First of all, if you haven't seen the Prisoners movie yet, then watch it, because it's awesome. I followed the plot, but this story will focus on Detective Loki, so I left out the Keller Dover storyline entirely. I hope you enjoy, please review, I'd like to know your opinions.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, only my OC.

Chapter 1

A prelude

I did everything to survive those few months while the internal investigation lasted. I went to see movies, went swimming, I even took a dancing lesson just to keep my mind occupied, and not to turn a drunkard – again. It was a very dangerous time for my sanity and painfully achieved sobriety. I was off the bottle for as long as 5 years and I didn't want to screw it up now. They revoked my badge and gun for the time being and I reverted to an ordinary citizen. Life was uneventful and excessively boring for a battle trained agent like myself. In a desperate effort to keep my mind off of all the things that happened – not that forgetting was that easy – I even went back to school, I signed up for an evening class of criminal psychology at Quantico I was always interested in.

The interrogations were almost painful, but in the end, after six months of paid holiday, I was off the hook. The decision didn't give me as much relief as I thought it would. It was me myself after all, and not all the investigators and internal affair agents, who couldn't get my mind off all the little details, and all the clues I missed along the way. I've struggled with nightmares for a long time. My therapist worked hard to get me out of the dark and make me believe that I was not solely responsible for everything. It was a long trip but after 4 or 5 months of sleeping pills, and relentless therapy I got to sleep for the first time without waking up soaked in sweat and frightened. But it was with me all the same, every night and day, and there was no free moment of my life after that, when I did not think about what happened.

However, I thought it would do good to go back to active work. My therapist agreed, but the environment wasn't at all friendly back at the office. There was no trust between me and the others, so I decided to apply for a transfer. It was a tough decision, but when I went to my boss to hand in the paper he seemed pleased. I was less than happy, but admitted that it was indeed necessary; I could not continue work in a hostile environment, where no one would trust me or my abilities anymore and, above all, no one would have any respect for me. I picked my new place by pulling out a map and blindly pinpointing a location with a pencil. It fell somewhere in the west of Pennsylvania, so I chose the field office at Pittsburgh. It was moderately close, not that I had any relations to come back home to. As I found out afterwards, the Pittsburgh office was shorthanded right then, so it was like by faith for the pencil to fall to that area. I needed a few weeks to pack my things for the movers and put the old stuff in a container which I paid for a year in advance. Then I was off, and I never even looked back.

My first few weeks at the Pittsburgh office were quite uneventful. There weren't many cases which needed my help, but I was happy to just spend the days fitting in and doing paperwork. Everyone heard about my little "fiasco" in Washington, and they were wary of me in consequence, but gradually they came to acknowledge my expertise and experiences despite my big failure. On the third week there came a case which was right down my alley, a double kidnapping, in a moderately big town called Conyers. My boss sent me with definite directions as to cooperate with the local police. I did a check up on the police station, and from the news – which travelled a bit faster than official information – I got to know that the case was in the hands of the most successful cop in the area, a Detective Loki. He had an impeccable record, each and every case he got he solved before. I was a little nervous to plunge right back in the middle of work, although I still trusted my instincts. But deep inside I was just as shaken up as six months ago, however much I tried to hide that fact, even from myself.

