A/N: I own nothing and please forgive all of my mistakes. Sam, Gina, and Martinez return as well as a new character who we learn more about later make an appearance finally. Hope you enjoy.

27

"Cedes, this is all your fault."

Cedes couldn't believe she just heard the words coming out of her Hunter's mouth as he walked toward her office, caged raccoon in hand.

"How in the hell is any of this my fault?"

"You should have just let me shoot him …"

Cedes knew Hunter better than he knew himself. He simply didn't have the stomach for such things. "I know, Hunt, but there was no need to kill the little guy; after we get him checked out, we will take him out to the forest and release him several miles away from here." She said to savage his fragile ego.

"We're just going to abandon him out there all alone and defenseless?"

"He's a wild animal that is possibly rabid and doesn't need to be around people."

Hunter looked at the raccoon still sleeping from the shot that Jay had given him. "That never stopped your parents from abandoning you."

"You got jokes, and I probably don't need to be around people either but that doesn't take away from the fact that you can't keep that raccoon as a pet."

Hunter and Ralphie had become just like Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse. They were actually frenemies who enjoyed the chase more than the catching and the eating. Yep, you can eat raccoons. People down South and certain Native American cultures say they taste just like chicken.

Cedes took the time to look at her current injuries which consisted of minor cuts on her face but her hair and scalp took the majority of the abuse. A couple of her braids were ripped out of her hair causing her scalp to be inflamed when the raccoon finally released itself from her. "I was looking so cute before all of this."

"Sometimes I forget you're a girl."

"Please. Like you don't have bad hair days. You are way more vain than I am."

"True. Remember our senior pictures?"

"How could I forget one of the greatest memories of my life when you grew your hair and asked me to give you dreadlocks?"

"And I get to revisit it every time I look in our yearbook."

"I'm a little disappointed no one calls you Sideshow Bob anymore."

"If we did keep him—" He put in a hand to stroke the fur of the sleeping raccoon.

"Hunter," she was about to tell him hell to the no before he interrupted her.

"—and I'm not saying we will, but if we did—"

"Hunter Clarington." She knew he would do this.

"—he could be our department's mascot." He raised hopeful eyes in her direction. "I've always wanted a raccoon to assist me with solving crimes."

"He is adorable and he didn't completely scalp me." That man's lunacy was spreading. She was caving in to his insanity; some of her brain cells must have come out with the braids.

"I knew you would understand."

"He's kind of like your spirit animal."

"What if he has rabies, though?"

"Then he would be exactly, you, instead of your spirit animal."

David Martinez, the sheriff's department's newest recruit, who had just graduated from an intensive deputy training program, came in looking good in his black uniform.

"Hey, Martinez," she said.

He handed her a file. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." She grabbed her coffee and took a sip of the scalding brew.

"Did you hire me because you feel sorry for me?"

She choked, not sure if it was due to the hot liquid burning the back of her throat or Martinez's question. Most likely it was a combo of the two.

"I'm not a charity case," he continued. "I want to earn this position on my own merit and not on your pity or be accused of being a DEI hire."

After coughing she looked at him and asked, "Are you for real?"

"Nah, it just makes me sound like a better person when I say stuff like that."

"Always trying to pull one over me, this one." She told Hunter while gesturing towards Martinez.

She looked over the report Martinez had brought to her. "Now this is how you write up a report. You need to follow his example."

"My reports are always good," he said, defensively.

"Listen," she said before reading aloud. "'Single-handedly and with zero safety incidents, updated the communication and output device that utilizes and produces vital information while simultaneously sharing critical data with coworkers and creating a more efficient and productive work environment.'"

After taking a moment to let the sentence sink in, Hunt frowned at Martinez and asked, "What does that even mean?"

The smirk the new deputy offered her BFF was too much. "I changed the toner cartridge in the copier."

Cedes nodded. "I like the way you write, Martinez."

"Thanks, boss." He bent to check out the caged menace snoring away and at her bruises. "How'd it go?"

"I had a raccoon's junk in my face for what seemed like an eternity."

"I didn't know you were into that sort of thing."

She picked up her coffee and took another sip now that it had cooled. "You will be one hundred before you know everything about me, Martinez."

After a quick glance over his shoulder at Hunt, he straightened and started to leave, but Cedes could tell there he had questions. And doubts. She knew he would.

"Hunt, can you give us a moment?"

"Sure thing." He gave Martinez a challenging stare.

She sat at her desk and motioned for him to sit across from her. She wondered if he was worried about his incarcerated twin. A twin who he felt he owed, but after spending three years in prison for him, surely any debt he had was now paid in full.

