A/N: So insanely surprised and overwhelmed (as always) in the interest of this story. Me: *thinks fandom is dead*. Fandom: "Bitch, you thought..."
Thanks for all the support. Lord knows I need it to keep my inner-bitchy side at bay. Keep those thoughts coming. I like beating the crap out of my inner critic with your words.
Note: Semi-graphic content, nothing near as graphic as the first chapter.
Chapter 2:
The Detective
The brunette detective watched the CSI's gathering the forensic evidence. It was somber, but there was a strange poetic art to it. The meticulous way they reviewed the evidence. The imagination needed to pursue the truth. They recreated the scene like someone blocking a stage in a theater production.
It was a true art form, though it was morbid to think of it as any kind of art. But it required a particular diligent and thorough skill-set that not everyone possessed. The job itself was artistry. The blood and evidence told a story. It talked to the people who knew how to listen to it. The detectives couldn't do their jobs without that artistry.
Emily Fields was inside the grid drawn around the deceased watching evidence being collected. Hair. Blood. Skin samples. She was close enough to see the fully exposed body. It was odd. In a way, it felt like a cat leaving its owner a present.
A killer, trying to teach them how to hunt. Just like out in the wild.
The murder had been brutal. There had been a struggle, but there were no defensive wounds.
Tied down.
She knew enough to know that he wasn't killed on-site. There wasn't nearly enough blood. She could see that he'd died with fear in his eyes. There was no mistaking his terror. He'd been alive. The process had been slow.
Was it personal?
She looked at the corpse, trying to see what the medical examiner had seen. Their medical examiner doubled as a forensic pathologist at a local hospital. The quirky young woman had already come and gone. She would do the official autopsy later.
"You okay?" A warm hand on her shoulder.
Toby Cavanaugh. Her adoptive big brother for all intents and purposes. Her partner in the streets and her best friend.
"Yeah. I'm fine." Emily shook his hand off of her shoulder, which told him that she was indeed not fine. She kneeled down next to the body. "We got an ID yet?"
One of the other officers on the scene glanced at his notebook.
"Ian Thomas. Male…" There was a slight hesitation as they looked at his mangled corpse with its missing appendage. "Thirty-two year old stockbroker."
"A stockbroker? Damn, he owe the mafia money or something?" Toby snapped an image of the scene for their file.
Emily snorted out a laugh. Toby fancied himself as some kind of dark comedian, which is one of the reasons she loved him.
"Tony Soprano in Rosewood?" She peered at him, an amused look on her face. "I hardly think Rosewood has a mafia, and even if we do I highly doubt they'd display their kills out in the open like this."
Gangs and mobsters tended to follow the swim with the fishes code of conduct when it came to disposing of bodies. It was fun to think about a gangster mob in Rosewood though.
"Could you imagine if that was really the case? Mazolli's Italiano restaurant being a cover?" It was one of her favorite places to eat. It was real authentic Italian. "I would totally put up with their crimes for their Stuffed Shells and Fettuccine Alfredo." She smiled.
Was it okay to be amused right now? She'd lost track of what was okay and what wasn't okay.
"It's their Meat Lovers Lasagna for me. I'd tell them to go forth and Mafia the city up to their pleasure for that." Toby turned his head, looking at the body from a different angle. "I guess the Mafia wouldn't pose the bodies though."
"Definitely not. They're clean. A bullet. A body bag. Cement. The ocean." Cut and dry.
"You know what this means, right? This is the third body in two months." Toby shifted on his feet. "Once is a happenstance. Twice is a coincidence. But a third time…"
"Is a pattern." Emily finished for him, tracing a gloved finger against the soil around the body. It was completely undisturbed. It was impressive.
Someone really knows what they're doing here.
Of course, that someone had years of experience, so it wasn't a shock.
Toby lowered his phone and took a step outside the cordoned off area, careful not to interfere with the CSI's work.
"He's back." There was a quiet intensity in his voice, an itching desire to dig into the most prominent serial killer case in the state.
The Scarlett Letter Killer was one of Rosewood's most infamous cases. They were working to link SLK cases back to the other cases over the years. There were clear connections to murders dating back almost 15 years, before they had given the killer a name. The original detective on the case had since retired.
It was a cold case left unsolved.
That had always irked Emily and Toby. It was personal for them.
"Don't say he." Emily stood up.
It was common practice to refer to killers as the perp or they. If they set a certain idea in mind of the gender of the killer they could easily miss something. They had to be open to all possibilities.
"Statistically speaking…" Toby trailed off as he took a picture of the ground before backtracking his steps over to Emily.
"I know." Emily pressed a palm to her head, "Middle-aged white male."
"God, I hate white men." Toby sneered at his pasty white skin.
One of the CSI's, a young black man, snickered.
"You and me both, brother." He dropped a hair follicle from the body into a bag.
Emily felt torn, because she wanted to throw her head back and laugh at his self-deprecating absurdity, but they were looking at a dead body who'd had his appendage chopped off.
An appendage…that Emily noticed…didn't seem to be anywhere in sight. It was clearly somewhere else. A trophy for the killer perhaps?
"Signature is different than older cases." Toby leaned over the body to observe the cut on his face. "Could be a copycat."
"Signature is evolving." Emily stared at the slashes in Ian's cheek.
She'd seen that signature up close way before she'd become a detective on the case. Emily felt a heavy weight in her chest. She saw a flash of her history, a sea of blood she'd been swimming in since she was nineteen.
She had gotten an eerie feeling that day. She hadn't been able to explain it. But she had that exact same feeling now.
If it was the same person it was someone who had been killing for a very long time. The bodies they knew about probably weren't the only bodies the killer had racked up.
"It's our perp." Emily was certain. She stared at Ian's naked body. The nudity and mutilation were not entirely new factors. The first body had been mutilated, too, but not to the extent that Ian's body had been mutilated. The newer kills were a bit more extreme. So were the presentations of the bodies. "They're escalating."
"Yeah, and in a wild way." Toby shone his light against the hole where the man's penis should have been.
The crime scene investigators hadn't had any luck at finding the body part.
Emily thought maybe she'd give it a go.
"I'm going to take a look at the grounds." The determined young detective grabbed her flashlight.
"Be careful." Toby's brow furrowed in concern.
Emily had been off-kilter since the first body had turned up. It had drudged up old memories for her. Toby was worried about how she was handling it.
She had gone through a lot. She'd seen her first dead body at a fragile nineteen years of age. Too young to be scarred for life for a promising young college student. Nearly a decade had gone by, but that night was still clear as day in his mind.
He had been the first officer on the scene. He was a rookie with no experience who had been thrown into the deep end. In his twenty two years of life he'd never seen anything like the gruesome horrors he'd witnessed that night.
Images flashed through his mind.
The blood. The smell.
God, that smell.
