A/N: Try to remember going into this one that if you kill me then you'll never get to know what happens next.
As always, love hearing your theories and guesses. And thanks to the reviewer (lxqn) being so kind about my mental health. I mention my crazy emotions just in the spirit of honesty. I do prioritize this story over a lot to be honest. It's my only escape. Though come to think of it I think it's kind of hilarious that my safe place is a fictional world about a serial killer.
Truly though, thank you for caring.
Chapter 19:
Over the Edge
Emily was in the middle of clearing the table when there was a light knock at the door. It opened just a crack and then Spencer peered in. When she saw that the two of them weren't tangled up in the sheets she pushed the door forward and walked inside.
"Hey, Doctor Hastings." Emily waved.
"Detective Fields." Spencer seemed pleased to see her.
The surgeon acknowledged her by politely dipping her head forward. She faced Alison, who was still sitting at the table, wiping it down.
Alison liked things to be clean. She was a clean freak. Not a bad habit for a surgeon…or a serial killer.
The blonde glanced at Spencer. She could venture a guess as to why her fellow attending was happy to see Emily. Because Emily made some of her worst days better. And she'd had a hell of a day.
"Dr. DiLaurentis." Spencer cleared her throat.
They exchanged a look. Spencer's expression wasn't quite one of concern. It was more like a curious question.
"Dr. Hastings." Alison's response was formal, but not overly-emotional.
Don't you dare mention my outburst in surgery to my girlfriend. Her glare challenged.
Spencer seemed to get the hint.
Emily sat down next to Alison, leaving the other side of the table for the other doctor.
"There's leftover Caribbean in the fridge if you're hungry." Emily motioned for Spencer to join them, but the doctor politely declined.
"I'm actually waiting to try that place out with a friend." Spencer's mouth did a funny thing that Alison wasn't used to…she smiled. "Your partner, actually."
"Yeah, Toby was the one who recommended it to me. Said he was looking forward to grabbing a bite with you." Emily tried to talk her buddy up, even though he clearly didn't need the help. "He tells me you two knew one another once upon a time."
The statement stoked a spark of emotion out from underneath the stoic mask Spencer was wearing. Her smile widened. Her cheeks blossomed with color.
"My sister tutored him when they were both seniors in high school," Spencer scrunched her nose up as if she'd smelled something sour. A little sibling rivalry? "…though truth be told, my IQ is higher than hers."
Ouch. Hell of a shot at the woman recovering from a pregnancy loss. Alison was surprised at the low blow.
Alison assumed losing the baby was grounds for Spencer to be nicer to her sister. The Hastings had never really gotten along, because Spencer had always felt insecure about her place in the family…like she didn't belong because she wasn't related by blood to Melissa and their mother.
"I should have been the one tutoring him." A smug smirk.
There's the arrogant Spencer I love to hate.
"He was a senior and I was a freshman. He was always very polite to me, but I knew it was just because he felt like he had to be. He was proper and formal and all business when he came over to the house. Truth be told, I had a bit of a crush on him. He had a little bit of a bad boy streak in him, but he also had a good heart."
"That hasn't changed at all." Emily chuckled.
She'd been with him a week ago when he used the cruiser sirens to get to a ballgame without sitting in traffic. But that was about as bad as he got, at least to her knowledge. He'd always been the straight man to her impulsive wild child.
"No." Spencer looked off into the distance, as if she was staring directly into her past. Perhaps she had a memory of him she held dear. Maybe he was her first crush. "It really hasn't."
Emily's phone buzzed. She smiled when she saw Toby's name on the screen. It was as if they had conjured him up.
You coming back sometime today, Fields?
"He's a really good guy." Emily sent a quick text back letting him know she was on her way. "I could give you some glowing references if you want."
"I'm a pretty good judge of character, but thank you for the offer." Spencer moved towards the small miniature refrigerator. She opened the door and pulled out a filtered water bottle labeled with her name in large sharpie.
Every time Alison saw the tin bottle with the fancy water she had to resist the childish urge to pour it out and fill it with tap water without filtering it just to mess with her.
I wonder what would happen. Would she break out in hives? Explode? Melt into a pile of goo?
"Well, if you ever want any dirt on him let me know." Emily gave Spencer a smile to let her know that she was teasing. She pushed herself to her feet. "I have many embarrassing photos."
Including one of him in minions boxers with his hair a complete mess sitting around a bunch of tangled Christmas tree lights with a scowl on his face.
"I'll keep that in mind." The doctor chuckled. "Thanks."
Emily leaned over and kissed Alison. Their eyes met, lingering for a few seconds.
"I'll pick you up after your shift." Emily tucked Alison's hair behind her ear, her touch conveying a silent "are you going to be okay?"
"Sounds good." Alison smiled at her. "I'll be fine."
As always, her soul felt lighter after having been with her better half.
She watched the detective's ass as she walked away.
She has got such a great ass...
Alison loved gripping it when they were fucking with the strap-on. It was firm. All muscle. Tight. Supple…
God, the way her body moves...
"You two seem to be doing really well." Spencer's voice jolted her back into reality.
She had forgotten the other woman was there.
That's what fantasizing about riding your girlfriend will do…
"She's so insanely perfect." Alison sounded like a love-sick teenager as she sighed happily.
"I'm glad you're finally branching out." Spencer peeled her lab coat off and hung it on a hook, which meant she was there to stay for a little while.
That meant Alison needed to leave. She hated being in the same room with her if she didn't have to be. It reminded her too much of her childhood. She felt claustrophobic around Spencer. Because out of everyone in the world, Spencer was the only person perceptive enough to see beyond the barriers she'd put up. She looked at her coworker, her blood, and she saw her Aunt Mary. She saw her family.
And it hurt.
"I've got rounds." Alison shut the conversation down.
Her walls came back up. She was private when it came to her relationship with Emily. The parts of herself she showed to Emily were for the detective and the detective alone. She had no interest in letting anyone else beyond her walls.
Alison stood up and reached for her lab coat, which was now hanging next to Spencer's. She clutched the thin material in her hand. Her fingers curled into it, gripping it. Those fingers had failed a fourteen-year-old boy mere hours ago.
She sighed as she turned around.
"About what happened in the OR…" Alison faced Spencer.
Spencer held up her palm and shook her head.
"You don't have to say anything. You were upset. I get it."
"You're not going to run to mommy over it, are you?" The last thing she needed was Chief Hastings thinking she was unstable. She had to operate. She had to cut things.
"I believe everyone is entitled to lose it once in a while." Spencer pursed her lips in thought. "Especially given that he was just a child."
Alison gave her an appreciative nod.
Spencer pulled her stethoscope off of her neck, facing the beds. She looked between them and then looked at Alison and sighed.
"Mind telling me which ones the two of you have defiled so I can avoid them?"
Alison choked on her laughter.
You're out of luck. This whole room is ours now.
There wasn't one inch of the on-call room their naked asses hadn't touched. If someone took a black light to the room it would light up like a Christmas tree.
Alison shot her a smirk and shrugged innocently as she walked out the door.
She sauntered down the hallway.
She wasn't surprised to find Connor's family sitting in a private room with his body. It was a painful reminder of what had been lost.
He was a person…a human…
There had been an addition to the family unit since Alison had left them to make their peace with their son's death.
As if there is any peace in a parent losing a child?
A little blonde girl was in the man's arms. She was four, maybe five. She was hanging off her father's neck, legs wrapped around his torso.
