- Chapter 2 -

STUMBLE AND FALL

As Molly walked down the streets to the cemetery she fought back the tears and the scream that wanted to crawl up her throat. Things weren't supposed to happen that way… Never, never that way... And she didn't care about what Evan said – something was really wrong and she wasn't about to let it go, not as easily as Evan himself did.

She wondered what was wrong with him. She wondered just how much pain he had endured for her sake, and how she shouldn't act so angry at him – after all, it wasn't his fault, really. He wasn't the one who shot her mother, quite the contrary. He gave her life, in a matter of speaking. She knew her mother's story; all about her parents being killed in a car bomb, and how Evan took care of her. If it wasn't for him, god knows where Molly's mother would have ended up.

Molly crossed the streets huddled up on her coat. It wasn't really cold, but she felt shivering out of pure anger. She wanted to shout at someone without feeling guilty, because every time she got into a fight with her godfather, she felt bad afterwards.

Today wasn't any different… But not by much. As guilty as she felt right now, she couldn't stop thinking about how easily he received the news from Riley. How incredibly… tamed he looked upon giving her the news as well. He looked angry, alright, but he also looked defeated, like there was nothing else he could do.

Molly knew that wasn't the truth. There was always something he could do, even retired, he could still pull some strings if he wanted to, she knew that much. She had already seen it before, in cases other than her mother's.

London looked alive and busy as she made her way through the city. It looked almost disrespectful, really, because right now she was far from alive… or busy, if she was to be honest with herself. With that thought in mind, she reached for her inside pocket and took a small red covered notebook out. As she waited for the green lit pedestrian sign, she looked down at it, fondly and bitterly.

Those were her most important annotations on her mother's case. However a minor, she was D.I. Drake's only family, and with Evan White as her godfather, she had gotten her hands in much more information than what the police would be willing to give to a depressed fourteen year old girl, it did not matter what the Freedom of Information Act said. She had also collected newspapers clip ever since, and not only about her mother – anything that would resemble something that Arthur Layton could be involved with was enough to make her eyes widen in curiosity and rip off the newspaper.

She was obsessed, and she knew it. Her psychologist and her godfather wouldn't let her forget that. Not that she minded them – she had more pressing matters to attend to, such as finding out why Arthur Layton had yet to be brought to justice.

The pedestrian sign finally lit up, and she crossed the street accompanied by a dozen of other people, unaware of her angst or anger. They'd bump their elbows at her and didn't even look down to apologise. A man wearing a dark green coat almost toppled Molly over as he ran past her, while whistling a song she didn't recognise.

"Bastard" she'd mutter under her breath, clutching the little red notebook. With the sudden movement, the carefully folded article that she kept inside the notebook had almost fallen off. She took it in her hands and unfolded it. It was the first article to report her mother's murder, and the first one Molly ever ripped off a newspaper. She carried it around with her whenever she went, like a token.

She folded it back and put it inside the notebook, slowly and carefully.

Now she was just a few blocks away, and Molly slowed down her pace. She finally felt the tiredness that comes after a long state of rage. The long walk and the subway trip had calmed her down. She had stormed out of the house without even sparing a second glance at her godfather, and it took almost the whole trip to the cemetery to finally make her heart go back to its normal pace.

As she got closer to the cemetery's gates, she felt herself calming down even more. That place had this effect on her. All the rush, all the anger and angst, it would all fade to oblivion when she was with her mother. While visiting her, she didn't think about seeing Layton behind bars or her arguments with her godfather. When Molly was at the cemetery with her mother, she could only think about the past.

And how happy she had been.

Molly would sit there and forget about the passing time. With her eyes shut tight she'd envision her life: how it had been, the best moments and the worst moments as well. She regretted some things, but they were small in comparison with everything else.

Sometimes, she would allow herself to imagine how her life would be like if her mother were alive. She would imagine trips she had never made and moments she had never had with her mother, and some of them would root down on her brain so deeply that by the end of the day she almost believed it was true.

But then Molly would open her eyes and reality would bitchslap her on the face.

Today, she knew, it wouldn't be any different. As she approached the cemetery's entrance, she already felt like leaving behind all arguments and all bitterness that was accompanied by that small red notebook. The closer she got to the cemetery, the emptier the streets were, and she was glad for that. She hated being around people, ever since her mother's death.