It had been his first experience with dead bodies, too. But he'd tried to hold it together for the younger woman.
He could still hear her sobbing. He could still see her holding the lifeless body in her arms. The pain that he'd felt radiating off of her still haunted him.
That night had been pure hell for both of them. So when Emily showed up on his front porch in tears two days later he'd broken every law in the book and tossed the 19-year-old a beer.
He offered to let her stay with him if she wanted. He had inherited his mother's house after she died, and he lived alone.
Emily settled in for a week. She'd tried going home after that, but it was too much for her, so he'd extended her stay. He wanted her to be somewhere that felt safe to her.
She'd struggled in the following weeks and months. She'd dropped out of school and had a hard time finding her footing. When she turned twenty she started drinking heavily to drown out the pain.
Toby would always go and pick her up. He'd ask for her to hand over her fake ID. She always did, but then she'd end up with another one.
It wasn't until she drank so much bourbon that she'd almost died of alcohol poisoning that he finally took her to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
He was diligent in making sure she was taking care of herself.
She'd gone on a few binges, but nothing that she hadn't been able to come back from. She was sharp. She was present. She had never officially been deemed an alcoholic. She didn't need it to survive, but she craved it when her thoughts were too loud.
She leaned on alcohol when she couldn't cope, but beyond that she didn't have to have it. It was a weird in-between world, because she wasn't quite an addict, but she also had a dependency on it. It was like she was on the edge of a steep hill and the only thing keeping her in place was the determination to do her job. She was mentally digging her heels in and fighting the uphill battle.
Any time she thought about losing herself in a bottle she forced herself to remember waking up in the hospital after having her stomach pumped. She thought about the pain she'd seen in Toby's eyes. It hadn't taken much to scare her straight.
After that she'd decided to straighten up and fly right. She asked Toby about becoming a cop. After they'd had a talk about it, she decided exactly what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
She wanted to hunt killers.
Which is exactly what she was doing as she slowly walked through the dark woods.
She had no idea how close she was to the figure watching her in the black night. A shadowy ominous feeling washed over her. In a strange way, she felt drawn to the the darkness.
She moved her flashlight around in a semi-circle, searching the area. There was no indication that anyone was there, but she still felt something. She sensed a presence, but oddly it wasn't something that made her want to reach for her gun. It was as if someone was hovering over her, protecting her.
I am losing my damn mind.
Only...she wasn't. Her senses were as sharp as ever. But the person watching her was much sharper. Hiding in the darkness was a specialty of sorts when it came to survival in a dangerous game.
Emily concentrated on all the previous scenes, about all the details that went into the way the bodies were displayed.
Since the killings had started up again things had been different. She couldn't help but think about the new elements. For some reason it felt like it was personal. Like someone was trying to tell her something.
She trekked along the ground carefully, looking for any evidence that might have been missed. Whoever had done this had been careful not to leave a trace behind. It was actually a testament to the perpetrator's diligence.
Intelligent.
Clean.
Attention to detail.
Emily took mental notes as she walked deeper into the woods, further away from the crime scene.
No footprints. The ground is undisturbed. No dragmarks.
How had this person gotten in?
After a few seconds it hit her.
The river.
She pushed further into the woods, following the sounds of the water. She stopped at the riverbank. It was impossible to tell for sure, but she thought she saw a murky footprint at the water's edge. It was a long shot. A small smudge in the Earth. She knew it was probably nothing, but she took her phone out to document it anyway. She angled the flashlight towards the ground and snapped several photos.
She searched the ground for clues, but came up empty. Whoever it was had covered their tracks.
Her brain felt like it was short-circuiting. None of the evidence matched her theory that the killer had used the river for cover.
The body wasn't wet.
Unless…
They used something to protect their work. The art of the display is important to them. They are trying to tell a story.
It was something worth noting.
She put her phone up and looked around. The darkness was something she was familiar with, but there was something eerie about the black night sky tonight.
The woods felt like they had eyes. She shook off the feeling of being watched and walked back towards the scene, the rushing water becoming a white noise in the background.
As she neared the open area of trees leading back to where the tent and flood lights were set up she felt a nauseous wave of familiarity.
That night.
She saw dark spots in her eyes.
A sea of blood.
The bodies.
Her screams.
Emily closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to focus.
Blood soaking into her jeans.
The smell of rotting flesh.
She felt her lungs begging for more air. Her breathing sped up.
Calm down.
But the visions wouldn't stop.
A bottle of bourbon. Two bottles. Three.
Blinding hospital lights.
After everything she'd gone through she couldn't believe she still wanted a drink.
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change.
She gripped her fingers into her palms, turning her knuckles white.
The courage to change the things I can.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
And the wisdom to know the difference.
She put her hand against the trunk of a tree, dragging it against the rough surface. It centered her. It reminded her that she had control.
The tree was real. Her thoughts and anguished memories were just a moment in time. When she opened her eyes the thoughts would be gone. But the tree would be there.
Her phone buzzed, shocking her back into reality.
Emily felt around in her pockets, padding her pants for it. She pulled it out and saw her mother's name on the screen.
Pam Fields.
Emily wasn't exactly close to her mother. They didn't speak often. But before her dad died she'd made him a promise.
"Once a week."
If anything were to ever happen to him she would look after her mother once a week. It usually entailed dinner. Pam tried. She'd tried over the years to reconcile the damage, but Emily was still hurt by her actions.
Before Emily had held a dead body in her arms the worst thing she'd ever experienced was coming out to her parents.
Sometimes she felt guilty for believing at the time that she would never experience a pain deeper than she had when she came out. Though the pain of what followed still didn't lessen the heartbreak she'd felt when her parents found out she was gay.
It was a defining moment in her life. A moment that had shaped her in many ways.
A moment that had subsequently made her into the woman she was that very day, because of and in spite of her mother breaking her heart, soul, and spirit.
o ~ O ~ o
~ Then ~
She was twelve years old when she realized she liked girls. She was scared and alone with her feelings. Her parents had always told her they could talk to them about anything, but she couldn't talk to them about this.
So for four years she kept it hidden. She even pretended to like boys sometimes so her parents wouldn't get suspicious. She had even dated a guy her her freshman year in high school. It had ended in a huge mess after he'd tried to push her into doing something she didn't want to do.
It felt horrible to lie to everyone, to live that way. She hated living in constant fear of her parents finding out. She had done a lot of psychological damage to herself over the years suppressing her feelings.
She'd told her dad first. She didn't want to, but he'd backed her into a corner. He'd been pressing her, asking her why she was acting so strange and why she was shutting them out.
Emily didn't know her mother had been listening in the hallway. Her dad didn't know that either, not until the older woman had cornered him in the living room.
Emily heard the raised voices ten minutes later. She knew exactly what they were arguing about. She should have just stayed in her room. Then she never would have heard what her mother said.
