Landslide

This story was inspired by the song Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. This is a story focused on Erin but both Hank and Jay are very important to the story with a lot of interaction with other CPD characters.

Chapter 1

Erin was running, no plans of where she would go, she just needed to get out of there. She didn't know what time it was but it must be late, judging by the darkness and the groups of young men watching and calling at her as she moved past them. She finally felt the burning in her legs when she was under a bridge down a street she didn't recognise, her stomach was in knots and her head was pounding. She stopped and leant over to throw up on the side of the road, she couldn't even bring herself to care about the old homeless man watching her from across the road.

She couldn't go home, not when her mom would keep persisting until she broke down and gave her what she wanted.

"We can do this Erin, you don't need anyone but me, I'm your mom."

She wouldn't go back there, not tonight.

She got her phone from her pocket and texted Charlie, he didn't like it if she went over to his place without asking first. He wasn't replying but she started walking to his block of apartments anyway, she thought she was heading in the right direction anyway. As she was walking the cold caught up to her, it was a November night and her thin leather jacket wasn't doing much to keep her warm. She just needed to get to Charlie's, sleep and then she would sort everything else out later.

When she finally arrived at Charlie's apartment she could hear blaring music from the end of the hallway, was he having a party?

She knocked on his door but he didn't answer so she hesitantly opened the door and walked in. The stench of weed was overwhelming but it was the sight of Charlie making out with a random hooker and syringes on the coffee table that sent her hurtling back towards the door. But not before a dealer friend of Charlie's spotted her.

"Charlie!" he shouted to get his attention.

It worked.

Charlie looked around at her drowsily, the confusion evident on his face. Clearly he hadn't received her text and his confusion soon turned to anger.

"What are you doing here?" his voice was slurred and he hadn't even moved from his position on the couch but it was still enough to terrify her.

"I needed somewhere to crash tonight," she admitted with one hand on the door handle, in case either he or one of his more sober friends decided she was in trouble.

"Isn't it a school night?" Charlie's friend, she thinks he is called Chris, sniggered. "How old is this girl Charlie?"

Apparently he didn't like that comment because he started to get to his feet with a ferocious look that was aimed at her.

She wasn't sticking around any longer so she left the apartment and headed down the stairs. She heard him shout after her, but she didn't look back, he would pass out in a minute anyway.

She sat on the cold, wet ground outside of Charlie's apartment block and held back her tears. She hugged her knees and wished for it all to be over, she just wanted a warm, safe bed, was that too much to ask for?

She reached into her pocket and found a card, the one that she'd been given months ago and had intended to throw away until a nagging feeling inside her told her to keep it.

With no pride left in her she entered his number into her phone and called the man that had arrested her four months ago, Hank Voight. It hadn't been their first meeting but apparently it was the first one that made him feel sorry enough for her to give her his card with the instruction that she should call it if she needed any kind of help.

"Hello."

The gruff voice on the other side of the line was almost enough to make her hang up, but desperation beat her.

"Hi," she trembled. "It's Erin, you gave me your card a few months ago, you were arresting me."

All she heard on the other end was a grunt so she decided to continue.

"You said that I could call this number if I was in trouble," she took a deep breath. "I'm in trouble tonight and need somewhere to crash."

There was a brief pause when she was certain that he was going to reject her and tell her to go somewhere else but then he spoke.

"Where are you?"

She let out a deep sigh of relief.


"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

She didn't turn her gaze away from the window. Watching the streetlights was distracting her and that was all she wanted right now.

"You can give me the silent treatment all you want but I have a wife at home who I have to answer to, so do us both a favour and tell me why you called me at 1:30 in the morning."

"I had an argument with my mom and can't stay there anymore," she disclosed. It was the truth, just not the whole truth. "I just need somewhere to stay tonight, tomorrow I'll find somewhere else, I swear."

Hank squinted at the oncoming traffic.

"Let's just get through tonight."

She nodded and let her eyes close lightly, telling herself it would just be for a minute but the next thing she knew, she was sleeping soundly in Hank Voight's car.


It wasn't Hank's voice that eventually woke her up but the voice of a woman, she assumed his wife. Apparently the walls in this house were paper thin.