Alison felt a chill rush down her spine.
The situation felt familiar for her.
Alison saw shadows of herself in Connor's little sister. The girl had a tough journey ahead. She hoped the kid had all the support Alison had gotten from her aunt.
She walked in to check on them and pay her respects once again, but her attempt at compassion fell on deaf ears.
They were numb. In shock. The mother was by her son's bed, stroking his small hand as if he would wake from sedation at any moment.
Alison told them if they needed anything to let her know. She slipped out of the room and peered back at them.
That's love.
A family who loves each other.
"I wish I'd had that," she said under her breath as she pulled the privacy drapes closed.
Before they were completely closed she saw the young girl's piercing blue eyes land on hers.
Sad. Helpless. Lost. Confused.
She'd felt that way once.
The very last time she'd seen Jason.
o ~ O ~ o
~ Then ~
She thought it would be cloudy, a dreary rainy day like it always was in TVs and Movies. But it was beautiful outside the day she buried her family.
She wanted to go play on the playground instead of sitting in the musty old church. The pews smelled like old oak trees and mildew.
The bright vivid colors in the sanctuary seemed larger than life in contrast to the shades of dark that the mourners were wearing. The stained glass windows and ceiling made the building lively. Patches of the afternoon sun shone through, painting the three caskets in a rainbow of light.
The flowers surrounding them were different colors, shapes, and sizes. They seemed to fill up the entire room. Alison would never forget the flagrant odor.
When the service started she couldn't stop fidgeting. The cut on her thigh burned when she crossed her legs. She let out a little surprised whimper. She hadn't expected it to still hurt.
Her aunt put her hand against Alison's leg to still her motions as some man in a black suit with a white collar talked about her family.
A family that he didn't even know. Alison frowned at him as he sang them charitable praises. When he said "beloved mother and father" Alison heard Jason's voice in her head, "Fucking Perverts."
She was afraid to look at the crowd at first. She didn't want to look at anyone's faces for fear that she'd see the grief. She'd heard murmurs of "that poor girl". It was too much.
Alison swiveled her head around as she anxiously kicked her feet.
She saw a few people she knew. Jason's friends from school. Their parents from his school events. That detective who had pulled her out of the closet.
But many others were strangers. Some were looking at her with frowny sad eyes. Others leered at her in a way that her father used to leer at her.
Were they the bad men that Jason had been protecting her from?
She shuddered and crawled into her aunt's lap, gripping her tight.
She'll keep me safe.
Her aunt was crying.
Everyone was crying.
It made her angry to see everyone's tears. She hated that they were sniffling and crying over two monsters. Her brother was the only one who deserved sympathy.
Alison knew she needed to cry to keep up appearances, but the feeling just wasn't there. She thought maybe it was buried deep down inside of her. Or perhaps reality hadn't quite hit her yet.
It wasn't until her parents' caskets were carried out and only Jason remained that she realized it was the last time she'd ever see her brother.
Most of the crowd had their eyes focused on the caskets being carried away. No one was looking at the one that remained.
No one noticed when Alison slipped out of the pew and timidly approached her brother's casket. The top portion of the lid was still open.
She didn't know it at the time, but her aunt had struggled with whether or not to do open caskets for her family. She was worried that the gruesome manner in which they were killed might be too much. But she also knew that her niece needed to see the finality of death.
Alison had been asking about her brother a lot. She knew he was gone, but her brain was protecting her from the truth. It had been doing that a lot the last few weeks.
To the mortician's credit, he had done a great job at hiding the nasty gash on Jason's neck. His entire face was padded with thick make-up to hide his pale skin. There was a strange glow to him, a waxy shine. His eyes were closed. He looked like a doll.
Alison cocked her head.
She could smell something sweet, but medical. She wouldn't know the smell was embalming fluid until years later.
"Jason…" She whispered as she leaned over his casket, her tiny fingers against the edge of the fine wood.
He didn't look dead. He looked like he was sleeping.
"Jason, it's time to wake up now."
She stretched her fingers over the edge and moved them towards his face.
"We have to go home." Her fingertips were against his cold waxy cheek. "Aunt Mary is going to take us home. We're safe now. You just have to wake up so we can go."
Her plea was met with silence.
She didn't realize she was crying until she saw a tear fall against his cheek.
"Come on." Little hands pushing him, just like she'd done days ago in their blood-soaked living room. "Wake up!" Her whimpering cries turned into sobs that echoed off of the walls.
A large warm pair of arms engulfed her. Alison struggled against her at first, but her aunt picked her up and started rubbing her back, cupping the back of her head.
"Shh," she said quietly.
"I want Jason!" She whipped her head around to see that the pallbearers were closing the lid and getting ready to move him. When she saw his face disappear she panicked. "No!" She screeched. "No, that's my brother! Stop! Stop taking my brother away from me! JASON!"
She squirmed out of her aunt's arms, managing to get down. She hurled herself over the top of the casket, screaming and wailing.
Real emotions. Real feelings.
She stroked the top of the box that held her brother's remains.
His body.
She had to be dragged away kicking and screaming. She watched in horror as her brother was carried out of the church.
Her aunt scooped her up and paced outside, walking her around in circles as if she was a baby who wouldn't settle for a nap.
"I know you're hurting, baby." A soft kiss against her head.
"They took him. I don't understand. Why did they take him? Why can't he come live with us?"
The words momentarily shocked her aunt into silence.
"Sweetheart…Jason is gone."
"No. No, I saw him. He was right there." She cried. "I want him. I WANT MY BROTHER!"
She sobbed for a solid ten minutes. Her wails slowly turned into sniffles. She kept her cheek against her aunt's shoulder as she huffed and hiccuped.
She felt Mary's lips against her head.
"I'm here for you, honey."
She slowly walked over to the grounds where the burials were taking place, trying to soothe their shared grief.
Alison stayed in her arms in a numb state as she stared at the trees behind them. She didn't watch her mother's casket being lowered into the ground, nor her father's.
They were preparing Jason's casket for burial when someone approached her aunt from the side. Alison only caught a glimpse of his shadow.
"She put on quite the fit in there." The voice sent chills down her spine.
Her grandfather.
She hated her mother's father. Jason had told her all about the bad people he was friends with.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Mary recoiled. "I warned you to stay away." The little girl felt her aunt gripping her tightly.
"She was my daughter and Jason was my grandson…"
"You don't get to play that card. Not after everything you've done." Her Aunt Mary was hissing through her teeth like her brother used to do when he was angry. It scared her. "This is your fault."
"May I see my granddaughter please?" The voice was calm. Soothing. But in an eerie way. Like he could make Mary do it just by using the right tone.
Please don't let him hold me. Please don't let him touch me. Alison instinctively wrapped her arms tighter around her aunt, her little body shivering.
Mary had no intention of letting her father anywhere near her niece.
"You stay the hell away from us." Mary took a step back, keeping his hand from touching Alison's back. "I'll get a restraining order if I have to. This entire family is in shambles because of you and your stupid fucking club." She had given up her own child to protect her from the likes of her family. She'd been threatened for years to stay silent lest she end up dead. "I mean it. It's over. It's done. If you come anywhere near her again you'll regret the day you let mom give birth to us. NAT is finished, do you understand me?"