Instead, she'd crept to the top of the stairs, hopeful that her father could talk some sense into her mom.
"It's a sin." Her mother's voice was shaking, though Emily couldn't tell if it was confusion, disgust, or anger. Perhaps all three. "An abomination."
Emily felt like she'd been sucker-punched. She curled in on herself. She wanted to die. The woman who had given birth to her, who had rocked her as a baby, who had kissed her head every night and told her how much she loved her was calling her a deviant. A mistake.
It more than just stung. It was a pain that cut so deep she was certain she would bleed to death from it.
"She is still our little girl." Her dad, standing strong for her.
Her eyes bristled with tears. She felt like she was going to choke on the sobs she was holding back.
There was a pause and then,
"You know I didn't mean her, Wayne. I meant this." Emily could practically see her mother gesturing her arm in no general direction. "Whatever this…experimentation is." A frustrated sigh. "This goes against everything the Bible teaches."
The Bible. The fucking Bible. She's choosing a flight of fancy over her own flesh and blood. How is that just? What kind of God would want that?
"What are we going to do?" Her voice was despondent, as though her daughter hadn't just come out, but like her daughter was dead.
"Do?" Wayne seemed taken aback. "This isn't like buying her braces and fixing her teeth. This isn't something that can be fixed. This is who she is!"
"What happened to you? What happened to your values? Did you lose them out there in the desert somewhere?"
Emily could her hear pacing the floor. She imagined her mother's arms crossed, her face screwed into a confused expression.
Her comment was out of line and Wayne let her know it,
"She is alive." A growl in his voice. A protective father standing in the line of fire for his baby girl, "Alive counts for a lot, believe me. After the things I've seen out there…" He rubbed his head and sighed. "She is struggling with this. I can see it in her eyes."
"She is 16 years old. It's absurd. She's a child! She can't know what she wants."
"What are you saying?" Anger. Frustration. Exasperation. Emily couldn't tell who his emotions were directed towards.
"This is not who she is. This is who someone is making her in to." Her mother was irritated, but she was irritated at the wrong person. "That girl. That Maya girl from California. It has to be her."
That was the point where Emily finally cracked. Her mother was blaming her girlfriend. Her sweet free-spirited Maya.
That's not fair, mom! She'd wanted to scream, but she was stunned into silence. Stunned by her mother's rejection. Stunned by her bigotry. Stunned that a woman could stop loving her child over something as simple as sexuality.
It was too much.
She scrambled away from the top of the steps and disappeared into her room, unable to bear listening to any more of her mother's hatred. Her heart could only take so much.
She stumbled and fell to the floor near her bedroom door, certain her parents had heard her, certain they now knew she had been listening.
She hadn't heard the rest of the conversation. She hadn't heard her mother's fears, though it wouldn't have made things any better.
"She heard." A horrified expression washed across Pam's face.
Wayne's eyes were fixed on the bottom of the stairs. His child was hurting, and he was conflicted, because it was his wife who had hurt her.
"This is exactly why she didn't come to us." His expression was hard. He didn't get angry often, but when he did his entire demeanor changed. His arms tensed. He squared his jaw. "You know, she told me she was afraid of us. And now I understand why."
He looked at her in a way that made her feel an immense amount of shame.
"Wayne…" Her lips trembled. "I'm scared, too. What is this going to mean for her going forward?" She lowered her head, tears in her eyes.
The man softened, remembering that they'd been raised with different values and that she was confused and upset and battling her entire belief system. It didn't make her reaction okay, but he understood where she was coming from.
"Nothing has changed. She's still our daughter." Wayne's large calloused hand touched his wife's side.
"I know." A desperate sigh. "I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about the rest of the world. People are cruel. People will jump at the chance to hurt her. I hear the horrible things people say. The things…the things they do."
The Bible spoke of homosexuality as a sin and she didn't like their lifestyle, but Pam was never unkind to people who were gay. The problem was that she'd seen others who were very very unkind.
"That young boy. The seven-year-old who wore dresses to school…his classmates strung him up and killed him for being different. I can't fathom that happening to Emily."
Wayne closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her.
"It's not like she hasn't been bullied before…faced racism and hatred because of the way she looks. We all have."
They'd all seen hate because of their appearance. There was only one other Asian family in Rosewood. Their family stood out in numerous ways. They had faced their fair share of hate.
"People are so cruel." Tears trickled down Pam's face. "I don't want a hard life for her. She's my baby." She laid her head against his shoulder. He put his hand on the small of her back. "People are taunted…tortured and killed for being…" She couldn't say the word. It wasn't real to her yet. "I don't want her to get hurt."
"She can take care of herself. She's tough. Trust me, we taught her well. She's a survivor."
She's a survivor. Words that would carry Emily throughout her life. He'd told her more than once that she could survive anything.
He felt Pam let out a heaving sigh. He pulled back.
"I'm going to go talk to her." He wiped the tears from his wife's cheeks.
Now both of his girls were upset. And he didn't like it.
"It should be me." Pam stopped him.
But when her mother knocked on her bedroom door Emily buried herself under her covers and refused to answer.
"Emmy? Can we please talk?"
Emily covered her head with a pillow, drowning out the sounds of her mother's soft knocks. She had nothing to say to her.
"Listen, I know you heard your father and I talking…"
Emily reached for her earbuds and pushed them into her ears and turned on her rock playlist. She put the pillow back over her head.
She didn't hear her mother speaking to her through the door for the next fifteen minutes. She wouldn't have cared even if she had.
She had cried herself to sleep that night, but she didn't stay asleep for long.
She tossed and turned for an hour.
When she woke up she couldn't bear the thought of being under the same roof as someone who thought she was an abomination.
In the cover of the dark night she snuck out of her house and ran to Maya's place.
Maya was waiting for her, sitting underneath the light of the porch. She stood up when she saw her approaching.
Emily momentarily forgot her pain. She was struck by her girlfriend's beauty. She was small in stature, but big in heart. She held herself as if she was always excited about something. The porch light bounced off her thick natural black coils, a beautifully full lustrous head of hair. Her light brown skin was practically glowing in the moonlight.
Her arms were open and waiting when Emily reached her. They hugged and then Maya took her hand and quietly led her inside. Her parents were already asleep so she took Emily up to her room.
She held the brunette as she cried, stroking the back of her head. She assured her that her mom was just in shock and being a bitch because of it. She assured her that her mother still loved her.
Emily wasn't so sure.
When she settled, Emily kissed her, though she could barely catch her breath from all the sobbing she'd been doing. To feel unloved by a parent was the worst pain any child could ever experience.
When the kisses heated up and Emily begged Maya for more Maya gently pulled away. She touched Emily's face, still damp from her tears.
Maya shook her head, refusing to take advantage of her emotional state.
