Previously on Beautiful Minds: Zane visits his sister at work to share his findings on the latest murder by the Fallen Angels, their archenemy. They check the crime scene where they theorized there could finally be a loose end. This theory was confirmed by the Fallen Angels themselves, leaving Zane a cryptic message personally delivered to his window.
Episode 2: ICU.
Zane.
Normally when a person is deprived of sleep, they’d show symptoms of exhaustion, lack of energy, reduced attention span, frequent yawning, irritability, excessive sleepiness, mood swings—but really my mood is just perfect today. I can guarantee that the only symptom I probably have is the bags under my eyes but one could hardly notice it if the person is bundle of energy. Like me.
Class had just finished and I have the classroom all for myself, all the time I need to analyze this little artifact my enemy gave me. It felt good to receive a personal gift from them, I don’t need to illegally acquire one from the station, less trouble for Aunt Amelie too. Looking at this little guy, silver, glossy, it isn’t plastic, it has a bit of weight in it, makes me contemplate on cracking it open. But if I’m wrong then I’d lose all possible underlying secret coded message here. I doubt they’d let me find the clue in plain sight. They are making it too easy for me.
They see me. Are they watching me? They saw me. Or did they see me and Jill at the memorial? Which is it?
“Professor Van Damme,” a little voice called to me. I folded my fingers around the keychain and I turn to smile at my second best student, Elena Estelle.
“Yes Elena?” I entertain her.
“About the report… can I work on it alone? In case I… I don’t have a partner.” Elena had always been a shy student and a lone wolf, always choosing to be on her own than with a pack, just like how dad would rather carry everything by himself.
“Elena, you can’t not have a partner. The class is even. Everyone gets a partner.” I encourage her. Maybe it’s easier on her part to work alone, but two heads are better than one. She just has to learn to work with a team.
Elena looked down lacking confidence and resolve. She clutched her sling bag, her body tensing as she waited for a follow-up.
“I’m not angry, kiddo. I know your classmates can be tough to work with, but give them a chance. They need your help too. At least save one student from failing this class.”
Now her gaze was back on mine. Her frown wavering. “Yes sir. Thank you professor.” As she turned her back on me, I saw a glossy pink wing keychain hanging by the zipper of her black sling bag. The ring was painted of different shades of pink pastel. I glance at her, trying to find the second half of the wing.
“Elena!” I call to her so she’d turn to me and there I saw the second wing hanging around her neck, a necklace. “Where did you get that necklace?” I ask and she fiddled with it for a bit.
“I bought it. There’s a shop near the Harbor Market.”
Harbor Market. Of course! I kept looking at things in the most complicated manner that sometimes the simplest answers are enough. “You weren’t the accessory type before, why buy one? Mean anything to you?”
“Uriel’s wing. It means He is my light. With the murders happening a lot in Little Harbor, I want to believe in some higher being to help me. Are you also a believer, professor?””
“You could say that.” I answer her.
~
Jill.
Zane and I met up at our secret hideout. A storage unit we are both spending our wages to keep. This is where all of our evidences, our markers and everything we know about the Fallen Angels and how they are connected to our father.
As far as Little Harbor knows, father is a kind man who delivers newspapers to their doorsteps every morning. They didn’t know it was all part of his disguise, so he can be a different man at night. Zane and I are twins but he has little memories of father. He doesn’t remember father leaves every night and comes back in the morning after delivering newspapers.
I just really don’t know what he does. If he works for the Fallen Angels, works with them or is working against them.
The door opens behind me and my twin enters coolly. Always with that smug smile of his, his ego bursting in arrogance. I know that face. He always has it when he discovered something new.
“Save me the trouble and just spill it out.” I tell him so we can skip beating around the bush.
He threw a little object at me. My reflexes were quick to catch the incoming item and I examine it. “You stole another angel?”
“No, they gave it to me.” He removes his gloves and pockets them.
“Who’s they?”
“The Fallen Angels.”
“Get out of here.” This is no time for games. It’s been two days since Mr. Brooks’ murder. We haven’t had any updates on the bodies yet.
Zane chuckled his fake humble-chuckle. “They left it by my window. I was able to keep it from Aunt Amelie so relax, only the two of us know.”
“I’m going to ignore the fact you hid this from me so you could come in this room and brag you got an answer.” Zane just can’t keep moving forward without feeding his ego. “So what did you find out?”
He pulled out printouts of all the previous angels that was dropped by the Fallen Angels over the passed years. Above the pictures of the angels, there were dates and he compiled the angels that looked alike. Angels with harps and different poses and colors. Angels praying with different texture and color. Angels with halos, holding batons, angels that come in sets like duos and trios and many more.
“What am I looking at here?”
“They aren’t just signatures of the Fallen Angels in general. They are specific signatures of a specific angel.” Now that he mentioned it, it’s true that there are repeating angel keychains being dropped off and sometimes we get something new.
“Does the color and texture make it different from each other?” I ask. Now I am more aware of the details I need to watch out for.
“I am not sure yet. I still need to cross-examine the crime scenes to see any similarities with M.O., relevance to the murder and the victims and location.” He answered. “There’s a message for me there. In the harp.”
I check the angel he gave me, the little keychain angel had a harp and on the harp are engraved letters; ICU. “They see you? Us?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” He says as he fiddled with the printouts. “But I was able to get new information and now we have names.” He handed me more printouts. This time, angels were labeled with names.
“Where did you get this?” I furrow my brows at him. This is a lot of information that he had gotten so easily. If they are watching him, I doubt they’d leave him walk away with this kind of information.
“Internet. There’s a shop down at Harbor Market, they sell all sorts of keychains and figurines. I learned they have names.” He taps a finger on the first angel on the printout. “That’s Icarus. Castiel. And Uriel.”
ICU.
“We can’t just call them Fallen Angels in general now. They have names. They are operatives or members or killers. They can work in groups. As pairs. Or solo. The possibilities of a new batch of theories are endless, Jill.”
“So the angel with the foreigner at the Memorial, who was that?”
Photo by Kasper Rasmussen on Unsplash