"You watch your tone, young lady…"
"I'm not afraid of you anymore. I don't care what happens to me. But you leave her out of this. She is a child and just went through major trauma. The fact that you're even here…" A grunt of disgust. "Just stay the hell away from us. You'll never get near her. Do you hear me? You stay the hell away from my niece."
"Is there a problem here?" Another voice. This one male.
Alison thought she recognized it, but couldn't place it at first.
"No problem, Detective." Her grandfather replied.
Detective. The man with the shiny badge. She realized. Take the bad man away. Make him go away.
"Just having a few words with my daughter." The old man tried to sound sweet, but it just made him come off as creepy.
"He was just leaving," Mary said curtly.
There were a few more hushed argumentative words, but her grandfather backed down. Alison never looked at his face. She couldn't. She already had nightmares about him.
The last thing she saw was her brother's casket disappearing into the earth, away from her forever.
The last thing she felt was her aunt's soothing hand on the back of her head as she gently swayed with her in her arms.
The last thing she smelled was the pine, though whether it was from the trees or the pinewood coffin she wasn't sure.
The last thing she heard was her aunt whispering to her, "I've got you, baby. You're safe now. I won't let anything happen to you."
Alison relaxed into her aunt's body. She closed her eyes and fell into the darkness of an exhausted long overdue sleep.
It was the last time she'd slept for nearly a month.
For three tedious weeks she woke screaming in bed, sometimes soaked in her own urine.
Jason's words, "You're big and brave and you fight monsters" were often the first thought she had.
She tried to take control of the nightmares, often pretending they were fake or that she wasn't having them.
Her brain was trying to protect her from the truth, because the truth was too scary for her to deal with. It was too painful. So she convinced herself she was faking it to look like she was terrorized about what had happened to her family. She was so convinced they weren't real that when she lied to the detectives she was certain she was playing the role of a lifetime.
She couldn't face her nightmares. She couldn't face reality.
Sometimes when she woke up she was sobbing quietly. Other times she was screaming so loud that it alerted her aunt and Pepe.
She didn't sleep through the night at all after the funeral. She was too afraid that the bad men would come and get her.
On top of that, the grief was unbearable. Jason being gone felt like a part of her was missing. Her heart ached. She missed him.
She would self-soothe by crying into Pepe's fur or climbing into bed with her Aunt Mary.
Sleep alluded her.
Then her grandfather had showed up three weeks later, trying to see her. That's when her aunt had rushed out of town, taking her to the safety and seclusion of the cabin in the Poconos.
A beautiful scenic destination surrounded by the serenity of nature that would one day be tainted by a gruesome murder, a twisted nightmare of mangled corpses that would trigger something that laid dormant in the blonde for over a decade.
Her humanity.
o ~ O ~ o
The front of the cabin looked inviting, with its rustic appearance and retro architecture. It was simplistic and homey in many ways. The railing on the porch had been stained a dark brown color, giving it a polished vibe that gave off a positive energy. Adirondack chairs spiced up the place with color.
The gravel road that led to the unpaved driveway gave it a very woodsy contrast. The surrounding trees put on a display of a spectacular show of colors. Sunny yellows, bright oranges, and flaming red leaves mixed with the stubborn greens and golden-browns.
Emily stared at the photos of the cabin, comparing the photo of the crime scene to older photos that Alison had provided that showed a time before the place had become a horror show.
The detective had been scouring the photos all week.
Her eyes strayed to the Adirondack chairs. It was hard to believe their latest victim had been found in one of those cozy chairs.
They finally had a name for their Jane Doe.
Iris Taylor.
She'd had a turbulent home life when she was younger and ended up in a mental health clinic at 13. After that she was in and out of group homes. When she turned 18 she started stripping. She'd been at that for five years.
She'd stayed quiet and kept to herself for years around the other girls, so no one really knew her.
No one could remember when she disappeared. One of the older strippers mentioned seeing her giving a private show to a man that was later identified as Tim Roland. It was the last time anyone at the club had seen her.
Seeing photos of Iris prior to her death unnerved Emily for many reasons. She was young. Beautiful with piercing eyes that had been hardened by life. And she looked almost identical to Alison.
The detective was concerned the killer was threatening her, and more alarmingly…was threatening Alison. Killing someone that looked like Alison could have been a coincidence, but leaving the girl's body at Alison's family cabin was personal.
Emily rubbed her eyes. She hadn't been sleeping well.
Her brain was buzzing with activity.
Just one drink.
Her cravings were usually the strongest on the nights her fears plagued her.
Just polish off the bottle…and the urge will go away.
Her kitchen was taunting her. Teasing her.
She leaned her elbows against the table and turned towards the cabinet where she had her liquor hidden.
It was unnerving how quiet it was during the early twilight hours of the morning. The world was asleep. Sometimes it felt strangely apocalyptic, like she was the only living person left.
God, I'm so tired.
She felt like giving in to her cravings. Maybe the years had changed her. Maybe she could drink in moderation…
No. That's not how this works.
She took a breath to settle her thoughts, but the thoughts were still there.
It could help. If I can just loosen up and clear my mind I'll see what I'm missing.
But she couldn't clear her head with a good fuck, because Alison was working. So the monster that lurked in her mind was trying to get her to relieve her tension in other ways. And it was getting harder to say no to it.
She'd been burning the candle at both ends working on the case, but the entire team was stuck.
They hadn't gotten anywhere. The killer was just that good.
She felt like the most useless detective in the world…until Toby reminded her that the case was 16 years old and that others before them hadn't been able to solve it.
It didn't help that the killer was two-in-one, or that one of those killers was in love with the lead detective and was doing everything she could to stay a step ahead. Neither were facts that Emily was privy to.
The news had quieted down for now. No new bodies had popped up for them to obsess over, but Emily knew that Alex Drake was just waiting for the chance to jump in front of the camera again. The pesky little nuisance was making her presence known. She was writing articles and looming around the police station and the hospital. She'd even been caught at one of the old crime scenes taking pictures.
Emily thought it was odd.
Alex's interest was starting to seem more like an obsession than a sense of duty, and it made the detective wonder if the journalist was capable of more than just simply stalking and trespassing, something they'd yet to nail her for simply because Alex screamed "freedom of the press".
Emily leaned forward and looked at the two different images of the Poconos cabin, taken in different eras.
The serene picture of nature in the first one was a stark contrast to the crime scene photo…painting the beautiful cabin red with blood.
The brunette picked up a mug of coffee, holding it with both palms, sipping the warm beverage. She wrapped her fingers into the handle and then put it down on her coffee table.
She reached for an image on the tray of her printer. A photo from Alex Drake's news story. She slid it in between the others.
In the new photo, the cabin had been shot at a different angle. The reporter had been trying to get a picture of what was behind the floodlights and privacy tent. She'd used a wide angle lens and zoomed in. The result was a photo that danced between the lines of artsy and creepy.
The angle showed the edge of the path that led to the shed where they found Tim's body. But the focal point was the porch. Shadows had been captured by the light.
It looked like a demonic circus.
She spent a few minutes studying the photos before gently slipping them into a folder and pouring her coffee in her travel tumbler.
She tried to call Alison from the road. The blonde had slept at the hospital overnight two nights in a row.
It had been a rough week for the surgeon. Emily could feel her shutting down…pulling away. She thought it was because of what she'd seen at the cabin in the Poconos. That day seemed to tear open old wounds. On top of that, losing the boy hadn't been easy on her either.
Emily thought she was in pain.
She didn't know that Alison was on the prowl.