"Not like this."
That was all she said before pulling Emily into her arms and laying down with her. She raked her fingers through her hair until the brunette fell asleep in her arms.
o ~ O ~ o
Emily stared at her mother's name and contact photo on her screen. The photo was one from Emily's childhood. It showed a glowing woman holding her baby. Emily was probably two in the photo. She was nuzzled against her mother's bosom.
She'd chosen it to remind her that despite her faults, her mother had loved her with all of her heart once.
After a few seconds of letting the call ring she sent it to voicemail. She couldn't handle trying to talk to her while she was in the middle of an active crime scene.
She walked back towards the flurry of activity. The coroner van had arrived to take the corpse away. The CSI's were still collecting evidence.
Her phone buzzed again.
1 New Voicemail.
Emily shoved her phone in her inner coat pocket. The pain of her mother's rejection still hurt her over a decade later. She'd apologized, and had eventually come to accept her daughter, but Emily still harbored a lot of resentment towards her.
Her torrid relationship with her mother was a different contrast to the way she felt about her father. Since the day she was born she'd been a daddy's girl. She loved him. She looked up to him. She idolized him.
His death had hit her hard.
It had hit her mother hard, too. Emily thought her mom was going to have a heart attack when they got that knock on the front door. Her mother had crumpled, wailed. She'd never seen the older woman fall apart like it before. She'd always been so composed. But that day, it had been Emily who had picked her up off of the floor and curled her arms around her as Pam screamed and howled in pain.
A wave of sympathy washed over Emily. She had lost her father, but her mother had lost her life partner. Someone who had a history with her mom long before she was born. She'd lost the other half of her heart. Emily knew what that felt like.
She pulled her phone out and pulled up her text thread with her mother,
Can't talk. At an active scene. Love you. Call you later.
An almost immediately reply of,
Be careful, Em. I love you, too.
She put her phone away and then looked up at the night sky, barely visible through the thick trees.
I'm trying, dad. I really am. Just…be patient with me.
Emily's determination to serve on the force came partially from her father. He'd been a Major General in the army.
The other part of her determination was for vengeance…
Not vengeance. She quietly closed her eyes and corrected herself. Justice.
She had to remind herself…just as doctors took an oath, officers of the law did the same. But it was hard to stay neutral considering what she'd seen all those years ago.
She'd been the one who found them both, drowning in a sea of blood. His body was positioned in prayer, like he was repenting. The other was different. The killer had clearly taken her time with the boy. But not the other body…
She cringed, thinking of her as a body.
She wasn't posed at all. She'd been strangled to death and her neck had been snapped. In fact, it was a sloppy kill. Like she wasn't supposed to be there.
She shouldn't have been there.
Emily sighed, fighting back emotions she'd put behind a wall nearly a decade ago, choking back tears. Almost ten years had gone by, but she hadn't forgotten a single second of it. It lingered in her memory like a leech sucking the life out of her.
o ~ O ~ o
~ Then ~
What stuck with her the most about that night was the smells. The floral arrangement of red and white roses smelled distinctly different. The whites were sweeter. The reds were crisp. She'd never in her life bought a bouquet before. That was more her mother's thing. But she'd bought them for her that night.
She stared at Lyndon's front door.
After their fight Maya told Emily she was going to stay with her cousin Lyndon. He was the drummer in her band. Maya was the lead vocalist. She had a beautiful singing voice.
Emily regretted arguing with her. It had been a stupid fight and Emily felt childish for fighting over something so trivial.
She'd been upset with Maya for wanting to tour the country with the band. They had discussed going to college together first. Emily wanted to go into sports medicine. Maya was going to study music.
But then a shady little agent that Emily didn't trust had breezed into town and promised Maya the world. The entire deal sounded really sketchy to Emily.
But Maya liked to take chances. Emily had cautioned her to be careful. That was how the fight started.
"What's this really about, Em?" Maya's tone was terse, accusatory.
"I'm just saying, if something feels too good to be true…" Her dad had taught her all about grifters. She could spot a con-man a mile away.
She'd always been good at judging people. Reading them. Profiling them. It's why she'd make a hell of a detective one day.
"I thought you'd be happy. I thought you wanted to get out of this town." Hand on her hip, popping it out.
She's annoyed.
"I do." Emily didn't like arguing with her.
"So…come with me." Maya took her hands, ever so gently. She was soft like that. She was fierce in all aspects of life, but she was soft with Emily.
"What?" Emily faltered over the request.
"You could be my groupie." Maya bounced on her feet and twirled around, lifting Emily's arm up so she could spin underneath it.
"I…I can't just drop everything and leave." Or could she?
No. She couldn't. Her parents had certain expectations and she was expected to meet them. Mr. and Mrs. Perfect Military.
"I have obligations."
"School can wait. This is the opportunity of a lifetime." Maya swayed, their hands swinging between them.
Maya couldn't see how dangerous this con-man was, and it scared Emily.
"I don't trust him." A sour look washed across Emily's face.
Maya dropped Emily's hands and stared at her.
"Look, I love you, but this is my dream. I expected a little support. Why can't you meet me in the middle here?"
"Because it's not a dream." Emily tried to broach it carefully. "It's a scam. I've read about them…"
"You don't believe in me?" She looked hurt.
"No…My…of course I do." She reached for Maya's hands, but the smaller girl turned away from her. "Come on, don't be mad."
Maya slowly turned around.
"It just upsets me that you don't think that I could have gotten the attention of someone on my own merit…that you think this is just some grifter…"
"I don't think that at all." She tried to reach for Maya's hand again, but hesitated. "I believe in your talent. I just have a hard time trusting other people not to take advantage of that talent."
There was a beat.
Maya sighed. She tentatively took Emily's hand again.
"I can't stay. I'm not built to stay. I have to get out there. See the world." She always got agitated staying in one place for too long. She'd moved a lot when she was younger. She'd been in New York, Virginia, and California before her parents settled in Pennsylvania.
"I thought we were going to do that together." Emily reached up and dragged her fingertip gently beside Maya's ear. "We were supposed to go to school and then do those things together…"
"Life isn't set in stone. I don't want to stay. There is nothing for me here."
"Am I not a good enough reason to stay?" She dropped Maya's hand, stung by the insinuation.
"Don't take it like that. You know I love you." Maya's delicate palm landed softly on Emily's cheek. "Which is exactly why you should come with me."
Her warm palmed caressed the brunette's hot angry cheek.
"That's not going to work this time, Maya." Emily closed her eyes, trying not to focus on what Maya's touch was doing to her. She would do anything Maya asked her when she was touching her. "This isn't right. I can feel it in my gut. Please listen to me. Please." She curled her fingers into Maya's hand by her side.
Maya pulled back. She shook her head.
"You're wrong about this." She dug her heels in. "I'm really disappointed in you."
