I've been wanting to do this for a while. It's sort of out of the ordinary and I got the idea from an episode I watched of Bones. I've got the whole plot planned out but I'm fairly slack when it comes to updating, so stick with me.
Eesh, my nose is so blocked :S. I sound so cliched-ly sick it isn't even funny. Kill me now (no, don't. That would be unkind of you, good sirs).
Disclaimer: I don't own Bones, particularly the episode that I'm basing this on, nor do I own Maximum Ride or Starbucks.
Enjoy :)
Police officer Ricky Broad patrols the quietened but still noisy streets of Los Angeles. Beside him, Officer Ivy Termico gives a yawn.
"I'm dead screwed," she groans. "Is it alright if we grab a coffee for a few minutes? I think I'm about to collapse."
"We've only been on the job for three hours," Broad replies with a skeptical eyebrow raised. He begins to walk once more, already dismissing his partner's idea.
"Come on, Ricky," Ivy Termico whines. "Get that stick out of your ass and loosen up for a minute, will ya?"
To say the least, Termico and Broad were completely different people. Broad was strict, neat and always stuck to the rules; Termico was outgoing, lively and sometimes had a rebellious streak. Broad remains surprised even to this day that Termico got a job with the force two years ago. She was better suited to nightclubs, not patrols.
"You go off and get your coffee," Broad says stonily. "I'm sure there's a Starbucks nearby that'll take you."
"You're not coming?" She sounds put out, but Broad doesn't look at her.
"No. Someone has to do some work around here." When there's silence from her, he shoots her a sharp glance and snaps, "Get a move on!"
Termico glares at him for a second before turning and stalking across the road, making her way down a connecting side street. Broad sighs and rubs his hands over his weary face.
He walks for another minute or so, gun safely tucked in his belt, until he hears a cry. He stops, ears perking and back straightening to attention. He waits, but doesn't hear it again – yet he was sure it was human.
Broad draws his gun and runs down the road, towards where he heard the sound. He peers down side streets and into shadowed crannies until a dark silhouette catches his eye in the even darker darkness of a dead-ended alley. It doesn't move, remaining coiled on the floor. Broad can't even be sure if it's alive. Hell, for all he knows it could just be a pile of rubbish. But he doesn't take that chance.
"Hello?" he calls. "Is anybody there?"
No reply.
He takes a few tentative steps closer, easing his torch from his belt with his free hand. "It's okay," he says as he switches it on low, aiming the dim yellow light at the ground. "I won't hurt you."
He flicks the torch's beam at the silhouette and immediately cocks his gun. It's the blood-soaked body of a person, curled up on themselves. The blood looks fresh so the killer must be near, Broad decides, and aims the gun into the darkness around him, switching his torch to high.
"Come out with your hands up!" he yells. All he gets is an echo of his own voice.
He changes the light of his torch again, settling on medium, before kneeling beside the body. It isn't even stiff yet, and the skin is still the color of flesh rather than the blue-purple of the dead. It's still slightly warm, indicating the recence of the kill. With a slight frown, Officer Broad reaches his hand forward to feel the body's pulse, checking to see if it's certainly dead, when his fingers are grabbed and snapped by a harsh, bony hand. His eyes fill with black spots for a moment with the pain, but the second they fade he gets to his feet only to see the dead body standing, breathing, waving a kitchen steak knife at him and being totally not dead.
Termico scowls as she sips her coffee. Of course he's not going to pick up his phone, she thinks bitterly. His uptight ass is pissed at me. Again.
Not giving up hope, she one-handedly dials once more. She brings the device to her ear, reminded for a second how annoyed she was about the old, dodgy model of Samsung, but the thought slips from her mind as Ricky Broad's voice finally answers.
Termico opens her mouth to speak, but he gets there first. "Ivy, I think you need to be here," he tells her tinnily, "now."
"What's going on?" she asks, immediately in officer-mode. Broad was constantly doubting her, but she did have another side – and that side was what got her the job as his partner, not luck (contrary to popular belief).
"I don't think I can explain. Just make your way here. Get the car and drive here if you have to. Hurry!"
She's already running to where she knows the car is parked, half-empty coffee dropped somewhere on the cement behind her. She can hear Broad's voice on the other end, but she misses his words.
"What was that, Broad?" she pants, the police car coming into her line of sight. She draws her keys from her pocket.
"Call a social worker and reinforcements," he repeats impatiently.
"Why a social worker?"
"I can't communicate with this person. I don't think they understand me."
"'This person'? Ricky, what's going on?"
"Make sure the social worker can sign general ASL. And please, just hurry." He tells her the street he's on and then the phone beeps his hang-up.
Ricky Broad gives a sigh of relief as he hears the tell-tale siren of police cars in range. A second later Ivy Termico is at his side, gun already pointed at the blood-masked, knife-wielding figure ahead of them.
"Don't shoot," Broad warns Termico. "How far away are the reinforcements?"
"A few minutes. Luckily the station isn't too far from here."
Broad nods. "How about the social worker?"
"She'll be with them. Turns out we have a social worker who's part of the police force."
"Well, aren't we lucky," Broad comments drily. A second later, he again tries to reason with the bloody person, but with no result. "Ivy, you try," he says exasperatedly.
Termico glances at him doubtfully, then the person. She takes a deep breath. "Hey," she says softly, pretending she was talking to her wild six-year-old cousin. She knows how you have to act around people like this. "Hey. It's alright. It's okay." She tentatively lowers her gun to the grimy floor and kicks it away, watching it disappear into the shadows, before standing and raising her empty hands in the air. She looks at Broad to do the same, and he grudgingly complies.
"Look, we're not going to hurt you," Termico soothes. "All we want is to help you. Find out where all that blood came from. You won't be harmed."
The person – girl, boy? Kid, teen, adult, elder? – stares back blankly, the skin which wasn't cracking with dried blood covered in a layer of filth. Broad wrinkles his nose subtly.
"Please just put down the knife," Termico pleads quietly. "Please."
The person's blank face seems to flicker for a second, and then the knife begins to lower, slowly, slowly, but snaps back up to attention the second police reinforcements rush to the sides of the two weapon-less officers.
A woman who clearly isn't an officer, with dark bobbed hair and even darker skin, walks ahead of all the police. She doesn't look at them, but calls, "Lower your guns, all of you. Can't you see how scared this poor person is?"
It takes a minute or so for the grudging officers to relinquish their weapons – after all, they had come there to usetheir weapons, not the opposite – but eventually they all have their own hands raised.
The social worker begins to speak – "Steffi," Broad whispers. "Her name's Allis Steffi." – but the grimy figure ahead of her remains blank. Allis Steffi's words don't dawn on the wild eyes of the unknown person.
Allis begins to sign.
Understanding dawns on the feral, blood-soaked figure.
It lowers its knife.
And then the officers jump on the figure and lock its hands in metal cuffs as the worker and Termico scream for them to stop.
Good? Bad? Satisfactory? Let me know in that bright blue review box, will you? (:
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(By the way, if you skip past this and don't review, a scarred, bloody little girl called Cassannandra will show up in your room and bring doom to you for the rest of your life! Hahaha, just kidding - I got you there, didn't I? Lololololol. Oh, chain mail, you never get old.)