Status Quo rule no. 18 - The UA leadership can suspend the UA league at will on the promise that the league will resume in no longer than six month’s time. 

Skye waited for the red light to turn back to green and shivered. Her breaths were clouds in the chilly morning air. When the light changed, she turned right and drove straight for a few more minutes until she reached the police station of lower Bayport, and parked her bike next to Aiden’s car. 

Two policemen sat on the bench at the entrance of the police station, smoking and complaining while two others helped a cuffed guy inside. Several of the blue lights on the police sign were either burnt out or missing, and the exterior walls cried out for a fresh coat of paint. After a few incidents with the Specter syndicate, in whose territory the building stood, no one dared to draw new graffiti on the walls, but no one cleaned the old ones either. The UA had promised that their personnel, in collaboration with the Chief of Police, would address the issue, but that was a pledge made two years ago and had yet to be fulfilled. 

Skye let the policemen in while holding the door for them, then followed in. The inside of the station was in a better condition than the outside. The walls were freshly painted and a man passed her as he washed the floor. Policemen and women paced from desk to desk in a random pattern, their conversations blending with the cacophony of ringing telephones. At the reception desk, a weary-looking woman seemed to have endured her fair share of rough days. Dark circles beneath her eyes, mirroring Skye’s smoky makeup, added to her fatigued appearance. She cast a brief, dismissive glance at Skye, who responded with a wry smile before scanning the area for Aiden.

Aiden called earlier this morning and asked her to come to the station to give another statement regarding her attack. His voice though was puzzled and aloof, and not as certain as it always was. Weird.   

Skye’s thigh was still bandaged and sore, and she had a hard time sleeping. So when Aiden woke her up and asked her to come, she was far from pleased. She ignored his calls at first, but the man was quite persistent. It took him a while to convince her to come, but in the end, it was easier than arguing with him. Her sleep was already ruined.  

Aiden stepped out of the staff room. Skye stood by the entrance, looking as bored as a child at a doctor’s appointment. He approached her, his eyes sunk and tired. His clothes had coffee stains and his hair ruffled. He must have been awake all of last night. He had two coffee cups, one which he handed her. They both headed to the roof and when they reached there, Aiden took out a cigarette, lit it up, and sighed heavily. 

“I thought you’ve stopped smoking,” she said with a curve of her lip.

“I smoke less, not like some engine I know.” He smiled back, but his voice didn’t match the words.

“Why am I here? I doubt that you want to question me again unless some new information has popped up that I’m not aware of. Also, you could’ve done that on the phone.” She lit up her own cigarette. 

“Yes. And no.” He averted his eyes. They landed on his shoes while his foot moved from side to side.

She rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you mysterious…” 

Aiden chuckled quietly. It was more of a sad laugh than an actual chuckle which made her furrow her brows. 

“Mike is dead,” he finally said after a long pause. “He was attacked last night on his way back home from the arena. We spent the whole night investigating and the only useful thing we found was nothing but the same bullets, as always. Bradley left an hour before you had arrived and once everything is done with the investigation, we’ll inform his family. I didn’t want to tell you this by the phone or that you’d find out from Bradley...”

She inhaled the cigarette deep and took her time exhaling it, repeated the process until there was nothing left to smoke, then threw the filter away, and lit up another one.

“I’m sorry, Skye.”

She only kept smoking with a blank expression. 

“Skye?”

“Thank you for telling me, Aiden. I need to go.” She hurried away from him. Aiden called her name but it landed on deaf ears.