Alison's voicemail sweetly told Emily to leave a message.
"Hey, it's me." Emily kept one hand on the wheel. "Just checking in. I hope everything is okay there. Let me know when you get home. Love you."
She popped the phone in its docking station and pulled into a drive-thru for breakfast.
Toby was always hungry first thing in the morning, so she doubled her usual order of chicken and sausage biscuits. She ordered several sides of hash browns and a bacon, egg, and cheese wrap for herself.
When she walked into the precinct she dropped a bag of biscuits and hash browns off at the front desk.
"I owe you my first born, Fields." One of the younger rookie's grabbed a biscuit.
"I'm not Rumpelstiltskin, but thanks for the offer." Emily laughed. She pushed her chin out curiously. "Hey, what would you give me if I brought more in tomorrow?"
"My undying devotion for the rest of our lives." He bit into a biscuit and made a face like he was meeting God for the first time.
Emily laughed.
"You know I'm gay and I have a girlfriend, right?"
The rookie wiped his lip with his sleeve.
"Gay people can have butlers, can't they?" He shrugged.
"A lifetime of solitude for a little grub isn't necessary." She grabbed her badge and swiped it at the security box. "Enjoy."
"You're my hero!" She heard him shout in a high-pitched damsel voice as she disappeared into the back.
She couldn't help but shake her head and laugh. Her coworkers could be ridiculous, but they made her smile.
When she got to her office door she shook the bags to garner her partner's attention.
"Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey."
She paused in the doorway when she saw that Toby wasn't alone.
His dog Duke was snoozing at his feet.
"I didn't realize it was 'bring your dog to work' day." Emily smiled as she leaned down.
She scratched the Shepherd between the ears. He let out a content groan and lifted his head. He licked her hand and then laid his head between his paws.
"You going to help us sniff out crime, big guy?" Emily cooed.
"Only thing this lazy sack sniffs out is the dog treats. I swear I can't hide them anywhere." Toby reached into his drawer.
Duke's ears perked up and his head snapped towards the desk, attentive.
Toby pulled out a treat. Duke licked his jowls and started to drool. Toby laughed and tossed him the cookie.
"Auntie Em has something better." Emily winked, pulling a chicken biscuit out of the bag.
"Auntie Em, Auntie Em, there's a twister!" Toby teased. Emily cocked her head at him. "You know, Auntie Em…like in The Wizard of Oz?"
"In the flesh." Emily grinned. "And in technicolor. I'll feed you my pretty, and your little dog, too."
"That's not Auntie Em. That's the Wicked Witch." Toby made a face, and she saw a scar from his childhood flash in his eyes. "She terrified me when I was a kid. I still have PTSD."
"Elphaba scared you?" Emily unwrapped the chicken biscuit.
"Who the hell is Elphaba?" He laughed.
"From Wicked?" Emily peered at him.
He still looked thoroughly confused.
"The musical…" She blew a cool breath against the biscuit in her hand.
"Oh, wait…that's based on The Wizard of Oz?" His brain still seemed to be processing.
"It's literally named Wicked...like the Wicked Witch. You're telling me that the green-faced witch didn't tip you off? What kind of detective are you?" She teased.
He waved her off with a muttered "feh" under his breath.
Emily ripped off a piece of the biscuit. Duke licked his chops and sat up on his haunches.
"Can I give him a little piece?" She asked, begging both for Duke and herself.
"Yeah, be my guest."
"Ah, that's Beauty and the Beast." Emily peered up at him with a grin.
"You're just full of useless musical trivia, aren't you?" He scoffed.
"I have the honor to be your obedient servant." Emily hummed a Hamilton song.
"You're exhausting." He rolled his eyes. "And a total nerd."
"Whatever, your dog loves me." She tossed Duke a piece of the biscuit.
He caught it mid-air with an audible chomp.
"He loves anyone who feeds him." Toby reached out and playfully nudged Duke's rear with his foot.
The dog slapped his big bushy tail against the floor.
"I think he wants another bite." Emily was completely under the dog's spell. "And how can I say no?"
Those big brown sappy puppy dog eyes...
"Go for it." Toby pulled a sheet out of a folder. "He's got a cast iron stomach. Ate two raw steaks I was going to grill last weekend." He glared at Duke and then looked back at the paperwork. "Fucker nabbed them when I went to get tongs." He mumbled. "They were Porterhouse."
Emily howled in laughter, handing Duke another piece of bread.
It wasn't as good as a Porterhouse, but the dog gently took it from her anyway. He wagged his tail as he gobbled it down. After he finished chewing he leaned over a bowl Toby had set out for him and lapped up some water before laying back down.
"So, what are you working on?" Emily handed Toby his breakfast goodies.
"Still going through past acquaintances of the victims. I was running through your theory that the killer might know the victims, which explains why there wasn't a struggle with several of them. I made a few cold calls to see who would be willing to talk. A lot of people volunteered to come back in to be interviewed again. And to give us fingerprints so they can be ruled out. Talia's husband. Garrett's cousin. Ian's mother. Even one of Darren Wilden's old frat buddies came in from Cape May. He was kind of surprised when I told him we didn't need his prints."
"Why didn't we need his prints?" Emily took a sip of coffee.
"He's black. That fingerprint points to a very white perp." Toby jotted something down. "Guy was stunned. Even said something about how it had to be the first time in history that the cops didn't want to scrutinize and arrest a black guy." He lowered his paper. "I bought him a beer after that. Real nice guy."
"The system really is shit sometimes." Emily sighed and grumbled under her breath. She knew assholes that profiled and she reported them every time she saw it happen. "He say anything else about Wilden?"
"Nothing he hadn't already told the detectives 16 years ago. Wilden liked the ocean, girls, and beer."
"So…typical frat guy." Emily picked through Darren Wilden's file. "Was he seeing anyone the summer before he was killed? I've read his file front to back and couldn't find information about relationships anywhere."
"No one saw much of him that summer. He apparently took his boat out a lot." Toby took a bite of his chicken biscuit, chomping loudly…like his dog.
"Any visitors?"
"No footage at the docks where he kept his boat. It was in kind of a sketchy area." Toby shrugged.
"Explains why no one saw it adrift…" She thought about the notes she'd read about Wilden's boat mysteriously combusting, "…or aflame."
"If we could just figure out how he ties into this we'd have our answer."
And that answer would be Alison DiLaurentis. They had the answer right in front of them, but they were both too close to see the bigger picture. It was like an optical illusion with hidden pictures where the images only appeared if the person looking relaxed their eyes and focused naturally.
They were focusing on the wrong thing.
"Where are you at with the Poconos investigation?" He asked. "Aria give her final report yet?"
"Yeah. She finished it up with Holden. I put it on your desk yesterday." Emily pointed. She brandished her own copy of the file that she'd carried in with the food. "I finished the interviews with the girls at the club."
The strippers had been wary about talking to law enforcement at first. Emily volunteered to go since she had a history of working in Vice, and because she assumed the girls would respond better to a female.
"Tim was definitely hanging around with Iris, but they never saw him with anyone else. They said it would be impossible to tell if anyone was stalking him. Their club is full of the same clientele."
"Skeevy old white men." Toby nodded.
"Right. And finding our killer in a crowd where they might possibly blend in…needle in a haystack." Emily clucked her tongue. "I did find a potential kill site though. I've got forensics working on it."
"Where is it?" Toby grabbed a pen.
