Genre: Crime, Drama, Family, Romance, Humor
Rating: M for violence, language and sexual situations
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters featured on the show Castle, they belong to the creator of the show, ABC, and the others who do own them.
A/N #1: This is basically a teaser as it's not an excerpt, though I suppose it's a preview of sorts, lol, but it's definitely not a prologue or a chapter. And since this is very short, I'm posting the Prologue right after this is up. And since that's short as well, chapter one will be up in a few hours, to let you readers know!
A/N #2: The title of this story is a lyric from the song The End by The Beatles, from their album Abbey Road. (And in case anyone's worried about it, the title does not insinuate that this is the end of the series!) The title of this teaser is a lyric from the song New Year's Day by U2, from their album War.
All Is Quiet
Pulling herself out of the rushing water, she saw the dull glint of her gun and grabbed her weapon, holstering it as she pulled the man she'd just shot out of the river, getting his arm out of the branch it was caught in. Breathing hard as the man had at least ninety pounds on her, she checked his vitals, feeling his pulse still beating. Looking around her, she listened, anticipating the sound of gunshots to echo in the clearing, and she found herself tense.
Hearing the rustle of the leaves on the ground to her left, she whirled around, her gun drawn, but all it was, was a small animal, departing up a tree. Looking down at the man on the bank, she took a few steps forward, and heard the yell of a name in the distance. She waited for it again, and made out the name Lawrence, filing it away in her memory. Walking slowly towards the cabin, she listened for any sounds that would alert her to Lawrence's presence. But reaching another clearing after a cluster of woods, she saw who she assumed was the man, laying on the dirt, staring unseeingly at the night sky.
It was then she suddenly heard a shouted, "Stay there, I'll shoot!" and she ran toward it, trying not to slip on the muddy ground that was beneath her. But she was too far away, and it took too much time to get back to the cabin. So much so that the shot made her freeze in place, her eyes wide and heart pounding. It took only a moment, and then she was racing, trying to get back.
The earth was damp below her feet, the pounding of her pursuit of no one muffled to her ears. Her heart was hammering and her breath was erratic, beating to the same rhythm as her heart was making. She could see some kind of light in the distance, and as she put on a final burst of energy she ran through the last of the trees to find she was in the front of the cabin.
And she was alone.
In trepidation, she walked to the front door, peering inside but seeing no one. "Carlotta?" she whispered as loudly as she dared to, glancing inside and down the porch as quickly as she could. There was no answer, no noise inside, and she went past the door quickly, turning back to make sure someone hadn't been shadowing her inside.
But there was nothing other than the darkness inside the main room of the cabin, chairs positioned around the kitchen table as the three of them had left them, waiting. The silence of the abode seemed to be doing the same. Waiting.
She went to the edge of the house, a pace that should have been far quicker than the miles she felt she had walked. She felt a prickling at the back of her neck that had nothing to do with the night air on her exposed neck or the breeze that suddenly tugged at her wet clothes. The sound was the only thing she could hear, she only saw darkness. She was tense, her gun at the ready as she finally walked the corner, prepared to find the man shouting and possibly shooting.
There was nothing.
She heard a sudden grunt of what sounded like pain then, around the next corner, and the noise following quickly afterwards of the debris in the back of the cabin on the forest floor being displaced. Muffled yelling and the meaty sound of a punch to the face reached her as she was running as quietly as she could. She paused at the corner to discern the fight, the numbers as they were stacked against them. But she could only hear a one on one brawl and she braced herself to turn and set things in their favor.
The click of the safety made everything freeze in the silence of the summer night.
"You can't… she'll still find you," he said around the corner. "She'll hunt you down and she won't care if you're alive or dead once she sees you."
"How will she when she's dead herself?" the other man said through clenched teeth, apparently in pain.
Taking in those words, Beckett moved, and with her gun aimed, she took in the scene before her yelling, "Drop your weapon now!" voice echoing through the wind that took her words through the woods, racing until it met the river. The rushing water taking the sound and drowning it as everything was quiet there, nothing indicating the standoff beyond the river's banks at the wooden abode, surrounded by the tall, verdant trees.
A shot. Then the silence of the darkness as the night absorbed the sound, everything returning to as it was and had always been.