Heat rushed to Emily's face. A swelling anger built up inside of her body. She clenched her fists at her sides.
"You're disappointed in me?" She snapped. "You're the one being unreasonable here! You're taking off on me for some stupid scam!"
"Whatever." Maya flippantly tossed her hand in the air. "When did you become so extra?"
"This could be dangerous!" Her voice was on the verge of shrieking. God, she sounded like her mother. "Please don't do this." She grabbed Maya's hand, tugging on it. "I have always put you first. Can't you put me first just this once?"
The jumbled words in her head came out a lot harsher than she meant for them to.
Maya recoiled.
"This sounds like an ultimatum."
Emily stared quietly at her.
"And don't you dare tell me I don't ever think of you. I let your mother hate me instead of you!" She turned her cheek so Emily wouldn't see how hurt she was by Pam's rejection.
"My mother doesn't…"
"Your mother hates me, Emily!" She was yelling now. "She hates me because she can't hate you! I have been with you in this since the very beginning. I waited for you when you weren't ready to come out. I gave you space to find out who you really are! I took the heat for you so you didn't have to! And for you to stand here and say that I don't care about you…"
"I didn't mean it like that. I…"
"I think I'm going to stay with my cousin for a while."
Before Emily could stop her she'd turned on her heels and was walking away. Emily was torn between chasing her or storming off in the opposite direction. In the end, she chose neither. She just stood there, dumbfounded.
She spent the next several hours wishing she'd gone after her. Years later she would still blame herself for not following her immediately.
She drove out to Lyndon's house that night, but she didn't get out of the car. She'd parked a few houses away, waiting to see signs of life, waiting to see Maya walk out. She didn't see anything. The shades were drawn and the house looked empty.
Emily wondered if Maya had already taken off with Lyndon and the band.
But she wouldn't leave without saying goodbye, would she?
She sat in the car for nearly an hour. The guilt of doing nothing that came later would haunt her for the rest of her life. Because had she just walked up to the door...had she just gone inside...things would have turned out so differently.
Instead, she decided to let Maya cool off.
She drove home in tears. She was furious. And heartbroken. And furious that she was heartbroken. She hated the way they'd left things.
She spent the entire night sulking.
The next morning she'd tried to call Maya.
Maya didn't answer.
She tried all day until finally all her calls were going straight to voicemail. She tried texting, but got no response.
Emily had never had a real fight with Maya before. It was sobering in all the wrong ways.
She couldn't lose her.
That's how she ended up on Lyndon's doorstep two days later, holding the flowers and awkwardly shifting her weight from foot to foot. She rang the bell and eagerly awaited an answer.
As she stood there staring at the house a strange sensation washed over her. There was a chill in the air. A weird tingling feeling prickled up her spine.
Something is wrong.
Her instincts were rarely wrong.
She knocked and then rang the bell again.
The house was completely quiet.
A breeze blew over her, and with it carried a horrible stench. It smelled putrid. Like death. A rotting carcass on the side of the freeway.
"Maya?" She knocked frantically.
She curiously reached for the door handle, fully expecting it to be locked.
It was unlocked.
Her heart was pounding in her chest as she turned the handle and pushed the door forward.
The scent of rotting flesh wafted over her. There was another smell mingled with it. A coppery scent. Blood.
It was dark inside and the only thing she could hear was a slight buzzing sound.
Emily knew she needed to step back outside and call the police, but her feet kept pushing her forward, as if they had a mind of their own. As if her own mind had just stopped working.
She turned the corner towards the living room. The shades were drawn and the lights were out. Just like they'd been two nights ago. She inched forward and the tip of her shoe squelched in something wet before bumping into something hard.
Don't turn on the lights. Don't turn on the lights. She screamed inwardly.
She didn't listen to herself.
She swallowed a knot in her throat and reached up to feel around for a light switch. When her fingertips hit the switch light flooded the area.
It took her eyes a moment to adjust.
She stumbled back when she saw what her shoe had touched.
Maya was on the floor, staring back at her. Her head was twisted at a weird angle, her mouth agape, frozen in a scream. Her neck had been snapped. Blood was soaked in the carpet all around her. It had turned sticky and brown.
Behind her, Lyndon was kneeling, as if in prayer. But something was wrong with the way his head was hanging. It was dangling off his neck, throat slashed, tendons hanging out. He bore a gash on his right cheek. He was bathed in blood. It had seeped into the carpet around Maya. Flies were swirling through the air. One landed on Maya's face.
Emily dropped the flowers against the floor sending petals scattering everywhere. Red, white, both mixing with the crusty brown color of the dried blood that had changed Lyndon's white carpet into patches of an ugly toasted brown.
This isn't real.
As she was thinking it she felt herself sinking into a pit of darkness. She closed her eyes, shutting them tight.
I'm having a nightmare. I just need to wake up.
But when she opened her eyes Maya was still there.
She let out a wail and fell to her knees beside Maya, blood soaking into her pants. She cried her name as she pulled her girlfriend into her lap.
Toby was the one who had gotten the call, but not from Emily. A concerned neighbor had heard screaming from the house. He was only two minutes away. It was his first solo shift as a rookie.
The house was quiet when he got there, but there was something unnerving about the way the front door was askew.
He put his hand on his holster and climbed the porch steps. As he neared the door the smell hit him.
He could hear broken cries from inside. He carefully inched forward without announcing himself.
He saw light coming from the living room. It's where the crying was coming from.
Nothing could have prepared him for the gruesome scene he walked in to.
"Jesus…" Toby instinctively covered his mouth and nose to block out the smell. "Fuck."
He glanced down and saw Emily rocking back and forth, Maya in her lap, dead.
"Emily?"
The brunette looked up at him, her eyes swollen from all the crying.
"Help me." She begged, the tracks of her tears flooding her puffy cheeks.
But Maya was beyond help.
Emily looked down at her, rocking her gently.
God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Maya.
She blamed herself for not going after her. She should have gone after her.
She shouldn't have been here.
o ~ O ~ o
After Maya died Emily lashed out at her mother.
"You never liked her!" she'd accused her.
It had driven an even further wedge between them. There was no way in hell Emily was staying in that house with the bigot who hated her girlfriend. She'd thrown a glass at her mother's head and stormed out. She'd ended up at Toby's place.
Toby had always been a good friend to have. He'd put her up when she had nowhere else to go. He put up with her antics. He put up with her shacking up with a different girl every single weekend, disappearing to their places for trysts in the sack. Emily was mindful not to disturb Toby's life. She tried to let him have his privacy. It was the least she could do for him.
After Maya's death she'd sought out comfort in booze and sex. She had a revolving door of women she bedded. It was never anything serious. She just needed a good fuck. She wasn't sure she'd ever love again.
