> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://cryptonunsnft.gitbook.io/cryptonunsnft/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://cryptonunsnft.gitbook.io/cryptonunsnft/chapter-eight-beauty-and-blood.md).

# Chapter Eight: Beauty and Blood

“*The Beauty could only be seen when the blood paid the price for all who were tainted at heart.”–Anonymous.*

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\&#xNAN;***Downtown Brooklyn, NY. 2015***

## Brooklyn wasn’t a bad neighborhood when looked at closely…At least that’s what Jamari believed when she arrived.

\ <br>

But Downtown Brooklyn had turned into a nightmare since the Brooklyn hunger games started. Some believed it to be a hoax cooked up by the state government as an excuse to use people for covert experiments. Others simply lived in fear.

Jamari Archibald, knew better.

She was given an address to find one of Caelum's contact. Jesse Fletcher.

From the looks of it, he lived in a building called the Acornia.

“Says here twelfth floor.” Jamari muttered to herself as she rode up the elevator. The apartment she was headed to was supposed to be an extreme black site safe house for the Caelum. Black site sate houses like this were so secret that they were made to be very modest houses, and the resident had a deeply solid profile.

Jesse’s cover was a salesman at a local electronic store.

Jamari walked through the elevator on the twelfth floor of the Arconia and ambled to his room. Apartment twenty one.

She knocked once and someone answered almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for her behind the door.

“Who’s it?” Came his voice.

“Stripper Santa.” Came Jamari’s reply. Stripper Santa was the code word given to her by Hans shortly before she left the Monastery.

The door creaked, then opened as a latch and chain unlocked.

Standing in front of her was a dark skinned man. Tall, broad shoulders, and perfectly aligned teeth. He seemed to be in his early fifties.

“Well, come in. Let’s get started.” He said, gesturing with his right hand for her to enter his abode.

The apartment itself was basic in furniture, but clean.

“There’s no time.” Jamari started to say, not wasting any more time. “Where’s this contact I’m suppose to meet?”

“He’s right here.” Came a voice with a dash of Latino heritage to it.

Seating on a long stool by the window was a man Jamari could only describe as coarse looking. Not from hardship, but emotional meltdown.

She walked over to him casually and said, “You must be Alfonso?”

“In the flesh.” He retorted, spreading his arms open, yet Jamari could see the linger of fear in his eyes.

“I’m–“

“Jamari.” He interjected, smiling softly. “It’s in the eyes…Please, have a seat.” He gestured to another long stool in front of him.

All the while, Jesse just folded his arms, leaned on the door, and watched.

“They said you’d come.” He started to say the minute she sat down. “I don’t have much time, so I’ll get right to it…Oh, don’t worry, when you get to my age, you realize death seems to be closer than ever before.” His eyes seemed be lost on something else…or could it be his thoughts.

Jamari felt something was heavily afoot. Alfonso seemed to jitter and twitch at odd intervals for it to be from the cold that sipped into the room.

Then she saw it, and a shocking realization came flooding into her mind. The middle aged man was trying to warn her.

Blood.

Small droplets of blood dotted the floor from where Alfonso was sitting into a room behind him.

Jamari looked him in the eyes, just as he mouthed the word “Duck!” forcefully.

She didn’t need to be told twice, she ducked immediately and rolled to the side, at the same time a blade whooshed past her head with lightening speed.

“You shouldn’t have come here!” The assailant screamed. It was Jesse Fletcher, the same man who had opened the door.

Jamari was running out of options pretty fast. She instinctively kicked for his groin, but he grabbed her leg and rammed the knife into her right thigh. Jamari shrieked loudly, then gritted her teeth and quickly sent a kick to Jesse’s chin with her left leg, causing him to loosen his grip on her right leg.

Jamari staggered to her feet and quickly sent an ear splitting blow to Jesse’s face. But he recovered almost immediately and head dived into Jamari’s midsection, sending her back to the floor and landing right on top of her.

He then started to choke Jamari violently. Despite her skills, Jesse was overwhelming strong, even for his age.

She punched repeatedly at his face but he just wouldn’t loosen his grip.

Without any warning, something cracked, and a shot was fired into the back of Jesse’s head, carving a clean hole through his head.

He gaged once, stuttered as if he was gasping to say something. Then his eyes rolled back and he slumped onto Jamari’s body.

Dead.

The Brooklyn hunger games, just left its master's dead body in its wake.