He loved the rain. Why, he didn't know. But Marcel decided it was the prime time for a walk as soon as the first rumble of thunder started rolling through the city. He grabbed his e-reader, his shoes, slid them on, and forgot about a jacket, deciding it was much better that he didn't sacrifice more than the bare minimum of clothing to meet the drier sooner rather than later. Slamming the door to his brownstone, he started off, feet slapping the gradually-dampening sidewalk. It gave way from cobblestone to brick, then eventually to concrete as he left the historical district and found himself among more moving steel and people. He passed by a bakery and found himself stilling for a moment, deciding against ducking inside, and hurrying across the street, to another more residential area away from the bulk of the noise and to a park across the two-lane road separating it from the huge, expansive manors. He loved looking at them but would never even consider living in one. Too much work to keep clean. Too much damn space Three floors of home was already too much for Marc.

He settled under a gazebo and pulled his e-reader out from the plastic bag he had slid it into. He'd been in the middle of a large book, something called East if he recalled correctly, something rather old and not well known. Since the benches were so close to the rain, Marc found himself settling cross-legged in the middle of the deserted gazebo and bent over his reading. The chapters were so short, and each was a narrative from a different character, so it could be hard to follow if one didn't have a habit of reading the title of each chapter, which introduced the next in the narrative. He startled when someone clumped onto the gazebo steps, and started asking about his affiliation with religion. He pulled a face and started babbling random curses in French until they apologized and ran off, nearly bumping several men in long, dark trench coats that piqued Marc's curiosity.

He brushed his brown hair back and squinted, quickly looking away when he even thought they might see him being nosy. Something thumped, and then they were on their way again, and as his hair fell in front of his eyes, Marc studied them carefully. Hard features. Square jaws. Typical 'bad news' type guys that didn't look very safe to be around. Or ask directions from. He shuddered and looked up, at the bushes nearby. They were out of the way. What the hell were they doing around there? Dumping a body?

Marc stood and slid his e-reader back into its bag, tucking it under his arm as he stepped off the shelter and gasped in the cool downpour. Shaking his hair out of his face, Marc stepped tentatively forward, picking and choosing each step as if he were about to step on a rattlesnake. His hand obsessively stroked the red, diamond-shaped necklace at the base of his throat, a source of comfort when he needed it, as he toed branches out of the way and finally gasped.

They were dumping a body! His instinct forced him to kneel and drop the reader, pulling the dark-haired form's eye open to inspect the pupil. "Hey, buddy, you okay?" He looked down and grimaced at the dark, bloody stain on his stomach, the rip in his shirt. He'd been stabbed. Was he a target for murder? Maybe Marc read too much. "Can you tell me what happened?" He had to do something. Stop the bleeding. He hadn't driven here, so where could they go? And those eyes... Red... He shuddered and refused to acknowledge that.