When she came to the realization that she'd just moved from coping with booze to coping with sex she'd stopped acting out. She'd decided to channel her focus into her future.
She still thought of Maya often. There was a passion behind her death that gave Emily the drive to survive. To thrive.
Ten years. Emily thought to herself.
This year it would be ten years since she'd found Maya and Lyndon, murdered and mutilated.
And now they were hunting the person responsible. She made her way back through the woods and stopped near the tree line.
She watched as her partner carefully inspected the crime scene.
She glanced back towards the woods. A shiver fluttered down her spine. She swore she could feel a pair of eyes on her. She was drawn to a dark area of surrounding trees. She felt compelled to walk towards the presence.
Who is out there? Why do I feel this hold over me?
"Fields!" Her partner called for her attention.
She thought she heard a twig snapping in the distance, but when she flooded the area with light there was nothing there.
She walked over to Toby, who was closing his notepad, slipping his pen into the slot at the side.
"Find anything?" Toby questioned.
"Nothing of note." Emily shook her head. "Thought there might have been a footprint by the riverbank, but it's too hard to tell. Water eroded. Could be an animal print. I got a photo of it just in case."
"They're about done here. They're ready to wrap it up. We got a couple of officers trying to get in touch with his family. That's about all we can do for now until the autopsy. Though I have a pretty good idea how he died." He said dryly as he motioned to the scene in front of them. "They're going to streamline it. Prioritize him. But it still might be a few days before Montgomery can tell us anything of significance."
Montgomery. The forensic pathologist at Rosewood General and their Medical Examiner. She was one of the best in the state. It was unusual for a licensed physician to work with police on cases, but Doctor Montgomery was just that good. She'd minored in forensics and criminology when she was in medical school.
When the Chief of Police found out that she had experience he had sought her out for help on a case. Their own internal medical examiner botched something up so badly it threw the entire court case. The Chief himself consulted with Dr. Montgomery on another case in the interim and had been very impressed with her work. He'd offered her a job, a partnership. She'd accepted.
"Until we get her report, you know the drill."
"Yeah." Emily nodded. "Come on, let's head back to the station."
"You're the boss." He grinned, clucking his tongue and winking at her.
She rolled her eyes with an amused smile on her face.
She was not the boss. Toby had seniority since he'd been in the field longer. But he never held it over her head. He had been in the field almost three years before she became a cop. When she started out she started below his rank.
When they got in the car Toby put the keys in the ignition, but he didn't start it. He shifted in his seat, facing his partner, his eyes soft.
He remembered the horrible anguished cry he'd heard when he'd had to pry Emily away from Maya. He could see it in her eyes. He knew when she was thinking about her.
When she started on the force she worked her way up the ranks to Homicide Detective. In doing so she didn't know she'd get the opportunity to be on the Scarlet Letter Killer case. When the Chief made the decision he'd wondered if it would be a conflict of interest. Emily assured him she was the best person he could possibly partner with Toby. So far, she hadn't let him down.
"You uh…you need to go to a meeting or anything?" Toby asked.
Emily shook her head.
"I only get the urge to drink on her birthday, our anniversary, and the day that she…" The day some savage brute murdered her.
"Just checking. Not to get all girly on you," he teased. "But I'm here for you."
"I know." Emily smiled. "I love you and I appreciate you looking out for me." She reached out and touched his hand. "But I'm fine, Toby."
I'm not fine.
"Mmm." He looked at her, not buying her lie. But he knew her limits. He knew when to push and when to back away.
She always opened up in her own time. She always went to him when she needed him. She would call him if she needed him. So he backed off.
He started the car and pulled it out on to the road.
Emily reached into her pocket for her phone. She glanced at the voicemail alert. She hit the voicemail app and put the phone up to her ear to listen to her mom's message.
"Hey sweetie, I know you're probably working. I just thought I'd try you. I wanted to know what you'd like to do for dinner this weekend. Are you craving anything in particular? Just call me back. I love you. Be safe out there."
"Mommy dearest?" Toby guessed. He could hear the muffled sound of her mother's voice.
"Yeah. She's trying to get a menu ready together for our weekend dinner."
"Tell her you're craving Mafia food." He winked.
Emily snickered.
She glanced at her phone. She considered deleting the message, but in the end she saved it. Her mother was trying. But all she heard was "It's what someone is making her in to."
Blaming Maya.
Her heart still ached for Maya. She looked out into the blackness of the night as they drove through the trees.
She felt like she was being watched the entire way back to the station. She felt like there was something lurking in the dark.
That night, she lied awake in bed, staring at the ceiling.
She'd lied to Toby about the urges. In fact, she had a bottle of bourbon hidden in the cabinet in her kitchen, behind a bunch of dishes.
It had been there for two years. She hadn't touched it. It was a strange comfort to have it. But at the same time, knowing it was there was a temptation hard to ignore. It was about the power of control. If it was there and she didn't drink it, she knew she was in control.
But after the night she'd had the bottle was calling to her.
Just one glass.
But Emily knew it wouldn't just be one glass. It never was just one glass.
I won't drink tonight. She told herself.
She tried to sleep, but she couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes she saw someone peering at her from the darkness. All she could see was the whites of their eyes. She couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was going to happen.
Exasperated, she threw her arm up against her forehead. It was sticky with sweat. She looked over at her clock.
4:02 am.
She had another shift in two hours. She decided to just give up on sleeping. She crawled out of bed and made her way into the kitchen. Her house was small, but she didn't mind. She preferred smaller spaces. It was easier to take stock of everything. There were less places for people to hide.
She brewed some coffee and grabbed the paper.
As expected, the murder was on the front page.
When she got to the station Toby was waiting in their shared office…with bagels. He handed her one and then plopped down in the chair behind his desk, which was adjacent to Emily's. He took a bite of his bagel and pointed to the newspaper on his desk.
"You see this shit?" He tapped his index finger against the headline.
THE SCARLET LETTER KILLER TERRORIZES TOWN
Underneath the headline was a name they'd come to associate with utter disdain,
Alex R. Drake
"I didn't even know she was back in town." He glared at the photo of the journalist responsible for the headline. If looks could kill...the woman would be dead and Toby would be on trial for her murder.
Alexis Roselyn Drake, or as she preferred to be called, Alex, was a nosy little journalist. Her work was verging on the line of tabloid reporter. She was originally from Rosewood. She had a failed stint in journalism in New York and then she'd moved to Philadelphia. She came sniffing around when murders were happening in Rosewood.
"Maybe she's the killer." Emily lifted her brows in amusement.
"Nah, just obsessed with the psychopath committing these atrocities. It's unhealthy." He sneered at the paper. "I wouldn't wipe my ass with this. This is garbage." He physically shoved the paper away from his desk. "Referring to law enforcement as inept. Misconstruing facts. Creating her own narrative." He was pissed. Emily hadn't seen him this pissed in a while. "We haven't even had a fucking press conference yet and she's splashing it all over the front pages, complete with pictures."