"How are you really doing?"

He said evasively, "I'm good."

"All of your scores at the training academy were exceptional."

"Thanks."

"No, thank you. It makes me look good that I recommended and recruited you."

He nodded and she realized getting past the barriers he'd built in prison for a crime he didn't commit would take some time. That was okay. She just happened to have some extra time.

"I don't think you should have taken a chance on me."

"I doubt it. You can't be worse than Clarington or anybody Schuester personally recruited." She said, thinking of Brett but refusing to say his name.

"What happens if I make a mistake and someone dies because of it?" He asked. "What if I fail?"

His apprehensions only strengthened Cedes's conviction that she'd made the right decision. She would've been worried were he not questioning his ability to do the job. "You will fail."

He looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

"You will make mistakes and regret decisions you made because hindsight is twenty-twenty. But you'll learn from them and do better next time like all good law enforcement workers do."

"You don't make mistakes."

"You haven't been around long enough or you would see that I do on a daily basis."

He shook his head. "I've researched you and I know your clearance rate when you were working in Eureka was almost one hundred percent. That's almost unheard of. If you do make mistakes, you don't make many."

"But it wasn't one hundred percent. I made mistakes and learned from them before they became too big of an issue."

"Do any of your mistakes keep you awake at night?"

"They most definitely do."

He didn't ask, so she volunteered to tell him her biggest mistake. "My first case as a detective was filled with mistakes. It was about a missing boy and his father was on trial for securities fraud and his mother was no help at all."

"What happened?" He asked, unable to hide his curiosity any longer.

The tightening in her chest proved she was still not over it. Over him. A five-year-old boy who had haunted her dreams for several years. "He was never found."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thank you. Just know, Martinez, we can't solve every case. All we can do is our best and try to make it home to our loved ones every night." When he only nodded, clearly unconvinced, she added, "And I chose you to be my deputy for a reason. Never doubt that. But if you need to talk about anything, you know where I will be."

"Thank you, sheriff." He turned around to leave her office and Cedes walked out with him.

As soon as they were in the open area, Cedes saw that Jay had just walked into the station, and she along with everyone else was at Hunt's desk fawning over the raccoon.

"He's a cutie." McCarthy said, poking his finger through the bars.

Cedes made a mental note to schedule wildlife training for the department ASAP. Then, she went back into her office and grabbed her bag. "I'm heading home. You guys need to do the same. Big day tomorrow. Huge." She said imitating Trump. "Bigly day."

Everyone stopped and looked at her as if she lost her mind except Hunter.

"What's happening?" Hunt asked.

"It's Sunday."

"And?"

"I don't have to work and I can get my hair fixed since my scalp should be healed."

"That's a bigly day?"

"It is when I haven't had a day off of work since I started this job four months ago."

"You had to take the day off when you chased Gunther under that bridge and accidentally knocked yourself out for the fourth time and the doctor demanded that you go home for the rest of the day; since you were unconscious, you couldn't argue."

Gunther had decided to flash his penis to Mrs. Hagberg one time too many. Cedes wasn't chasing Gunther so much as Mrs. Hagberg. She was trying to kill him with a melon baller. Cedes thought Gunther would've learned his lesson the last time Mrs. Hagberg chased him out in traffic and caused a pileup in their tiny town. It was Lima Springs, of course, he did not.

"That was half a day, and it doesn't count if you're unconscious for most of it."

"Really? Then, I haven't had a day off in years. I demand back vacation pay!" he called out to her as she exited the station.

Her phone rang. It was Gina's ring tone that she personally set on her phone an instrumental short of Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely."

"Hey, ladybug."

"How bad is it?" Gina asked.

"I was attacked, but I'm okay."

"Mom!" she said, screaming. "You were attacked!"

"Hopefully, I won't get rabies. Rabies are bad. Or is bad. Is rabies a plural noun? Can one get one raby?"

"What the hell?"

"Language."

"Why did he attack you and possibly give you rabies?"

"Probably because we were trying to tranquilize him and put him into a cage."

"Oh, my Lord! Your parents are never setting you up on another blind date again."

She was having too much fun to stop. "Yes. They have to stop. I decided about halfway through the date your grandparents need to die."

"You can't kill them. We've already talked about this."

"Sorry, kid, you are going to have to take out your mourning clothes."

"You'll go to prison."

"Only for a half a year; you can stay with Kurt and Blaine while I am away."

"Clearly you haven't been around the two lately, they are thinking of adopting, and I am not ready to babysit. Also, I forbid you from killing GeeGee and Big Poppa."

"Please don't ever say Big Poppa again. You're making my headache come back."

