[b][center][h2]Paige Kennedy[/h2][/center][/b]

The wind shifted briefly curling the smoke and embers away through the morning sky. It was cold downtown, [i]damn cold[/i]. Like the first time she arrived in Sol City fresh out of Florida. Paige leaned against the front of her car wrapped her in heavy blue Marshal’s jacket as police worked the perimeter around the scene. There wasn’t much to do as there wasn’t much left. A pumper truck arrived through the barricades to help bed down the remaining flames. She ran a finger over her lips looking on at what was left of Club Aether. They had heeded her warning and no one was around when the explosion levelled the building. In truth, she wasn’t sure what would happen, but the lead up just kept them in the back of her mind: The fight, the bad press, the arrests, the sales and the offers. One thing was for sure, the demise of the Club was definitely not an accident, but it made no sense. Why would Nikki destroy a building he was just trying to add to list? Elvin wasn’t answering his phone. 

Wisps of blonde danced over her eyes burning forward in thought, not focused on anything. He could have poisoned the water or just had the owner killed outright. The Syndicate had the resources. No, he was proving a point. He didn’t really need the property. It was just like Shannon had said, Sol City was his big move, but there was no motion at any of the banks. Paige knew the Club had to be the distraction, [i]but from what?[/i] She exhaled a breath of frustration. They were definitely pros. The closer she got to them, the better they seemed at covering their tracks. The files were like tracking a ghost. She felt sorry for Dustynn. The girl didn’t know what was really going on and Paige knew that telling them the extent of their case against the Giancanas would have only put all of them in greater danger. For now they were still alive and that was enough. If Nikki wanted them dead, he wouldn’t just stop at blowing up the building. Her phone buzzed inside her jacket and she dug it out finding a call incoming from Xi. 

“Hey, you at the Club still?” Xi said in his regular, unphased monotone.

Paige came out of her thoughts at the sound of his voice. “Yeah, I’m still here, what have you got?” She couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice at how things were going on the ground and hoped he had good news. It felt like they were starting over from scratch.

“You talked to Santos?” Xi asked.

“No, you got a line on him?”


“Yeah,” Xi replied. There was a short pause in his voice and Paige instinctively knew the news was definitely [i]not[/i] good. He sighed a slight breath of exasperation before he continued. “Yeah, staties found his car wrecked over a mountainside out west. Somebody called it in, local race team or somethin’.”

“Shit,” Paige spat. “You’re there aren’t you?” Her glance narrowed. She didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for Elvin, but she did feel like she was missing a lead that could help them.

“Yup.”

There was silence between them for a moment. She wasn’t about to board a chopper and fly out all the way to the mountain range. She would have to concede that one to her partner. Her competitive nature firmly took its stance. There was more coming, she knew it, [i]it had to[/i]. 

“At first they thought the steering wheel caught him right on the temporal when he went over the side, but if you look close... you can see the knuckle marks.”

Paige’s eyes widened slightly at the scene imagined, “Jesus…” She immediately regretted uttering the broken commandment as if sensing her father’s unapproving glare within earshot and she happened a glance over her shoulder. An officer came around passing out cups of coffee and she took one listening to Xi on the other side of the line and a radio attached to the officer’s lapel as he passed by. “Hold on Xi,” She tucked the phone in the crane of her neck and snatched the radio off the man’s chest while he was still passing, hearing the sound of a familiar name come across the channel. The officer cut her a sharp stare, but she batted her eyelashes enough to disarm his apprehension for a few seconds. “What did they just say?” 

Seeing the large, circled star on her jacket, the officer smugly accepted his radio back and asked for a repeat of the last call:

[i]“Power outage reported at Luna Sports Facility”[/i]

“I’ll call you back, I’m going to the stadium.”