I arrived at the police station in Conyers almost 5 hours after the girls, Anna Dover and Joy Birch, had been reported missing by their parents. It was a long drive from Pittsburgh, and I had to pack some things before setting out to the cold mountainside. Thanksgiving was almost over. What I knew so far was that the brother of one of the girls, namely Ralph Dover said they have seen an RV parked outside one of the houses, and it was missing after the girls disappeared. Over the night they found said RV and Detective Loki captured the first and so far prime suspect, Alex Jones, who tried to run away when they approached the RV. He was still in custody, interrogated by Loki. When I arrived I went straight to captain O'Malley to introduce myself, then asked to see Detective Loki at once. I wanted to know what he thought about the case so far. I could tell he wasn't in the least pleased to see me, not to mention bothering him in the middle of interrogation. He was a strange spectacle. By what I knew about him I imagined a rigorous, neat, possibly irritating, but above all straight-laced individual, like an honor student, what with his perfect record. As I set eyes on him for the first time I could tell instantly that he was everything, but that. The first thing I noticed about him was his haircut. He wore his hair slicked back, leaving it longer on the top of his head, and cut to inches on the sides. Not the regular police haircut, not that it looked bad on him, or anything. Then there was that star-shaped tattoo on his neck, half covered by the blue shirt he was wearing. He seemed in dire need of a shave and the dark circles around his eyes told me that he's been up all night. He looked me over with the curiosity of a cop, I got the feeling that he could evaluate me as a person just by that first look. Finally his eyes locked onto mine, big, ocean blue orbs, hard and unwavering. His brows furrowed and he blinked hard while extending his hand to me.

'Hello, I'm Special Agent Christina Browning. The Pittsburgh FBI office sent me to help you investigate the case.'

'Loki.' was his introduction. His gruff behaviour didn't make me like him, that's for sure. 'We don't want the FBI here. You can go back and tell them we don't need any help, thank you.'

When he finished he turned around to walk back to the interrogation room. The Captain called him back.

'Come back, right now. I'm sorry, Agent Browning, he didn't mean it.'

Loki turned around reluctantly, he clearly meant it, and we all knew that. We both got the order to cooperate with each other, and now I wasn't happier than him at the prospect of working with him for who knows how long. I had enough of others being reluctant to work with me. Besides, as far as I knew he still could be a dumbass, despite solving all his cases so far. Those cases could've been all petty thefts and vandalism in this area.

'How are you progressing with this Alex Jones?' I asked him, after we went to the interrogation room. I watched the wide-brimmed spectacled kid sitting at the table from behind the one-way mirror, he was worn out and still wet from the rain. He stared blankly in front of himself, and rhythmically rocked back and forth on the chair. He seemed totally out of it, not a glimpse of knowledge or intelligence in his eyes, just complete darkness. It was terrifying in a way. I instantly thought that if he took the kids, he couldn't have been doing it on his own, there was no way he could make them just magically disappear in a few hours.

'I'm getting nowhere. He claims he didn't see the girls playing on his RV. I first thought that he took something, but he just has a very low IQ. It's in his medical records. There's no way we could get any more out of him.'

Loki was now almost compliant, sitting on a table, watching the monitors just like I did. He looked very tired for a second, with his shoulders slumped, and he gave that curious hard blink once or twice. I guessed it was a facial tick of his, probably more apparent when he was tired or worked up. Then he looked at me again with his brows furrowed and I knew something unpleasant was coming.

'Why did the FBI send you? I sure didn't ask for their help.'

'You realise that kidnapping is FBI jurisdiction, right?' I asked him, a bit surprised. 'You don't have to ask, we come either way.'

'So you are taking over the case? Just like this?'

He now seemed a tad bit too angry, he even stood up, and took a step towards me. As he was a good 6 inches taller this was a bit intimidating. I just couldn't get my head around him. Why all this fuss about a sole FBI agent? It's not like we came marching in here with a whole troop.

'Hey, calm the fuck down, I won't take over the case. I'm only here to help you out. I got the order to cooperate with you, so we'll be partners on this one, all right?'

'Partners?' he sneered, like it was the funniest thing he heard this night. 'It's the funniest thing I heard tonight.' he said.

It was hard not to retort.

'This is how it will be until we find those girls.' Hopefully sooner than later, I thought. 'You should get used to it.'

'I don't need a partner, okay? So just don't stand in my way, and we'll be good.'

Now I was the one angry. Just who the fuck did he think I was, some rookie, fresh out of the academy? I wanted to punch him in the face, just to emphasise that I wasn't going to make myself invisible, but I fought the urge. I have learned to take control of my impulsive behaviour over the years. So instead of punching him, I just clenched my hands a few times, counted to ten, and focused on the lad sitting right opposite to us.

