She rounded the corner and drove along the main road to the small college campus. She could already see cops, fire fighters, and others had gathered on the scene. She parked her car and got her bag from the passenger seat. She walked around crowds. Trying to see if she could catch anything. Hearing vague gossip about "mad science" "bad kid" "trouble". Interesting. She took notes on her notepad and kept walking. Soon getting to the epicenter of the whole situation. Two police officers, out of the five or six total cops in this town, and a boy. Tall, lanky, fair skined, dark hair, messy, dark eyes, glasses. His lab coat was singed in various places and burned in others. He reeked of chemicals. Auburn could smell it from there.

She crept closer. "I-I don't know officer. One minute I'm working with harmless chemicals. The next it all goes boom. I swear. It was just iodine." He stammered.

"Do you have bleach and acids on the premises?" The officer looked tired, almost disinterested, Auburn felt a small spark of anger but sighed and kept listening, taking notes on the conversation.

"Yes. To clean the lab after chemical use. But I never mixed them."

"Could they have been mixed through other means?"

"I'm not sure. My assistant, Damien was in the lab with me, he might've accidentally mixed the two chemicals."

"Mhm, and you said your name was--?"

"Jekyll, Alexander Jekyll."

"Alright. Where is this Damien? What is his full name?"

"Damien Hyde."

"Hmmm. Well in any case. You'll not be allowed to resume work until this gets straightened out. Or until this Damien Hyde is questioned."

"Alright. I'll try to find him."

"Mhm." The cop turned away to find his partner and Alexander was beginning to leave when Auburn grabbed his wrist and pulled him to a quieter part of the scene.

"Um, ma'am, what are you doing?"

"Sit. I have some more questions for you." Auburn pulled out her note book and pencil. "So you say you were working with iodine, correct? What other chemicals do you work with? Who is this Damien Hyde? What year is he?"

"Woah, woah woah. Hold up. I just told the cops all this, who are you?"

"Answer the questions."

"No, show me a badge. You look like you're 22. Are you even a cop?" Alexander took a step away from her. She gave an exasperated sigh.

"I'm not. But I'm trying to figure out this mystery." She folded her arms.

"What mystery?! It was a small chemical explosion. Happens in chemistry all the time."

"Not the chemical explosion," She became irritated. "What happened last night at Huckleberry farms."

"Why do you care? I mean, enough to attempt to solve it?" He asked, becoming equally irritated.

"None of your business." She said simply.

"Then Damien is none of yours either." He pushed his way out of the alley.

"Don't you care, about what happened?" She asked, nearly reaching a hand out to stop him.

"It's not my place. And it's not yours either." He didn't look back at her, just crossed his arms.

"I know that, I mean, in general, a man was killed, and there was no murderer or weapon on the scene. Aren't you at least afraid, what if the killer gets you next, what if it's related to the chemicals?"

"And what if it's not related at all?!" He looked back at her, whisper shouting to avoid drawing attention. "You're in over your head. This isn't a silly creepypasta, this is real life." He turned back and walked away, grumbling to himself under his breath.

Auburn waited a minute. Putting her notebook in her bag, and followed. Something was off about this kid. The crowd had mostly disbanded, the police and firefighters lingered but it seemed like the situation was reaching an end. Alexander pulled a small compact mirror out of his pocket. Auburn watched as he looked around, opened it, and started talking to it. She caught chunks of conversation, with himself? Opening her phone to tape the rest.

"Jesus Damien. What were you thinking?" "Come on, it wasn't that bad." "Not that bad?! Damien the police were called." "So, they didn't find anything, just chill." "No, I cannot 'just chill' Damien you have nearly gotten us caught twice now. And now that weird detective girl suspects something." "Fine, but you know the transformations are painful, it's not my fault I may have knocked over that bottle. And what does she suspect?" "I'm not sure. Did you do it?" "Do what?" "You know what." "No, he was dead long before the transformation." Alexander sighed, rubbing his face with his free hand.

"Good. Now one more transformation to explain this to the cops and we are going cold." "Fine. Guess I'll be here." Alexander was silent for a moment. "What?" "Behind you." He closed the compact and turned, seeing Auburn filming him. "Oh shit." He putted his mirror back in his pocket, took a step back, turned, and ran. Auburn running after him.