"Okay I will call him BP. Is that better?"

Cedes chuckled. "Or Gramps or Grandfather or even Granddaddy."

"GeeGee said they were too young to be called any of those grand names."

"So, BP it is?"

"Yes, until your aversion is over."

Before she even made it home, she saw Hunter's name on her caller id. "No." She answered the phone knowing it meant she was needed at work.

"You really want to hear this."

"No, I don't. I was off duty before the raccoon, and I am definitely off duty now."

"I'll just tell the ambulance driver parked outside Rowdy's to take Sam Menkins straight to the hospital. You can interview him about the near-fatal stabbing at his bar on Monday when your hair is pretty again and—"

"I'll be there ASAP." she said, her voice strained as soon as she realized Sam was hurt and needed to go to the hospital.

She drove like a bat out of hell to Rowdy's B and G, and sent dirt flying over Hunter's cruiser when she stopped. The dirt flew unto Hunter as well. The sheriff's department received its fair share of calls concerning the place but never a stabbing. At least none that she was aware of.

The way Cedes understood it, the bar was owned by the Menkins family, but mostly run by Sam's uncle Cooter and a couple of Menkins cousins with Sam owning fifty one percent of the company. Or so she'd been told by his sister Stacey. Sam seemed to have final say in how things were run there because he was the biggest shareholder. This was a good thing, since he and Stacey were the only ones with any semblance of coherent thinking skills.

Cedes got out of her Charger and ducked under a strip of yellow tape, something she'd seen used only one other time during her four-month stint as sheriff and that involved a semi, Walter and his micro goats, and a pallet of baby oil.

An ambulance and a fire truck sat in the lot along with two of her deputies' cars, the night sky was lit up with all of their flashing lights.

McCarthy was busy taking statements while Jay held off a small crowd of tipsy or completely drunk onlookers, several of whom were women who just wanted to make sure Sam was alright. Cedes didn't realize he had such a dedicated following. Not that their presence surprised her.

Cedes rushed past Hunter who had just closed the door to the ambulance that immediately sped away once the door was closed. The sight of the ambulance leaving with Sam almost gave her a heart attack. She tried to using the deep breathing that she had been using since she her own abduction to deal with her panic attacks.

"Will he be okay?" she asked Hunt, finally when she was able to speak.

"I don't know." He shook his head. "It doesn't look good."

It took all the will power she possessed to not run back to her cruiser and chase after the ambulance. She'd wanted to see him before they took him away. If it were really that bad, she might not get a chance to talk to him before the medical center had to airlift him to Sacramento.

Even if she did go to see him at this point, she'd only be in the way. She needed to let the medical professionals do their jobs and, more importantly, she needed to do hers.

She took another deep breath to fill her lungs inhaling and exhaling before demanding, "Tell me what happened."

Hunter pointed to another taped-off area drowning in blood between two vehicles. The tires of the vehicles as well as the body of the vehicles were covered in streaks of blood. She could feel the tears threatening to fall out of her eyes.

"From what we can tell three men attacked a Rowdy's patron when he left the bar and grill, and Sam Menkins came out to help him."

Of course, he did. For some reason, Sam Menkins thought he was the Superman of Lima Springs. When he was more the human version Clark Kent. When she didn't ask for more information. Hunter continued.

"Menkins risked his life to save the man. Lucky for us, there's security footage. We'll know more once we get a good look at it, but from what we've learned so far, he's lucky to be alive. According to his wannabe harem over there," he said, pointing to the witnesses, "that truck hit him dead on."

"Truck?"

"The driver backed up and tried to run him over again. Apparently, your guy has the reflexes of a mountain lion. I am using the witnesses' words."

"I thought there was a stabbing."

"Right. The victim was beaten and stabbed multiple times. He also has some defensive wounds." He turned back to the first part of the blood-soaked crime scene.

"The victim?" she asked, now totally confused.

Realization dawned and a knowing grin emerged. He took her chin and lifted her gaze to his. "Your guy's okay, Merciful. Hank has him over there by Scarlet the Great."

Scarlet the Great was the pet name for the only legit fire truck Lima Springs ever had. Also, it was yellow. Not a bit of red paint on her anywhere.

"He wasn't stabbed multiple times?"

"No."

"You said he was stabbed."

"No, I told you there was a stabbing and Menkins was injured."

She looked at him like he really had lost his mind.

"That was two separate statements."

She continued to wonder if he couldn't tell the difference of using conjuctions or punctuations to effectively communicate, but then she realized he never went to college, and obviously slept through all his grammar lessons in primary and high school.

