sleuth tooth | {adele!one-shoot}

[dars]

a d e l e

" got a secret
can you k e e p it? "

Curious eyes should be allowed to roam free.

According to Adele Santiego they did, anyway. Currently, her's were switching between two sights: the first, a crowd of moving suits, white in the silvery midnight light. Amid the men in white were one, two, three, four people, all thin and willowy, all obviously miscreants of society, even in the faint light. The other thing she trained her gaze on was the pad of paper in her right palm, her left being the temporary home of an ink pen that she scribbled notes down on.

There was a yell, a word Adele did not quite catch, and then suddenly the crowd became frantic. It was like a bear had swept its paw through a school of fish. Each individual scurried in its own direction, confused at the sudden chaos of the situation. Adele squinted to see what happened. Two of the culprits were on their knees, their hands cuffed behind them, their heads bowed in silence. The other two... were running. They ran far faster than people in their shape should have been able to, almost like a gust of wind had wrapped its arms around them in an effort to help them. They moved like lightning, and they were headed right toward her.

Her first instinct was to climb the tree she was hiding behind, but she quickly realized it was a stupid idea. She might as well have hand-cuffed herself if that was all she planned on doing. She had been known for her running skills. She was easily one of the fastest girls of her age, and had even won a few racing competitions at her school, but where would she have ran? A quick glance around her was all she needed before she remembered the tree she was hiding behind was the only one around in a very large pasture, straight as a board, and with trimmed grass. The closest place for her to hide was the barn, but there happened to be a stampeding crowd of people who would not have liked seeing her very much standing in the way.

Ada had scolded her time and time again about always having an escape route. She had even refused to keep tabs on the drug operation that had just been busted because it was out in the open. She bit her bottom lip and cursed her friend, annoyed at how she always seemed to be right, then stuffed her things in a bag, tossed it over her shoulder, and sprinted.

She knew she had been spotted just as soon as she was out of the tree shadow's embrace, because there were several shouts of alarm. "Hey! There!" she heard. "Another one!" Panic swallowed her whole, and she ran faster, faster, faster. She was at the fence, finally, and she knew she couldn't waste a single moment to see how far behind the others were. She tossed her bag over, and laid on the ground to crawl under.

"Shit!" She said, feeling a resistance at her midsection. She pulled harder to escape, her fingers digging into the soft earth, but didn't budge a single inch. Her hands felt around blindly in the darkness until she found that her belt was caught on a link in the fence. She tried to move once more, and again had no luck. Frantically, she undid the belt and crawled the rest of the way through.

She had just picked up her bag when she heard the gun shot. It hit something right behind her, only ten or fifteen feet at most. She jerked her head around and her eyes almost fell out of her head when they saw one of the two runners falling to his knees. Another shot, and she thought she could see the blood shoot from his skull. She fell on her backside, scrambling to escape, but suddenly not knowing how anymore. The other runner had given up, and fell to his knees with his hands in the air, the words "I'm sorry!" falling from his mouth as if he were a broken record. She understood because she was sorry too.

So, so sorry.

She took in a deep breath, and tried to stand, but she heard a voice. "I wouldn't if I were you."

Shit.