"A warehouse a few miles away from the strip joint."
"Solid." He smiled. "Nice work, partner."
"It looks like that could have been where Tim was hiding out. They found traces of hair and skin cells in a cot on the top floor. They also found semen in the bed and on the floor. They're checking to see if it's a match to Roland. Should know shortly."
"Strange." Toby's eyes narrowed. "Iris wasn't assaulted, was she?"
"No. And Aria noted in her report that there was no evidence of intercourse." Emily shook her head.
"So was the dude just whispering sweet nothings to himself and getting his sick jollies off that way?" His face twisted in disgust.
"I don't know. Maybe." Emily wrung her hands together, thinking about the night in the ambulance bay...and how he'd hurt Alison.
"The fuck is with the creepy perverts in this town?" He didn't even try to hide his disdain.
Emily shuddered. She'd dealt with way too many perverts in her lifetime. Even before she'd become a cop and worked Vice.
A high school memory muddied her thoughts.
Her ex-boyfriend. The sound of a struggle against the lockers. Her shouts for him to stop.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit…
I need a drink…
God help me…
She tried to push it away. She couldn't deal with old trauma while trying to work the case.
"You find anything else?" Toby asked.
Emily forced herself to focus.
"If he was killed at the warehouse that's a hell of a long way to move a body, so I've got CSI's combing the surrounding area looking for anything suspicious. Disturbances in the grass. Broken patches of earth. Footprints in the mud. Drag marks. That kind of thing."
"Right. Good thinking." Toby wrote down her plan. "The question is how he got almost 100 miles away."
"Iris is reminiscent of Darren in that she was killed 100 miles from home." Emily swallowed a bite of her breakfast.
"Anything in the interviews to suggest that Iris was another wolf in sheep's clothing?" Toby glanced up at her. "Any indication that she could have been tangled up with the likes of Ian, Garrett, and Talia?"
Meaning was she some kind of creepy sex fiend with an affinity for younger victims.
The more Emily discovered about the Scarlet Letter Killer's victims the more she questioned just how big the perverted tech club was and how long it had been in operation.
Alison had talked about her parents wanting to use her and Jason for similar purposes, and that was nearly twenty-five years ago. It had been contentious enough for her mother and father to fly into a murderous rage over it.
She'd toyed with the idea of asking Alison about her parents' involvement. If they had any acquaintances or knew anyone in the same club that the killer's victims belonged to they'd have a link to follow.
But Alison was so little when it happened, and it hurt her so much to talk about it. Emily could see the agony in her eyes when she opened up about her past.
I can't do that to her.
Then again, if the DiLaurentis family could lead them to others they could catch some really horrible criminals and perhaps nab the Scarlet Letter Killer, too.
"Em…" Toby snapped his fingers in front of her face. She was still holding her half-eaten biscuit. "Was Iris tied to this secret society of criminals?"
"No. No, I don't think so. This isn't even the same club that Talia danced in. No one knew Talia. And from what I was told Iris was quiet. Shy. She only danced for the money. She wanted to save up and go to college."
"Poor kid." Toby dipped his head in sympathy. "This world needs a better structure for people to thrive. We're not meant to live wondering how we're going to survive from day to day. Young girls shouldn't have to sell their bodies to scrape by."
"Couldn't agree more, partner." Emily cupped his arm and gave it a little shake, letting him know they were in it together.
What they did could be draining. Their line of work came with a heavy emotional toll. She'd seen it get to others, and she'd heard stories about good detectives eating their guns because it was too much.
Toby had made her a promise the day she joined him at the station. He would always keep her grounded. She made him the same promise.
Lately it was getting harder for her to keep herself steady. It wasn't just the increased cravings she'd been having. It was her moral quandries. It was her past. It was her future. It was everything.
They were in unprecedented times. The media was a whirlwind, but that was a piece of cake compared to how Emily felt splitting her time between being a detective and being a girlfriend.
Her mind had been swirling for days. Alison had been opening up more, and the more Emily learned about her past the harder it was for her to separate her job from her emotions.
It didn't help that their plan for the day was to review evidence associated with the Scarlet Letter Killer's victims who had known ties to abusing children.
She flinched when Toby pulled up the video of Ian and Garrett outside the barn with the young teenager.
They were looking for signs to see if someone had been watching. But every time they reviewed footage or looked into the abuse it only served to remind Emily that Alison had been abused, and that she had been abused, too.
She didn't talk about her ex-boyfriend much. She'd told Alison about him the night they went out on their first date. Alison had seen the scars he'd given her. But he was the past, and she only wanted to focus on the future.
Ian laughed on camera and Emily felt bile rising in her throat.
I hate them. I hate all of them.
Emily looked away, unable to watch the horrors that followed. She leaned down and scratched Duke's head.
"I'm sorry, Toby, I can't. I just…I can't…"
Everything she'd seen when she'd been in Vice couldn't compare to the footage on the USB drive.
"I know. I understand." Toby rubbed her shoulder. "I've got your back."
Emily was rarely squeamish, but sexual crimes got to her, especially given what she'd gone through when she was fifteen. She'd put up a wall to protect herself, but it was always there – lurking.
It didn't come back to her often, but every now and then an explosion from her past flashed through her head.
o ~ O ~ o
~ Then ~
Her body was on fire. She was covered in blood. Her bones hurt. Her hand was throbbing. Hot blood seeped down her bare calf.
She was barefoot, running down the sidewalk, leaving trails of blood behind her.
It had happened so fast.
Her boyfriend…
…her ex-boyfriend now…
…in the locker room.
He'd slipped in after swim practice when she was in the middle of changing.
He came on to her, but when she told him she wasn't in the mood he accused her of being a tease and called her a slut, which somehow made him both sadistic and stupid. Like calling her names was going to put her in the mood?
When she wouldn't give him what he wanted he turned on her.
His eyes had been soulless and dark as he groped and grabbed at her. He tried to tear her clothes off as she shouted at him to stop.
It wasn't until he shoved her into the lockers and she felt the sting of her leg being sliced open that she snapped out of her shock and fought back.
The first thing she did was bite his lip, ripping it open to get his mouth off of hers. Then she headbutted him. When he stumbled back she cold-cocked him in the eye and slammed the palm of her hand up against his nose. There was a snap and then blood started pouring out over his lips.
"What the hell, Em!?" He backhanded her and slammed her against the lockers again.
A hot bolt of pain shot through her shoulder, and as ridiculous as it was in that moment her only thought was "well, there goes my swimming career."
She jerked her uninjured leg up and kneed him in the crotch. He howled out in pain.
When he doubled over she tore out of the locker room. She shouted for help, but the hallways were deserted. So she bolted through the back doors and started running, her breath pacing with her pulse.
Her leg was covered in blood, leaving red imprints of her feet behind her as she raced away from the school. She could already feel the bruises on her arm where he'd grabbed her.
She ran all the way home, pure adrenaline pumping through her body.
The second she got through the front door she slammed it shut and backed into it, breathing heavily.
She felt faint. She pressed her back against the wooden frame and slid down to the floor just as her mother was rounding the corner.
"Emily, you're supposed to call us if you're going to stay late to swim. We…"
The older woman stopped dead in her tracks when she saw her daughter on the floor bruised and soaked in her own blood.
"Baby, what happened?" She fell to her knees. "Wayne!" She screamed, searching for the source of the blood. "Wayne!"