Molly knew that this wasn't a good sign, but she didn't mind. It wasn't like her life was a good sign anyway. Her father never really cared about her, and she never really cared about him, because she had her mother. As much as it hurt his indifference, she had her mother. But now… Everything had changed, in the blink of an eye.

Fast as a bullet.

That bullet destroyed Molly's world and brought her into someplace else, where she didn't know the rules. Everything was strange and scary, and she had to thread that path alone, or so she thought.

When she finally got to the cemetery's entrance, she took her time to take a good look at its old iron portal. It had always been rusty and entwined with overgrown bindweed. Nobody ever took their time to trim the weed, which gave the cemetery's entrance a kind of gloomy look. Molly didn't mind it, really. She thought it was much appropriated. They had wanted to bury her mother in a fancier (and newer) cemetery, full of dead coppers, but Evan and Molly insisted in burying her side by side with her parents. That's what she would have wanted. She inhaled deeply, ready to cross that threshold and walk down memory lane once again.

Today she found out that her mother's case had been all but discarded. Today was the anniversary of her mother's death. Today, too, was her birthday.

And she didn't know what to do with today.

Molly put the red notebook back into her inside pocket and crossed the street to enter the cemetery.

That was when a man wearing a dark green coat approached her from behind and pulled on her arm. Molly turned, nervously, her London paranoia taking the best of her.

"Excuse me" he said, smiling, not really looking like a threat. Molly's hair, though, was standing on end. "Are you Molly?"

"Let go of my arm" she said, nervously, ignoring him and trying to free her arm from his steady grip. She recognized him as being the man who had almost knocked her down on the crosswalk. "Or I'll scream".

He smiled down at her. Molly looked around, there was not a living soul who could hear or see them. The cemetery's neighbourhood was always empty, she knew that… And he also seemed to know that.

Molly started panicking. What the hell is going on, she thought.

Then, to her sheer horror, he started to sing, and he grabbed her other arm. "We stumble and fall, we stumble and fall… Skin on skin but there's heaven in… Heaven's in here…"

And to much of her surprise, she felt her knee going up against the man's private parts, and he stopped singing with a cry, letting go of her. Quickly and with her legs trembling, she ran into the cemetery, crossing the rusty iron gates into the field of olden tombstones.

"Mols! You can't run from me, baby girl!" he screamed, gathering his breath and running after her. He was bigger and much faster, and although in pain, he aimed at her like a bull's to a red sheet. Molly's legs weren't helping her at all, and she felt her heart skip a beat in panic. She didn't know where she was heading. She didn't know if she was able to get rid of him.

Molly could hear the man behind her back, getting closer and closer.

"Mooolly! Moools!" he shouted her name, as if calling for a pet.

She turned back, still running, and shouted at him: "Stay away from me! Stay AWAY!"

She turned and kept running for her life. "HELP!" she screamed, being met by the silence of the tombstones. There was no one around to listen to her plea. Molly then remembered something and turned left on her run. She was going in the direction of the gravedigger's house, and she was finally gaining distance from her pursuer. Maybe she could do it. Maybe she could get to the gravedigger, he was a big and kind man…

That was when it happened. She heard a loud bang and fell on the ground. Molly didn't know what was going on until she tried to get up, stumbled and fell again… And then she saw it.

The blood.

She had been shot on her right shin, and blood was spilling out of her as quickly as that milk jar she had toppled down earlier.

Molly felt dizzy at the sight of the red stickiness that smeared her pants and the grass beneath her. Slowly, the stinging pain was reaching her brain. She tried to get up once more and failed, falling with both hands on the ground. Her pursuer's shadow was now looming over her, and she turned to lie on her back and looked up at him, pale and terrified.

He was smiling. Molly felt all her stamina leaving her. Suddenly she felt very cold.

"Now, now, baby girl. Why'd you have to go and do that for?" he asked, leaning over her. "Now look at the mess you made me do". Upon her unresponsiveness, he sighed and she felt his arms around her shoulders, ready to carry her. "C'me on now, it was only a scratch."

And Molly felt being lifted up by him. She wanted to scream or hit him, but could barely shake her head when he touched her. She was in shock. The pain and the panic were drawing a veil on her mind, and she felt unable to fight him, even though her arms were free and she hadn't been gagged.

"Relax, baby girl" he murmured, taking her back to the street. Molly only saw him through half-closed eyelids, and everything was getting darker by the minute.

And then she saw nothing.