Armor

This hit me randomly. This is a big potato lead, btws, therefore it starts halfway through the story as a lead. The whole story will be in third person, this is just like a prologue in Stella's eyes.

And suddenly, you're deep enough
To lay your armor down.
Dashboard Confessional, "Don't Wait"

"I want the girl cop," he'd said in vain. "The tall one. Curly hair. Send her, alone, or I press the detonator."

We'd tested him once before. He'd asked the same request—me—and when we'd told him to go ahead, "press the detonator," he had. In the blink of an eye, he'd blown up a building full of innocent people, and it was my fault.

Mac had claimed it was his. He'd been the one to forbid me from going, keeping me busy at the building. When the NYPD had challenged him to "just do it," I watched from my office window as an apartment complex exploded into fire.

The imagine burned behind my eyelids now as I secured my gun in its holster. It had almost been to easy. I'd told Mac I hadn't felt well all day, even going as far as to purposely retch my own lunch, and he'd told me to go home. Now I was standing where he'd wanted me before, my vest over my sweatshirt. My curls were heavy with rain and weighing me down, but I pressed forward anyway.

The door to the building was made of steel, and it took a lot of struggle and muscle to pry it open. It slipped from my hands a few times, and when I finally forced it ajar, I slid in and a voice instantly demanded that I shut and lock it again.

When I didn't lock the door, a shotgun cocked.

That was when I deduced I was both dealing with some serious shit and dangerously in a lot of it.

Aiming my Glock ahead of me, I locked the door and started moving forward. The darkness was almost painful and extremely disorienting—it was a challenge to remember where forward and backward were.

After a long, long time of walking, there was a slam from somewhere behind me. Another door.

"There you are," cooed a threatening voice, "so nice to see you, Stella."

My gun shook violently in my hands. The voice was familiar, so familiar, but how so was making me draw a blank. The first thing that hit my head was the color red—a brilliant scarlet, the color of anger. Blood. Remorse.

"Let me guess... you can't remember?"

And then I did.

The clattering of the gun hitting the ground hit my ears before the memory stung my retinas. My heart rate tripled its pace as my entire body began to tingle with an agonizing sense of dread.

Frankie's brother. The sex offender, the murderer. Frankie had said his fraternal twin had gotten the bad genes, and though I'd strongly debated the truth of that statement before, I now was leaning toward the other direction again.

"Jesse," I exhaled.

The only encounter I'd had with Jesse had been scarring on its own. Frankie had gone to get pizza. Jesse had smashed a wine glass and come at me with it, the jagged end nearly gracing my neck, demanding that I get naked or he'd see to it himself one day. Frankie had come back, claiming his brother was mentally unwell (as he always had), so I thought nothing of it.

Oh, God.

"So you do remember," he chuckled. "I thought you would. You're a bright one."

"Jesse," I whispered, trying to keep my breathing steady, "Jesse, listen to me. You don't—"

His hands were on my neck then, hungry boa constrictors squeezing so hard I could almost feel them molding to my trachea. "Don't try that bullshit with me," he suggested in a syrupy voice. "I'm the one with the bomb. And the shotgun... and the cell phone," he added as an afterthought, pulling mine from my pocket.

He eased his vicegrip on my windpipe and I fell to the ground, tasting the oxygen greedily. He pushed my face into the rocks and I felt my nose scream from the pressure. He sat on my back as he dialed.

"She's dead, you know. If you want the body, try her apartment."

Without even asking, I knew he'd called Mac.

He hung up and threw the phone into the empty darkness, and I felt my hope shatter along with it. Brilliant red flooded my vision.

When he stood, air once again inflated my lungs. He mindlessly picked up something else and smashed it—my gun, I assumed.

"Do you know how I felt when you killed Frankie?" he asked casually. "I bet you have no idea what it's like to lose the most important person to you. Too bad you won't feel that today... but at least Detective Taylor will."

My brain flew into overdrive, my heart threatened to pop out of my chest. This had happened so quickly. I should've listened to Mac. He was always right. He knew something like this would happen, but I had assumed it wouldn't.

"But first!" he exclaimed. "There is work to be done."

He dragged me to my feet and punched me hard once in the jaw and once to the stomach. When I doubled over, he kicked my knee—something shattered—and then dislocated my shoulder. All at once. My ability to fight back was limited; no matter how hard I kicked or pushed or screamed the only response was an echo and another blow.

Defeated, my body finally collapsed beneath his fists and sprawled onto the cavelike floor. He removed my clothes violently, leaving me in nothing but a practical pink sports bra. And as he did what he promised so many years ago, I bit my lip and didn't cry. Satisfaction was not his to have. Instead I focused on the pain, so abundant in every cell of my body; and Mac, how easily he'd figure out the fluke tip.

When Jesse was finished, he heaved me to my feet and pushed me against one of the stone walls. My head jarred and my balance gave. I greeted the floor once again. A light sheet drifted atop my back.

"Hope Taylor finds you, Stella," he snickered. "Thanks again."

He pressed a button somewhere off in the distance, and a steady, light beeping began. A countdown. I forced my eyes up, thick with tears and blood, and felt my veins turn cold at the digital 10:00 that clicked down at much too quick of a pace.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes to get myself out of this room, or I would die.

The color red was blurring the edges of my eyes again—not from the blood or the tears, but from the rage. From the agony. From the bittersweet hope that maybe I would die in here instead of force the others to see me like this.

My selfishness made me sick, and I turned and vomited.

Giving up was not an option, however.

As best I could, I dug my fingernails into the rock, inching myself closer to the long hall on my stomach. I promised myself that that was as far as I needed to go, then I would allow myself to sleep.

When I reached for the latch upon finally making it to the door, my limbs screamed in an angered protest. With much difficulty, I forced the door open.

Time passed in slow motion then.

I crawled out the door and pulled the sheet tiredly over my body again. That was when sleep came like a wool blanket, and Mac's face came like an angelic omen.

And in the final moments of consciousness, red took over my sight. An explosive red, a loud red, a painful red. He'll find me, it promised. He always does.