"That's journalism, Cavanaugh." Emily shrugged and took a sip of her coffee and then looked down at the paper. "At least she had the decency to censor the photo."
"She's a fucking vulture. And she's going to cause a mass panic." He rubbed his head with the palm of his hand.
There's a serial killer in town. People SHOULD panic.
"We're going to be getting calls left and right with people reporting suspicious activity that isn't really that suspicious. Gonna have to set up a separate tip line." Toby sighed.
"Yeah." Emily yawned, propping her elbow up. She leaned her head against her hand.
Toby saw the dark shades under her sunken eyes.
"You get any sleep last night?" He asked. He knew the answer before asking the question.
"No." She shook her head. "You?"
Toby saw the flashing numbers on his alarm clock mocking him in his mind.
3:13.
3:13.
3:13.
His heart had been beating to the time in a strange rhythmic fashion. It was like his pulse had changed to accommodate the clock.
"I've been doing espresso shots since three." He leaned back in his chair.
Emily wasn't sure how he got the chair so far back without it toppling over. It was something of a magic act. And he always looked so cocky when he was doing it, arms behind his head, holding on to nothing.
"So…" Toby bounced forward again and peered at the giant stack of folders on his desk. "Shall we get started?"
Everything they needed was also at the click of a button on their computers, but they still liked to have hard copies. Emily looked at the identical folders on her desk. She reached for the first one.
Talia Standival was an exotic dancer turned dance teacher. She'd opened a studio for underprivileged children. They'd interviewed a wide variety of people, including her boyfriend. Given that she was the first one to die they had scrutinized him because statistically the killer was usually the partner or boyfriend.
But he had wailed and cried like a baby when they talked to him. Grief that couldn't be faked. They'd been together since high school. He'd called her a ray of light and his angel.
"She was always smiling."
All the dance mothers had been devastated to hear of her murder. Many of the children cried. Of course, Emily didn't know that the few that remained quiet had dark secrets they were carrying because of Ms. Standival.
She moved on to the next file, looking for something that might give her a clue as to who was committing these heinous acts.
Sydney Driscoll was a star athlete. A competitive swimmer at the collegiate level. Her team had been devastated after her murder. Even her fiercest competitors seemed unnerved by her death. She hadn't been seeing anyone at the time of her death. She came from a good home. A good family.
The interviews yielded nothing in the way of answers.
Emily tried to make connections in her head, her brain like a circuit board connecting and firing off neurons rapidly, but those neurons weren't going anywhere. And her head was throbbing.
Both girls were beautiful. Similar in appearance. Dark hair. Brown eyes. Similar in age. Talia was a few years older. They didn't know each other. They didn't run in the same circles. They had athleticism and talent in common.
Emily had initially thought the MO, modus operandi, was going after powerful women. But that didn't explain Ian Thomas. It didn't explain the previous victims either, because most of them were male.
Emily read Sydney's file front to back and then started going back through older files that were most likely connected to these new killings. Killings that went as far back as fifteen years.
The original murders had halted for a few years right before she was promoted to Detective. The Detective on the case before Toby had Emily took it over had retired.
She started reading through the files of the older victims. One file was notably missing. Toby refused to let her see Maya's file. She was a witness that night. The Chief didn't want her anywhere near the file due to her relationship with Maya.
Emily paused when she got to Lyndon's file, resting her hand against the cover for a moment before she flipped it open. The photos of the crime scene weren't there.
Toby again.
He was only trying to protect her.
Emily read through the initial report, written in Toby's shaky handwriting. It had been redacted. The Chief again. She skimmed over the details that were there. Things she already knew. She had all the details in her head.
The most notable difference between the other killings and Maya and Lyndon were that none of the other victims were black. It was an odd deviation. The scene itself had been odd, too. Emily didn't need a file to remember what she'd seen that day.
Maya was strangled and then her neck had been broken. It didn't match the other murders. It was so out of place.
She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock.
It was past lunchtime.
They'd been at it for almost 6 hours. Her eyes were starting to blur.
Toby ordered some take-out from a sandwich shop down the street and then they were back at it again.
She slowly went back to reading through the files, but her train of thought was interrupted by her partner.
"Holy shit."
Emily rubbed the back of her neck and looked up at him. His eyes were buried in his laptop.
"What's up?"
He clicked the touchpad and then flipped the laptop around to show a yearbook photo of Ian Thomas. But he wasn't a student. He was a teacher.
"Before our stockbroker was a stockbroker he coached at Rosewood High. You want to guess where the dancer and the swimmer went to school?"
"You think it's a connection of some kind?" Emily peered at the younger version of the mangled corpse she'd seen in the woods last night.
"It's a long shot. It could just be a coincidence. We've only got three high schools and that prep academy. But it's an interesting connection. We can talk to the staff there. See if anyone was still in contact with him. Maybe get a better feel for why he was a target."
"I don't see any pattern to any of this." Emily pushed her chair away from her desk and looked at the photos covering it. "I can't connect anything together."
"We're just looking at it too hard. It'll come to us." Toby spun his laptop back around.
Emily nodded in agreement to his statement and then buried herself in the SLK files.
It was around dinnertime that they got a call that would change Emily's life. Toby had been the one to take the call, something he'd soon come to regret.
He spoke in hushed hurried tones and hung up.
"Armed robbery in progress." He reached under his desk and grabbed his emergency supplies. He slipped his bullet proof vest on and popped the magazine out of his gun to check its ammo.
"We're not going to let the boots on the ground handle it?" Emily pushed herself to her feet.
There was a strange nagging feeling in her gut. Something felt wrong. Something felt off.
She'd regret not listening to her inner voice later.
"It's right around the corner."
"Damn. That's ballsy." Emily couldn't imagine the mind of a criminal who would try to knock-off a liquor store a block away from the police station.
"We're closest and they need all units to respond. Besides," he said, glancing at the paperwork in front of them, "I need a break. Don't you?"
Emily looked at the papers strewn all over her desk. The files everywhere. Every time she blinked she saw blood and gore and…Maya.
"Yeah." She definitely needed a break.
"Saddle up, partner." He tossed her gear at her.
Emily pulled her bullet-proof vest on.
Something is wrong.
She shook off the sensation as they rushed to the car.
Something bad is going to happen.
She ignored the voice as they sped down the street.
It took them one minute to get to the scene. When they arrived they saw several bystanders huddled over by a single police car. Sirens from other responding units filled the air.
An officer had a large bulky white skinhead on the ground. Emily knew him. On the streets he was known as Tiny, ironically. He dealt meth. He'd been locked up before, but she didn't know much else.
The officer was struggling against his size. Another officer was on the ground next to him, a large gash in his head. He seemed stunned.