"Does she go to school?" the voice downstairs asked. "She's late if she needs to go to school."

Then she heard Hank's voice, "I don't think school is her priority today."

She looked at her surroundings, she was in her clothes from last night, minus her leather jacket, and she appeared to be in the Voight family's spare room.

"So what are her priorities today?"

Deciding that she wasn't going to listen to them argue over her any longer she got out of the bed and headed down the stairs.

They were both staring at her as she reached the bottom.

"Morning Erin," Hank said to her as he sat on the couch with a cup of coffee in hand, reading the paper.

She just nodded at him and stood awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs.

Camille seemed less comfortable with her being there but still went out of her way to offer her breakfast which she declined.

"I should go now anyway," she muttered and headed towards the door.

"Where are you going?"

It was Hank that had stopped her, Camille had disappeared into the kitchen at the back of the house.

"I don't know, school?" she suggested, even though she had no intention of going to school.

"What the school that you haven't been to in two weeks?" he questioned.

"You did a background check on me?" she fired back.

It was like a competition to see who would break first. It was Hank that eventually broke the silence.

"You're going to sit down and have breakfast and then you're going to tell me exactly what happened last night and what your plans are from here."

Her stomach rumbled, she couldn't deny that she needed food. Besides who knew when she'd next be able to eat when she left the Voight's.

She sat on the couch next to Hank and stared at the floor, waiting for him to say something else to her.

"You're seventeen now, right?"

The question took her a bit off-guard but she nodded in affirmation.

"Your attendance at school so far this year hasn't been great, considering you're a senior and all. This is the year you should be taking things seriously."

"Not always easy to go to school when your mom is overdosing on the bathroom floor every other week," she stated dryly.

"It didn't stop you before."

She didn't know how to answer that, or maybe she did but she wasn't going to.

"Is your mom still with Steve?" he continued when she didn't answer him. "He works at a garage right?"

She nodded and swallowed down the bile that was building up in her throat.

"Do they know where you are?" he asked her, the detective side of him was clearly interested in interrogating her.

"No, my mom probably thinks I'm at Charlie's," she admitted.

"Your boyfriend?" he questioned and then grunted at her response of a shrug and a lowered gaze.

"He's out of town, otherwise I'd stay with him," she lied smoothly.

He nodded for a moment, she couldn't tell whether he knew she wasn't telling him the truth or not.

"Are you going back to your mom's tonight?"

She didn't know whether to lie again at this point, she decided he could and would find out if she was lying about this.

"No, we had a fight and she told me I can't live there anymore."

That was mostly truthful. Her mind flashed back to that moment just twelve hours earlier.

"I don't want to mom," she cried as her mom yelled at her. "I can't do this anymore."

"If you're going to live in my house, eat my food, use my electricity then you do what I tell you to do."

"Then I'll leave."

"Go ahead."

Camille returned with some buttered toast and handed it to Erin cautiously. She was beginning to feel like Camille had not been on board with Hank's 'if you need anything' offer.

"It's okay, I'll go as soon as your husband stops interrogating me."

She watched Camille give Hank a side-eyed glare.

"You don't have to leave, Erin."

She didn't stop eating to look at Hank, even though he had clearly spoken directly to her.

"Hank's right, we talked this morning and if you want to get out of your mom's life, if you want a fresh start then we're willing to help you out," Camille spoke kindly.

And there it was, the chance she'd been waiting for her whole life, the chance to escape the life she'd been born into. She'd always dreamed of this moment, going to live in a clean house, not having to worry about drug dealers beating down the door while she slept, being wanted. But could she give it all up? She'd spent her entire life making sure her mother stayed alive, only to ultimately follow in her footsteps with her toxic relationship with Charlie. Were they really offering to get her out of it all? And then there was everything else that Hank and Camille didn't even know about.

At her hesitance, Hank spoke up.

"Why don't we just deal with today and then make any big decisions another day?"

She smiled hesitantly but gratefully. Living with Hank and Camille, two virtual strangers was terrifying but at this point it was seeming like her only option. At least for now, there's no way this arrangement would last long, not when they found out why she really left her mom.


Thanks for reading!