The second time his name came out as a desperate cry that only mothers had, an angry wounded animal in nature.
Emily heard her father's heavy footsteps approaching, racing towards them. They were being followed by a second pair. It was only then that she registered that she'd seen Marco Furey's car in the driveway. Her dad had been planning on going to the shooting range with him.
"What? What's wrong?" Wayne skidded to a stop.
He took one look at his daughter's ripped clothes and bloody injuries and he knew. Somehow he knew…
It was a father's intuition.
"What the hell happened?" Marco's spine went rigid. His hands balled into fists by his sides.
The look on his face mirrored Wayne's. He would look at her with the same worry in his eyes years later when she put her life on the line.
Wayne leaned down and picked his daughter up off of the floor. He motioned for Pam to grab a blanket. She slid a large blanket off the back of the couch and put it on the cushions. Her dad sat her down and immediately went to work on her injuries.
Pam draped another blanket around Emily's shoulders. The weight of it against her shoulder injury elicited a hiss of pain from the girl.
Her dad barked for someone to grab the first aid kit.
Marco was on it.
Wayne's face was furious, but his hands were soft and delicate. He used one hand to slow the bleeding on her leg and another to cup her face.
"Emmy, baby, look at me."
She did, her eyes locking on his. She stared at her eyes reflecting back at her. She looked like her dad. She'd never realized that.
"That Ben boy do this to you?" His entire body was tense.
"He…he attacked me in the locker room." Her voice was somehow broken and strong at the same time.
Wayne grit his teeth as he wrapped gauze around the cut. He had a murderous rage in his eyes.
She could feel his anger radiating off of him. It was frightening. He usually wore an invisible mask around the house that separated his dark side from his light side, but someone had hurt his little girl...and all bets were off.
"It's going to need stitches." Marco kneeled next to Wayne.
"I know. I'm just trying to slow the bleeding."
Marco didn't say anything else. He just helped Emily's angry father wrap the gaping hole in her leg.
"I think I broke his nose." Emily uttered, a shiver convulsed her body.
"Good girl." Marco nodded, moving to grip her arm to try and steady her, stopping short when he saw the bruises covering her skin.
"Where does this little fucker live?" Marco whispered to Wayne.
They shared a look…one that Emily was quite certain they'd shared overseas before. It was a silent conversation between a band of brothers.
Pam frantically tried to wipe the blood away from her face. She didn't notice when Wayne walked across the room. He snapped his service revolver into its holster and glanced at his wife.
"I'll meet you at the ER." He had a determined look on his face.
"Wayne." Pam gasped, but he was already out the door. "Wayne!" She rushed after him.
There was a beat of silence. Marco gently taped the roll gauze on her leg and then stood up.
Emily blinked and then turned towards the door. She stared at it, knowing exactly where her father was going.
"Think my dad will kill him?" Emily held an ice pack against her knuckles.
When had someone given her an ice pack? Was it her mom? Marco?
"50-50." Marco had a stiff look on his face. His eyes raked the bruises on her arms and then stopped at the ice pack. "You okay, kid?"
Tears filled her eyes.
"No."
Her tears seemed to open up a gauntlet inside of him. She watched as his mask faded. He was no longer her dad's buddy, no longer her mentor showing her how to aim a gun and praising her for it. He was an angry surrogate father. An angry surrogate father who had retired from the military and was now a cop and had access to guns and knew how to kill someone and get away with it. It didn't matter that the boy who hurt her was fifteen. Marco looked primed and ready to kill regardless of his age.
Seconds later her mother returned. She seemed less frantic, but still concerned.
"Marco…" She nervously looked towards the door. "Please…"
"I'm on it, Pam." He gave her a curt nod and walked towards the door. He looked at Emily. "I know you're reeling, kiddo, but is it okay if I send an officer to take your statement at the hospital?"
Emily bit her lip and nodded.
She was brave. Her father's daughter.
"Am I in trouble?" Emily swallowed a lump in her throat.
He had a hard look on his face as he responded,
"Not from where I'm standing."
Emily let everything out the second he walked out the door. She fell into her mother's arms and sobbed. Pam stroked her back and quietly soothed her.
Once she settled down Pam helped her into the car and drove towards the hospital. Emily stared out the window, trying to come to terms with what had happened.
As much as she loved her parents she felt a disconnect as she processed her emotions. She pulled her phone out and texted the only person she wanted by her side.
Had it been six months later it would have been Maya.
But instead, it was her best friend.
Hanna, I need you. Ben attacked me. OMW to the hospital with my mom. Can your mom bring you?
Hanna's response was instantaneous,
Only if you give me permission to make a pit stop at Ben's house first. He's a dead man.
A teary smile washed across her face. She glanced over at her mother, who was staring at the road, lost in her own thoughts.
Just come please.
I'll be there.
Hanna hadn't been able to get a ride from her mom, so she commandeered an older friend's car and broke the law to drive herself to be by Emily's side.
The cops came to take her statement at the hospital. Her dad showed up two and a half hours after they arrived, Marco still by his side.
Ben had turned himself in.
Emily had no idea what had happened. Her dad still looked furious, but he had a calm stoic light in his eyes. Marco had the same look.
Emily had never quite understood the emotions on their faces. She wouldn't understand until years later when she would feel the same murderous rage every time someone hurt someone she loved.
She would later come to understand that it was a look of a pure unadulterated hate. An urge that was so deep that all sense of logic flew out the window.
It was a look that crossed the threshold from wanting to kill someone and being capable of doing it, a look that she'd come to understand very intimately.
o ~ O ~ o
Duke was sitting up, his big head in Emily's lap. She mindlessly stroked his head. He let out a whine that called for Toby's attention.
His eyes strayed from the computer. Her body language told him all he needed to know. The anxious way she'd pulled her knees together. The way she was hunched over. The way her hands were fidgeting.
"You need a break?" Toby noticed her tension.
"I'm okay." She shook it off. "Just…drudges up some bad memories."
He nodded in understanding.
"Ben?" He asked.
Toby had found out about Ben after she got home from the hospital that day. Gossip in the town spread fast. He'd gone to the school and saw the cops circling her bloody footprints.
"He was an entitled prick." Emily heaved out a sigh. "I was such an idiot for going out with him."
"It's not your fault the dude was a psychopath."
Emily leaned back in her chair, contemplating her jaded feelings.
"I wasn't even upset when he hung himself in his cell," she said, her tone a strange monotonous robot that she didn't recognize.
She remembered getting the call and feeling nothing. She'd been surprised he'd done it. He was an arrogant narcissistic dick, and suicide seemed odd, but given what he'd done and the fact that he'd rather die than be imprisoned she'd reasoned to herself that it made sense. She didn't care that he was gone. She was just glad that he was gone.
"I didn't lose any sleep either." Toby closed his laptop screen. "I would have killed him myself if the little weasel hadn't turned himself in so fast. Soon as I heard what he'd done I had my baseball bat at hand. I was ready to pummel him and then strangle him with my bare hands."
So what makes us so different from this killer we're after?
Just because we won't cross that line?
Does that make us better? Or are we just arrogant to believe that catching criminals and putting them on death row is somehow different?
She tried to hold it together and focus on the task at hand, but she was starting to lose control.
"Hey, you sure you're good?" Toby's brows creased, a little indent forming as he scrutinized her.
He could tell that she was deeply disturbed, and not just by the video.