"Go." Emily motioned for Toby to assist them. "I'll clear the scene."
"Watch your six." Toby took off running towards the struggle.
Emily carefully moved towards the building, drawing her weapon from its holster. She rounded the side of the building, knowing better than to enter through the front. Her hand was shaking as she reached for the employee entrance to the store.
It's not too late to turn back…
She saw flashes of Maya's face, frozen in shock, in her mind.
"Shake it off, Fields," she uttered quietly to herself as she pulled the door open.
She leaned back, using the outer brick wall as cover as she listened for movement inside. When she didn't hear anything she slipped in, putting her back against the wall.
Her eyes darted through the aisles. She searched for movement, but didn't see anything. She listened, but the store was quiet.
She inched forward silently. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Her blood was rushing through her body.
She peeked out around an aisle. There was shattered glass everywhere. The smell of the alcohol was overwhelming. Bullets had burst through bottles of bourbon, whiskey, and vodka and they were all puddled together on the floor.
She went to the next aisle to avoid the wet floor and glass. She didn't need her footsteps to alert anyone else who might still be inside.
She heard the click of the gun too late. She looked up between the aisles and saw a pair of angry green eyes staring back at her, gun aimed directly at her.
She gasped the instant the trigger was pulled. She felt the bullet strike her vest before she had even heard the shot go off. It sent pain radiating down her spine. She felt a hot shockwave of adrenaline surge through her.
The hit knocked her off of her feet, though she got a shot off before she hit the ground. It grazed the suspect in the leg.
He took off running, limping towards his freedom, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
She grabbed her radio.
"Shots fired!" She heard someone scream outside.
"Fields, talk to me. What the hell is going on in there?" Toby's voice came blaring out of the speaker.
She pressed her radio button.
"There's a second shooter. Slim build. White male. Green eyes. Bald. Tattoo beside his right eye. Armed and dangerous. I nicked him in the leg. He's headed your way." Emily felt a blinding pain in her chest. She reached down to touch the area where the bullet had hit her vest…only to discover blood there. It had gone through. A blind panic washed over her. The numbness wore off and the pain hit her. "Ohhh…" she groaned. "I'm hit."
She heard shots outside the building. Then she heard heavy footsteps coming her way. She stared at the ceiling of the store. The lights were blinding. The footsteps echoed in her mind. The smell of the alcohol seemed stronger. She could almost taste it.
"Fields!" Toby fell to her side. He scooted underneath her, resting her head against his lap. "Where are you hit?"
Her chest was heaving. She touched her hand to where the bullet had hit her. When she pulled her hand back her palm was coated in blood.
"Went through my f-fucking vest." She was having trouble breathing. "I can't ca…catch…my breath."
Toby felt a surge of panic. Neither one of them had ever been injured in the field. They'd been fairly lucky. But now…
Emily sucked in a breath.
Her face was devoid of color. Her eyes were glazed and fixed on the ceiling.
Toby reached for his radio, yanking it off of his hip.
"Officer Down! We need an ambulance! Officer down! I've got a gunshot wound to the chest…" He ripped Emily's vest off to see where the bullet had penetrated the armor. Blood was spilling out from underneath. "Oh, Christ." His heart started racing. It was bad. It was really bad, "We need an ambulance, Goddammit! NOW!"
He touched Emily's cheek and then screamed into his radio again.
"I REPEAT, OFFICER DOWN! WE NEED IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE!" He clenched her hand. "Hey, stay with me, Fields." He leaned over her. He could see the terror in her eyes. "Stay with me, Em."
She nodded weakly, but seconds later her eyes rolled back in her head. A chasm of darkness beckoned, calling for her. Then…
Toby put pressure on the wound to slow the bleeding. Her eyes shot back open when she felt it. The stabbing sensation was ten times worse than being shot. He saw her gasp in pain.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I have to stop the bleeding."
Emily closed her eyes again. She saw a light.
She heard a laugh. A laugh that she was familiar with. A laugh that she missed so much.
When she opened her eyes she saw Maya.
She reached out to her, but then she heard a voice grounding her, pulling her away.
"Fields!" Toby scrambled, unsure of what to do. They'd been trained in emergency medical procedures, but it was different when it was one of their own. "Don't…just don't fucking do this. Come on!"
Emily's eyes fluttered open and she saw the shadow of her best friend looming over her.
"Hey, Em…squeeze my hand." Toby gripped her palm. "Just focus on me."
Emily nodded, but she couldn't answer. She couldn't find the words. So instead she focused on Toby. She focused on his brows furrowed in concern. On his icy blue eyes filling with tears. On his determination to get her through it.
This isn't supposed to happen.
Eyes on Toby's, but mind miles away.
I'm not supposed to die.
It was strange the things that flashed before a person's eyes as they were faced with certain death. The adrenaline released a wild flood of memories, but the odd thing was that all the memories were good memories. It was as if a door to the bad ones had been sealed shut, as if the brain chemistry knew they body needed a peaceful boost of dopamine in its final moments. It was nearly euphoric.
"Mommy, mommy, mommy!" Three years old, running towards her mother who had just walked in the front door.
Snuggling with her father during story time.
"I love you, da-da."
Chasing Toby around the playground, squealing, laughing.
Grasping Maya's hands and spinning so fast that she felt the Earth moving, a dizziness so wonderful she never wanted it to stop.
"They're almost here." Toby kept his palm pressed against the hole in her chest.
She had no idea how bad the injury was. She had no idea how much blood she'd lost. All she knew was that she needed to survive.
"You can survive anything," her father had said many years ago.
I'm going to survive. She told herself. I want to live.
Not just live. She wanted to survive. To thrive. She wanted to experience life. She wanted to love.
Love. Such a glorious thing.
As she laid on the cold floor with Toby's warm palm pressed against the injury on her chest she couldn't help but reflect back over how she'd ended up there. She wondered what came next, whether she lived or died. If she lived she could save lives. She wanted to save lives.
It's why she hunted killers. To get them off the streets.
At the time she had no idea that sometimes killers actually saved lives by taking lives. She had yet to stumble across a killer who would make her question everything she believed to be true about the justice system. She didn't know that there was a love so raw and intense...so crazy, madly, deeply...that it could change an entire belief system as a whole. She couldn't have predicted she would meet someone, a killer...someone she herself would kill for.
Detective Emily Fields was one of the best detectives in Rosewood, but she never could have detected the life altering events that were going to put her face-to-face with a serial killer...or that she would fall in love with her.
A/N: We've started off with quite a bang (pun kind of intended?). The one dynamic I've always kept from the show is the Toby/Emily friendship. You'll see we have a bit more element of Show Emily in this story, including her background and her past (family, Maya, etc). I know she seems a bit rough around the edges, but believe me, her dynamic with Alison is very different than her detective persona.