences in my head for the past fifteen minutes to kill time and maybe, put myself to sleep. I barely got any sleep the night before so given that I currently couldn't do anything right now, I might as well use the opportunity to rest up.

"You haven't said anything ever since you woke up. You don't have any questions, darling?" This came from the other person in the study room, where I was tied up with rope embedded with lanthanum. It's no surprise she'd use an Oddity's kryptonite but I'm curious as to how she touched it herself, since it essentially has the same effect on her.

The use of darling made me cringe but it was not enough for me to acknowledge her existence. I  continued to look at anything and everything that is not her. That being said, I might as well humour her a bit and answer her question, all with a bitter and cold tone.

"There wasn't really anything to say or ask. You'd come into my office unannounced, drugged me unconscious and kidnapped me. There's nothing really confusing there." That was essentially what happened in a nutshell.

Wendy came into the company, stating she had some sort of emergency she had to discuss with me, which honestly should've been the huge red flag because we barely know each other to begin with. We'd only hooked up and slept together once with full protection and everything but I assumed that maybe, I got her knocked up. Surprisingly however, she came into the room completely calm and immediately attempted to seduce me into fucking her on desk, by sitting on my lap with what was supposed to be a heated and flirtatious gaze. Instead, it made her look desperate.

Obviously, I refused her advancements and simply said I'm at work and a very busy man. She surprisingly backed down easily and sat back down on the chair, located on the other side of the desk. She then creepily stared at me, no words, no movements and that should've been the second red flag honestly. At the moment, I just assumed she was either studying me or checking me out but now that I look back on it, she was waiting for me to drink the coffee located right in front of me. The coffee she somehow managed to drug. The coffee I foolishly drank because the uncomfortable eyes were making my throat parched. It worked almost instantaneously as the world began tilting and spinning. I was lost as to why it was happening until I had a sweet aftertaste to the bitter coffee and instantly stumbled out of the chair, knocking a couple of things off the table and made way for the exit. I would've made it, if it wasn't for Wendy calling forward a decent sized ball of water and throwing it towards me, causing me to get knocked on to the carpet. By this point, I'd lost almost all control of my limbs and everything just felt heavy. With that, I gave up and the darkness finally began catching up. The last thing I saw was Wendy standing over me with innocent, sweet yet revolting smile.

The next time I woke up, I'm tied to a chair with rope that drains out power of Oddity users, in a study office of some house with Leah standing on the other side of the room. She was and still was looking at me with such fondness and love, which sent a chilled shiver through my blood rather than comforting me. That was the last time I looked at her and opted to just sit there in silence and observing everything else around me while I waited for help. I hope they realise I'm missing or else this was going to be one hell of a time.

Maybe I should leave my office a lot more often from now on...

After responding to Wendy's question, she perked up and looked gleeful, like she got a new puppy or something. Despite the joyful expression, the question she asked back was quite grim. "So you don't want to know why I kidnapped you?"

The answer to that was quite simple and didn't bother hiding the semi-bored tone when I answered back, "I don't need to know, I already know the answer. You're crazy."

Apparently, that was the incorrect option because her eyes went from happy to infuriated as she screamed out, "I'M NOT CRAZY! I'M NOT! I'm just doing the inevitable."

"The... inevitable?"

"Yes..." She released a sigh of wonder as she looked into the distance with love and happiness. I'm going to get whiplash with all the mood swings. She continued to add on, "Us being together of course. That's the inevitable. I'm just speeding up the process."

Fuck, I should've gone with my gut instinct that day and declined her that one night. It was screaming psycho, especially when she outwardly hissed at a girl who passed nearby, but I just had to give her the benefit of the doubt. I bought more time by interrogating her further. "And why do you believe that's the... inevitable? Because I sure as hell don't believe this is natural fate. More like forced fate. "

In a flash, she was right in front of me and she was cradling my jaw. Beaming, she responded back, "What do you mean? Don't you see it? We're practically MADE for each other. We have similar hobbies, we go to the same supermarkets (oh great she's a stalker as well), we look perfect together, like the couple of everyone's dreams and," she brings her head closer until her lips were right next to my ears and she inappropriately moaned out (yeah, moan), "sex is the best thing we've both ever experienced (That's a fat lie. She was only average. It felt the same like every other one night stand I had, girl or guy. Well, guys are a tad bit more exciting). We have such great compatibility and chemistry. Even thinking about it now just..."

The psycho moaned out so fucking loud right next to my ear and if that wasn't just the major turn off in the whole world. She then kissed the shell of my ear and moved away to put some distance between us. I lied, that was the biggest turn off of the whole world.

I exhaled an obnoxious amount of air and it's then that I realised that I had been holding my breath, probably anticipating for her to do some fucked up shit but she clearly thought it was from me excitedly waiting for some sort of sexual advancement because her eyes darken even more and she licked her lips. Ah, shit.

Hips swaying, she moved towards me again and she placed herself on my lap with her arms wrapping my shoulders. She was looking at me with the same heated look from before and I only returned a blank stare. It didn't even faze her a bit and she began to rub my shoulders and breathily declared, "I was going to wait until later, when we're in a safe place and alone together, to get my hands on you but I'm sure both of us wouldn't mind a quickie."

Wendy began leaning in, targeting my lips and I could do absolutely nothing but sit there like a pretty little (tall) doll. I don't know where she had the strength in her scrawny arms but she's got some strength when it came to tying people up. As I felt her minty breath against my mouth, the only thing running through my mind was Great, now I'm about to get raped. I should've taken a sick day.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable (I hate that fucking word now) when all of a sudden, the sound of breaking glass rang throughout the room. Both Wendy and I jolted but she was so shocked, she fell off my lap and crashed onto the ground.

My eyes flew open to find the source of the sound and lord behold, I see the person I was least expecting to see today. There, slumped against the wall opposite the shattered window was Aiden, who was covered in glass shards and groaning in pain. Wendy stared at the other man, frozen like she locked eyes with Medusa whereas Aiden clearly hadn't gotten a feel of his surroundings because he just got up, dusted off the glass and commented to himself while looking outside, "Fuck, Google maps needs to learn how to reroute quicker, considering the speed at which I'm flying." Aiden looked at his phone and gives it a death stare. "I thought you were pointing at the building behind you dumb bitch. Now I had to crash into Wendy the kidnapper's window in god knows what room, which is gonna alert some buff bodyguard and I have to knock them out and ugh ceebz. Whatever at least I made it. Now, time to find..."

At that moment, Aiden looked up and his eyes came in contact with my eyes. He glanced over to Wendy (who's still frozen) and the goofiest smile formed on his face. The fucking guy then waved at me like we just ran into each other at the beach and cheerily exclaimed, "Oh, hey boss!"