"I'm fine." Emily smiled, continuing to stroke Duke's head.
I'm just cheering on a serial killer and having a complete and total existential crisis.
"Just ready to catch this killer." She sold the lie convincingly. And possibly shake their hand.
No. She realized. What about Maya?
In her head she knew the pieces of Maya's murder didn't fit, but she couldn't see any other possibility given the way Lyndon died. There was no evidence to suggest that anyone else had been there.
She felt Duke nudge her hand with his nose.
She glanced down at him, pleading with him not to sell her out. He always seemed to sense when something was amiss. And he always cried when he thought she was upset.
Do NOT tell your buddy my thoughts…
After a minute, the dog looked away.
Emily breathed a sigh of relief. Toby had a lot on his plate. The last thing he needed to deal with was his partner's unstable mental state.
She hadn't been the same since the shooting at the liquor store. She had gained a newfound sense of purpose and a picture-perfect girlfriend from the aftermath, but she'd lost a part of herself along the way.
She shook her head.
I can NOT have an identity crisis in the middle of the biggest investigation of our lives.
Focus, Fields.
Focus.
Work now. Break down later.
She managed to shake off her conflicting emotions and ran through their findings with the chief and the rest of the team an hour later.
After the briefing she needed to blow off some steam.
She still hadn't heard back from Alison, so she scrolled through her contacts list and pulled up the number of a certain blonde who was not her girlfriend.
Hey. Need some stress relief. Can you make it happen?
She climbed in her car and started digging through her pockets for her credit cards and cash. As she was putting on her seatbelt she got a response,
Oui. But of course. I'm all yours.
Same time, same place?
You got it, babe.
Emily juggled her phone and her wallet, checking to see if Alison had texted back yet.
She hadn't.
Cash or credit?
You really think I'm going to let you pay me? Just bring your ass in. It's on me.
She laughed. Hanna always knew the most outlandish thing to say to make her laugh. She also always knew exactly what to do to take Emily's mind off of everything, which is exactly why Emily had called her.
The blonde was waiting for her when she got there.
"Does your girlfriend know you're here?" Hanna leaned against the door frame.
She was in tights and a halter top, clothing that was hard to ignore, yet all Emily could think about was Alison.
I should be with her.
"No." Emily walked through the door past Hanna. "Why? You think she suspects?"
"I don't know. You tell me."
She heard the door close behind her, but her eyes were on the table in front of her. She walked over to it, glancing at the fancy dishes and the food.
They both pulled chairs out and sat across from each other.
"Be honest…" Hanna tapped the table. "She would totally kill us for doing this, wouldn't she?" She slid a steaming hot cup of coffee over to Emily. "And no one would ever know. She's a doctor. She knows how to make that shit look natural."
If Emily had known just how close to the truth her friend had been…
Instead, her vagina was louder than her brain. Her heart was louder than her logic. The love was blinding.
"Nah, Alison isn't like that." She stared at the mug of coffee, but didn't pick it up. "She's one of the sweetest people I've ever met. We never fight."
"So…if your woman isn't mad at you then what's up with you?" Hanna pinched her forehead tight in thought.
"What do you mean?" Emily lifted her head in confusion.
"You seem gloomy." Since the coffee wasn't working, Hanna pushed a dish of Crème Brulee over towards the brunette.
"Sorry. Just…work stuff."
"Em, the last time I saw you like this was after Maya's funeral." She chewed her lip. "If I recall correctly it ended with us getting uber drunk and kissing."
"Yeah, don't want a repeat of that." Emily shook her head.
"Geeze, was I that bad?" The blonde looked like the epitome of a puppy abandoned at the pound.
"No." Emily tried to think back on that drunken fog of a day. "I mean, the drinking wasn't a good idea, but you...being you...snapped me out of my bullshit. I remember that much."
"Well, consider this me snapping you out of your bullshit again." Hanna leaned forward, and for a second Emily was convinced she was going to pucker up again. Instead, she just reached for a pitcher of water and poured herself a glass. "Talk to me, Fields. Did someone die or something?"
A lot of people died.
But…they deserved it.
I think.
"I had this weird…" Emily shuddered thinking about Ben, "…lapse today."
"You don't mean like…" She mimed tipping back a glass of alcohol.
"No. It was about Ben." Saying his name made her feel powerless. She hated it.
"Oh." The jovial smile disappeared from Hanna's face, replaced with a tight brow…a look of sympathy, then a glare of anger as she thought about the boy. "Hence you needing a break." She relaxed into her chair. "What brought that on?"
"The case I'm working on."
"Have you talked to Alison about it?" Hanna's voice was gentle, empathetic, extremely un-Hanna-like.
"She's dealing with a lot right now." Emily shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
"So?"
"So, I'm not going to pile my shit on her. Not right now." She was extremely sensitive to Alison's needs. Her girlfriend was in a fragile state. "Maybe I'll talk to her about it down the line. It's not like she doesn't know. I've told her about it. She's seen my scars."
Emily had some messed up shit in her history. Her first boyfriend tried to rape her and her first girlfriend had been murdered horribly. She had dealt with a lot of it over the years, but trauma wasn't something that completely healed with time. It was like a broken bone that never quite healed properly. It flared up in pain sometimes. But she knew there was a time and a place to bring it up.
"I'd rather just…" She motioned towards the back room, "…get it out another way."
"Yes. Because repression is healthy." Hanna deadpanned.
"I'm not repressing." Emily shook her head. "I'm just…postponing."
"This isn't a high school English assignment. You can't just procrastinate it away." Hanna sighed. "Em, come on…" She put her hand on top of Emily's. "It's me you're talking to."
Emily heaved out a sigh.
What am I doing here?
"I think I'm losing my grip on myself." Emily looked up from the table. "I've just…I've been having all these thoughts I don't know how to handle."
Hanna stirred in alarm.
"It's not that cop-PTSD where you want to put a gun in your mouth, is it?"
One thing about Hanna…she always got straight to the point, tact or no tact.
"No." It's about shoving the gun in other people's mouths.
She always thought that if she got to a point where she wanted to kill people instead of saving them she'd walk into the station and turn in her gun and shield.
"Well…" Hanna leaned back in her chair, pulling her hand away. She motioned towards the back room. "I suppose this is better than drinking…"
"Much better." Emily nodded.
"You really think your girl is in the dark about it?"
"Yes. I've been really careful." Though she hated keeping secrets from Alison. It felt like lying to the Dalai Lama.
A murderous Dalai Lama…but she didn't know that.
"So…do you want to just skip the pleasantries and get right to it?" The blonde cut to the chase.
Something else Emily admired about her friend was her blunt nature.
The detective stared at the decorative table in front of her that was meant to bring her joy.
She answered Hanna's question with a nod.
"Yeah."
They both climbed to their feet and turned their backs to the half-shaded windows near the front door.
A pair of eyes peering through the slit watched the two of them disappear into the back room together.
When they re-emerged nearly an hour later they were both breathing heavy and covered in sweat.
"My God, you're like a machine, Hanna. Jesus." Emily doubled over, grabbing her knees with her palms.
"Practice makes perfect mademoiselle." Hanna reached for a beignet on the table. She ingested it quickly and then dusted her hands off and faced Emily. "Come on. Let's go again."
"You're killing me, Rivers." Emily huffed.
"Less whining, more moving." She wiped the sweat from her brow. "But before round two...you're going to talk to your girlfriend, right? I'm just here for the physical stuff."