'Now listen here, I had dozens of disappearance cases, so I'm no rookie on this. Instead of bitching you should focus, because there are two little girls out the fuck knows where, and their only hope is us to find them, and bring them home, safe. So if you can't put away whatever the hell you got against me, then drop the case right now. I will look for another detective, who can and will work with me.'

I was looking into his eyes, trying to read his reactions, but those cold blue orbs didn't even flinch, and the brows only furrowed deeper. Only the blinking got a bit more excessive, but then it stopped.

'You done?' he asked after a brief, but very uncomfortable silence and staring contest.

'Yes.'

'Good. Let's go down to forensics, see if they have anything which might help.'

Then without another word he walked out the door, expecting me to follow behind. I took a deep breath and decided to only concentrate on finding the two girls, and not get into a cockfight with this obnoxious detective, over something trivial. I saw long and tedious days ahead.

We came back from forensics with jack shit. They couldn't find anything in the RV, or on the RV, or just anywhere near that could confirm that Alex Jones was our man. No trace of the girls. They sent a search team to the woods right after they got Jones, but so far nothing came up. Loki told me that Jones had an aunt, and he lives in her backyard in the RV, so we decided to give her a visit. There wasn't much else we could do anyway. Interrogating Jones further would've been just a waste of time, Loki had already spent hours with him, but to no avail. We arrived at Holly Jones' house just before dawn, but the lights were on inside. I guessed the lady was a lousy sleeper. Loki looked into the car parked right in front of the back door of the house when the lady came out, she must've heard us coming.

'It was my husband's. For sale if you want it.'

She stood by the door, with a dog in her hands, looking at us with a bit of suspicion in her eyes. I didn't want to scare her, so I took out my badge and told her briefly why we came at this time of the night. She seemed shocked at first, then became resigned and sorrowful, but never was incredulous. It seemed that she partly counted on something to go wrong with her nephew, but didn't think it would be this serious. She led us to the boy's room, which was small, with only a few personal things in it. There was a picture of a man, framed and displayed on a nightstand by the window. Loki picked it up, and Holly Jones explained that it was her husband, who took off some five years ago after a fight with her. He never came back. The man was leaning against an RV, probably the same one that Alex Jones was using now, and had long, blonde hair. Hippie era. There was nothing more of importance in the house, but Loki arranged with the forensics to go and search the boy's room, just to be sure. Holly Jones accompanied us out, and we both gave our cards to her, in case anything pops up in her mind later. Usually nothing does.

Back in the car I felt a bit of the tension gone from earlier. I watched Loki from the corner of my eyes as he drove the car, but he never looked over to me. I didn't really mind, I always like to scrutinize people in peace and quiet, if I may. His facial tick wasn't really prominent right now, so he was either sleepy or relaxed. My bet went to the first one. I noticed other tattoos, on his fingers, as far as I could make out they were some astrological symbols, but I could be easily wrong. I decided that as long as he was silent, he was a very attractive man. A work of art, if you like, with those big blue eyes and insanely long eyelashes which became more apparent thanks to the side-light. Even the heavy dark circles under his eyes and the also dark stubble could do nothing to diminish his evident charm.

I suggested we go home for some hours. He didn't really want to, time was of utmost importance of course, but he agreed that we won't be of any use sleepy and exhausted, so we decided to meet at the station again, early morning the next day. He called in to give our positions, and dropped me off at my motel room.

'The FBI couldn't find a better place?' he asked, smirking at me, while I got out of the car.

I shut the door behind me and showed him my middle finger while walking away.

'Night to you too.' he shouted after me from the car with not really covert smugness. I ignored the comment and unlocked my door. He only drove away after I got inside the room. Detective Loki, a true gentleman. The thought made me grin widely.

(I've changed the layout of the chapters a bit, because it seemes better to chop the story up this way.)