She grabbed it and brought down like Thor's justice on the metaphor of her attempt to escape. She was worth more than a crack whore. Way more. Tons more. Shit crap tons more on a holy cross more. She pummeled his head with the brick blow after blow after furious blow. She wasn't just stopping the fight. She was killing him. She was killing the abstract. She was bludgening her lies and the times she was lied to. She was killing her life.

The cracking on his skull stopped and after a few more blows she was just pounding mush. His body had stopped seizing and there was no opening left on his face that could inhale air to breath.

Then she froze. Her brain seemed to shut down. What could one do when you single handedly create the most physically traumatizing moment in your own life? Her mom was gone. Her father a shell. Now she was broken. What would her mother think of her now? Daddy's girl was a psychopath. She couldn't feel... anything.

When the police arrived they saw her still straddling him with the bloody brick in her hand and when she heard the words to "Drop it" she began shaking and she wanted to break down. She tried to cry. She felt like she needed to show the badges behind her that she was still there. That she was the victim but she was done with all of that. She wasn't the victim anymore. She had killed the maggot of a person between her legs. If no one was going to be there for her when she needed them then she sure as hell better protect herself from being hurt like this again. No one was going to ever hurt her again in anyway.

00000000000

By the time "evidence" had been collected from her body – semen, blood and photo's of needle marks and plastic bags with syringe all placed in a box – she had become fascinated with the process. The questions and how the police and doctors all worked together. She had too. If she focused on how she felt there wasn't going to be any hope of her side being told. She had to focus on what the evidence was telling them. She had been drugged, raped and beaten and she retaliated in self defense. The NYPD was more than sympathetic and she had done them a real favor. Her almost pimp was trafficking drugs, minors and even had a connection with a small terrorist group for moving weapons. They had decided to let her go, miraculously enough, after several hours and a lawyer swooped in. They really didn't want to have to charge her. It was in self defense and honestly the overweight, white tired and old cops interrogating her were corrupt. She had knocked off a competitor to one of their own sources of under the table income. So with five words "You are free to go" she became something else.

She left the building but the process, evidence gathering and stereotypical bad police work stayed with her.

She did go home. It wasn't really a home anymore though. More just a place she could sleep that her dad drank at. She sat on the couch.

Turned on the tv.

Law and Order was on. She watched it. Not a great episode but she was able to figure out who was responsible before the characters did.

She flipped the channels and saw a trailer for a mystery movie. It gave away too much in typical Hollywood fashion and she already knew who the killer was.

An old Sherlock Holmes episode was on. It was shot in the 70's and set in Britain. Not the Robert Downey Jr version. The unmanic interpretation. She watched how he moved and redialed his attention to something no one else saw. She liked it. I could do that. She thought. The nothingness inside her quieted. She felt a little bit. She didn't know what it was. It certainly wasn't joy. It wasn't hate either. She felt intrigued.

She grew bored watching watered down variations of the same who-done-it over and over again and turned the tv off.

How would I do if I was a detective?

00000000000

The concrete she laid on wasn't cold anymore and she heard Castle's voice.

"Beckett!"

She gasped for air. She was still alive. He came back to her.

"Castle! I'm here!"

"Where?"

"I'm on...", she spotted the black 5 on the wall. "I'm on the fifth floor."

She heard his feet stomping and launching his body over the steps.

She was hoping he looked like a character in a romantic comedy racing to his lover to profess his feelings but what she got was Castle panting and panicy.

"Are you..." he leaned over to catch his breath, "...okay?" Not the kind of breathing heavy she wanted from him but it was enough for her log that in her memory for later.

"I think I broke my ankle." It did hurt and she didn't know if she did but the real pain was in her feelings now.

He went to her but his expression changed. "Ankle? You're text-"

She was hanging on his next words. "You're text said you fell down five flights of stairs." She couldn't quite get what he was getting at. "That's why I came back. Because..."

"Castle it was a typo obviously and can you help me get up. I need to get to a hospital."