"No kidding." Emily straightened her spine, working to arch it enough to stretch out the kinks she had. "And yes. I'll talk to Alison."
"That's all I needed to hear." Hanna didn't seem the least bit winded as she skipped back towards the back room again.
Emily downed a glass of water to replenish her electrolytes and then followed Hanna, closing the door behind her.
By the time they were done Emily wasn't sure she'd have enough energy for Alison later on. She toweled off the sweat and told Hanna she had to run.
"Duty beckons," she took a swig of a power drink.
"I'll see you tonight." Hanna winked.
"Not a soul, Hanna Marin-Rivers." Emily held up her index and middle fingers and pointed to her eyes and then flicked her wrist around and pointed to Hanna with those same fingers.
I'm watching you.
"Don't you tell a soul." Emily warned.
Hanna reached up towards her lips with her fingers pinched together. She made a motion like she was zipping her lips shut, locking a lock, and throwing away the key.
Emily waved as she bolted out the door. She needed a quick shower before going back to the station.
Her little break had succeeded in taking her mind off of her past. She was focused and attentive the rest of the day.
She finally heard from Alison late that afternoon. She sounded like she'd just woken up from the most wonderful dream.
"Hey, baby." Her voice was hoarse, a sexy rasp to it. "Sorry I didn't call. I got home and crashed."
Emily had no reason to believe she was lying, even though she was. The blonde had been doing recon all day, looking into another kill.
"Did you dream about me?" Emily smiled.
"Always do. Why do you think I'm so hoarse? Screaming your name in my sleep will wreak havoc on a girl's vocal cords."
Emily wanted to hear those screams. She wanted to be the real reason Alison could barely talk.
"So…" Emily paused thoughtfully. She played with the edge of her phone, tracing the outline of its case. "Are we still on for tonight?"
"Yeah. Of course." Alison sensed something different in Emily's voice.
Nerves.
"Why?" Alison pried, picking up on the tension in her girlfriend's tone. "Is something up?"
"I did something," Emily said calmly. "I…"
"Fields…" Chief Furey popped his head into her office. "The team is gathered for the next walk-through. Need you in the briefing room."
"Be right there, Chief." Emily nodded, sitting straight up in her chair. She watched him walk away. "We'll talk tonight, Ali. I'll be by your place at seven."
Alison didn't have a chance to argue. They'd said their goodbyes before she could ask what they needed to talk about.
It left her to stew in uncertainty for hours.
To pass the time she plotted out exactly what she was going to do to her next target.
When Emily came to pick her up she was sporting a fancy royal blue dress with black lacy trim.
Alison had never seen the detective in formal wear, much-less a dress. On their first date Alison had told her she would look good in royal blue. And she was right. Emily looked like a fucking Goddess.
"You're wearing a dress." Alison lifted her brows. She wasn't sure what else to say. The woman was breathtaking. "Why, Detective Fields, you are just full of surprises."
As she approached the brunette she noticed a garment bag folded over her forearm.
"I own dresses." Emily's face flushed. She just never wore them.
"Since when?" Alison couldn't help but gawk. She'd snooped through her closet and had never come across anything so fancy.
This is my girlfriend. MY girlfriend. How did I get so lucky?
"You've been holding out on me." The blonde touched her bare arm.
Her other hand landed on the garment bag.
"I've got to run a quick errand." Emily unzipped the bag and pulled out a fiery red dress. She seemed jittery, which bothered Alison.
"Okay, what's up with you, Em?" Alison reached for the garment bag. "You're acting weird."
"I'll explain everything later. I promise." She leaned in for a kiss. When she pulled back she lifted her brows and winked. She gently put her palm against Alison's side. "I'll be back in a few. Get dressed."
Normally, Alison found the opposite, get undressed, more exciting, but something about the twinkle in Emily's eye stirred a whirlwind of exhilaration.
Her worries could wait. She had a hot little number to strut her stuff in.
She gave Emily a peck on the cheek and waved as the detective walked out the door.
She had a feeling that it was going to be an unforgettable evening.
o ~ O ~ o
The eager young blonde put on her party dress and primped herself in her mirror. She worked carefully on her wingtips.
She was ready for a night out on the town. She had already pre-gamed with a shot of tequila, which was a stupid fucking idea, she thought as she put on her make-up with her shaky hand.
She refused to go outside looking like a clown. She had to get it just right. Meticulous perfection.
As soon as she finished her eyes she put on the brightest red lipstick she owned. She popped her lips and winked at herself in the mirror.
She was all set to go. Just a quick biology break in the restroom and she was ready to party.
She wouldn't make it out the front door.
When she flipped the light switch for the bathroom nothing happened. She grumbled in annoyance. The light had been fine when she took her shower earlier. She furiously flipped it up and down, like that was going to fix it.
Fuck it.
She'd pissed in the dark before. She could find her way.
She left the door cracked as she sidled across the tile floor, humming to herself in the darkness. It covered the noise of a soft hospital bootie against the floor.
The room was still damp and moist, like she'd just showered, even though it had been over an hour ago.
She heard a droplet of water hit a puddle. At first she thought it was coming from the sink. It dribbled sometimes.
But it came from the left side, which is where the tub-shower combo was located. She turned her head towards it just as darkness enveloped the room. The door had been shut. Something was over her head.
A bag?
But it was wet.
A wet rag.
Before she could fight back she felt a stinging sensation near the base of her skull. A needle going in. Burning her head. The last thought she remembered was that she was on fire.
The sedative didn't last long. Just long enough for someone to tie her up and drag a sharp instrument against her cheek.
When she woke up the lights were burning her eyes. She was in the base of the tub underneath the faucet. She couldn't see anything except a large wet towel being shoved around her face and head.
There was something covering her cheek. Something that was collecting a pool of her blood, protecting the cuts there. The scorching hot towel burned the deep gashes on her face. She tried to scream, but water filled her lungs. Someone had turned the water on.
The hot water.
Panic hammered against her ribs as she was unable to draw her breath.
A garbled voice hissed,
"So whoring around was more important than your son…"
The water felt like lava, burning her, turning her thoughts black. She was certain she was about to die, but she couldn't fight back.
The person holding her down would drown her within an inch of her life and then back off until she was conscious again. The process was repeated a dozen times.
The twelfth time was the last.
Lungs filled with fluid. Oxygen depleted. Brain and heart both ceased functioning.
A gloved hand reached out and calmly turned the water flow from the tub to the shower. The towel was removed, displaying the A on her face, still running with blood. The protective covering was ripped away and the bright red substance circled down the drain.
A satisfied pair of eyes looked at the woman in the shower with a twisted smirk.
The body was posed like a natural fall in the shower.
The scene was cleaned up and the killer disappeared, as if though no one had been there at all.
The moon hung low in the sky, offering a lovely walk away from a satisfactory evening. The bright light highlighted all the infinite particles of dust normally invisible to the naked eye.
Invisibility was tricky, but not impossible. It was imperative to do the work that had to be done. Watching the invisible particles ignited an excitement that couldn't be ignored. Dancing in the moonlight seemed appropriate. So, face pointed skywards, eyes closed...basking in the darkness of the light, heart pounding, a shadow danced to the beat that could only be heard by one person.
A/N: Before you scream at me, can I just say in my defense... *runs away from flying objects*
Seriously though, if you read my writing enough you know that nothing is ever as it seems...