I quickly fold the paper and tuck it into my pocket, hopefully he didn't see it.

"You!" He points his large sausage finger at me and scowls.

"Me?" I point my fairly petit finger at my chest and I try to come off as innocent looking. I truly have no idea who this man is nor why he is pointing his finger and yelling at me.

"Yes you! You need to stay out of things that you do not belong in! Don't go sticking yer nose into other people's business!" He spats out, a bit of his spit hits me over my left eye and I feel my face change with disgust.

"Or what?" I slowly wipe away the spit from my face, and then I flick it off to the side. Gross. "You're going to call the cops on me?" I let out a brave laugh. "Please."

Before I can process his movements, his large clunky hands grab my shoulders and shove me against the brick wall behind us. His strength over powers mine by quite a lot as he pins me against the cold hard wall of bricks.

"If you don't stay out of this and away from that old school house, I'll make sure you never solve another case ever again." His disgusting hamburger breath fills my nostrils and I scrunch up my nose.

"First of all, you need a breath mint. Second, good luck on trying to stop me from solving this case. I will never stop loving mysteries and I will never stop trying to solve them." I reply with a calm yet sassy, attitude filled tone. "Also, if you think empty threats are going to scare me off, you have another thing coming. Because you, do not scare me." I narrow my eyes and glare deeply into the man's eyes.

And then I see it.

A small tuff of black hair sits at the tipity topity top of his head and my mind numbs. Paul? My eyes go wide as I realize who this rude man is, his grumpy, unhappy frown then transforms into a smirk, as if to say that he knew I would be afraid of him at some point.

"Now stay away or-"

"What's going on over here?" A voice cuts in, one I have never heard before and it makes me turn my head towards the face of the voice.

"Who are you?" Paul growls at the supposed person that dared to interrupt him.

"I go by a many of names," a woman who appears just a bit older than me approaches the two of us. "But for you," she stops just in front of Paul, probably about a foot and a half away. "You may call me your worst nightmare."  I can now see her face more clearly; her dark emerald eyes glow with determination as she glares at Paul, her black shadowy hair bounced gracefully when she walked, but now just frames her pale skin toned visage.

"Well this ain't none of yer business. So why don't you go find yerself a pretty flower to pick or something else little girls like you do!" He scoffs, still holding me against the wall. I can see the woman's gaze glance down to his stance and then back up to his face.

"You made it my business when you decided to mess with my partner." She crosses her arms and I blink with confusion. Partner? "So if you don't unhand them right now, I'll have no choice but to arrest you for interrupting an interrogation." She reaches into her black leather jacket, probably going to pull out a police badge or something like that.

"Tsk. Fine." He releases me and takes a moderate sized step backwards. "Stay away or you'll be sorry." He points at me with his warning before turning away and leaving me with the woman.

"Well that was... eventful." I mumble, watching as the man disappears into the distance behind a standing bus. "Thank you though," I smile as I turn around to face the woman. "But I was handling the situation just fine." I cross my arms just because I can.

"Really?" She smirks as she questions me, "from what I saw, he was just getting ready to pummel you."

"Well," I uncross my arms and place them onto my hips. "If you had waited like ten more minutes, I would have used my superpowers to slam him into next week." I say matter-of-factly.

"Oh really? You have superpowers?" She raises her right brow as she crosses her arms and leans upon her right leg. "May I see these so called superpowers of yours?"

"You will, in due time." I grin a little, "you are my partner after all, right?"

"Partner?" She gives me a look of confusion before it turns to a slight grin. "Ah, yes. Partner. But there is one thing before we can begin." She looks at me with such a sly look as she leans back a bit.

"What is it?" I tilt my head, low key admiring her ability to pull off the ripped jeans look that I never could.

"I need to know your name, partner." She leans in, moving her hand towards my head. I assume she was going to mess my hair, but I swat her hand away from my locks before she can touch it.

"My name is Ryan." I reply, running my hands through my scarlet dyed hair. "But you can call me Red, it's like my code name." I smile, "what should I call you though? I doubt you want me to call you my worst nightmare." I let out a light laugh, and she smiles a bit at the comment.

"You can call me that if you want to, but you don't have to." She teases me, "but everyone just calls me Shadow or Noir." Noir? She pulls a few strands of her fairly long hair over her shoulder and then begins to comb her left hand through it. "I don't know why, probably because I have black hair." She looks down at the cracks in the sidewalk, her smile fading as though she was remembering a bad memory.

"So we're red and french black? We're basically Deadpool." I joke and a small smile returns to her face.

"Yeah, I guess." She looks back up at me.

I smile at her, and she smiles at me. No one speaks and for a moment it seems oddly silent.

Out of the blue, she grabs my arm and dashes across the street, dragging me with her. She pulls me into a creepy and dark alleyway, before pulling me down behind an overfilled garbage dumpster. The stench fills my nose and I cringe at the smell. Yuck.

"What are we-"

"Shush!" Noir clasps her hand against my mouth and holds me closer to the wall. My eyes look at her with confusion, she however, seems worried, as though she thought someone was following us with malicious intent.

We sit silently in the garbage behind the dumpster in the shadowed alley, I hear nothing but the street rats squeaking in the dark corners and the birds chirping away in the clear blue sky.

_

Finally, Noir removes her hand from my mouth and then lets out a sigh. She seems relieved, as though we had just dodged a bullet of sorts. I sit back and look up at the sky, giving her a moment before asking my questions.

"What was that about?" I turn my head to her, my gaze falling upon her shaking hands.

"It was nothing, I suppose something just spooked me." She does not look up at me, focusing her gaze upon a muddy puddle in front of her.

"That wasn't nothing." I reply with a tone of worry, "people don't shake over nothing." Her hands stop shaking and she turns her head to look at me. "I know we just met, like ten minutes ago, but you can tell me anything." I give her a supportive smile.

"Thank you, but I don't know if you would be able to help me with this." She looks down again, my eyes follow her gaze and I place one of my hands onto her right hand.

"I've seen and dealt with a lot of weird things, try me. Just, please trust me. Partners should be able to trust each other, right?" Our eyes meet again and she smiles a little.

"I guess that's true." She replies with a soft voice, "I think someone is following me."

"Do you believe you could be in trouble?" I question with concern, "have you tried going to the police?"

"I'm not sure, maybe. But I don't want to take any chances." She pauses for a moment, "I haven't tried going to the police yet, I don't want to appear vulnerable to them." I turn my head to face the alley wall in front of us.

Silence, everything is eerily silent.