"Listen to me." He pointed to Scarlet the Great. "Your guy was trying to stop the men who stabbed our victim. Apparently, those particular men didn't want to be stopped." He glanced back at the nightmare on Main Street. "Menkins fought them but they managed to get into their vehicle and drive off. That was when the genius decided to pick a fight with"—he brought out his notepad—"a white Toyota Tundra with Ohio plates. And I thought Sam was the smart one of the bunch. Seems nurture over nature is more important than we thought."

She nodded trying her best to use her X-ray vision to see through the emergency vehicle for a glimpse of the fairest Menkins of them all before remembering she didn't have X-ray vision, but she was no Supergirl either.

"We had another ambulance on the way, but Clark Kent over there is refusing to go to the hospital. Maybe you can talk some sense into him."

"Yeah right. But I will go over there and try."

"Your confidence gives me hope," he said.

Cedes tried to remember her position as sheriff and friend to his sister and knew what Sam Menkins needed to do and that was go to the hospital. She would convince him of this she said to herself over and over as she walked toward the fire truck. However, as soon as she saw his dirty and bloodied body, her panic attack from earlier tried to resurface.

She stopped herself from running to him and shouting his name in horror. She wanted to run her hands down his body to make sure he wasn't refusing treatment for broken bones, ribs, or even a fractured skull.

He sat on a step against the truck, clutching a baseball cap. His tan T-shirt, now dirty and soaked in blood, was ripped across the front showing just enough skin to make Cedes' pulse quicken despite everything. The knuckles on his large hands and his muscled forearms were covered in scrapes, bruises, and patches of blood, and his right eye showed early signs of blackening.

His Uncle Cooter hovered nearby, arms crossed over a barrel chest, a nasty scowl lining his face, and Martinez stood at Sam's side with questions of his own.

"LV?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, twisting the cap in his hands. "That's all I got."

One corner of Martinez's mouth lifted. "You're lucky you got that much. I've never been hit by a truck, but I don't think I would've been trying to memorize the license plate while it was happening."

Cedes' pride swelled just a little. She'd had a good feeling when she blackmailed David Martinez into joining the team. She knew he'd make a great deputy, and so far he had yet to prove her wrong. He was observant, sharp, and good with people.

She unclasped her hands—thankful she wasn't in uniform and tainting the professionalism of the station with her actions. She stepped close enough to notice the hemorrhage in his right eye, the blood trapped beneath the clear surface already spreading and encircling his green-colored iris.

Alarm shot through her again. She cleared her throat and addressed the EMT. "Hank, do you think he has a concussion?"

All heads turned her direction, including his. He didn't seem surprised to see her, which, why would he be? Then again, Sam always wore his best poker face around her which meant he wasn't the easiest person to read.

"I do, Sheriff Porter." The EMT stood and offered his hand. "I've told him that very thing, and I really think he should go to the hospital for a couple of X-rays."

Sam looked up at her, studying her for a solid minute before dropping his gaze. "I think I would know if I needed to go to the hospital or not," he said, the sharpness in his tone impossible to miss. "If I weren't, you, Sheriff Porter, would be the first to know."

Cedes tried not to read too much into that statement.

Martinez raised a questioning brow toward her.

"Thank you, Hank," she said to the EMT. "They're right, Sam. You need to be checked out by an emergency room doctor."

"I need to be on the road chasing down that damn truck. And I would be"—he gave his Uncle Cooter a lethal glare—"if someone hadn't hidden my keys."

Surprised, Cedes offered the man watching from the sidelines a look of astonishment. Cooter Menkins was about as warm and caring as a crocodile. If he was keeping Sam from going after the truck, he had a reason, and it had nothing to do with Sam's health.

"Thank you," she said to the man who made her want to vomit every time she was near him.

He said nothing. Instead, he looked up and down her body to sexualize her as he did every time he saw her.

She turned back to the injured man sitting before her. Stepped closer. Lowered her voice. "I could arrest you."

"For what this time, saving another Lima Springs' resident life?" She wanted to tell him, no to be her personal sex slave.

Holy hell, she had to get a grip. She swallowed, then said, "For being a stubborn asshole."

He almost grinned at that. "Is that a misdemeanor or a felony?"

"Does it matter?"

"I'm trying to decide if it's worth the jail time." He was flirting with her. She knew it. And he knew it.

"Well," he said, seeming to recover when his gaze traveled back to hers, "to get back to the subject we should be on, you need to do a drug tox on the victim. Mike Chang is a former special ops. He's also a survivalist and the best hand-to-hand combat fighter I've ever met."

"Good for him," she said with an appreciative nod. "Who's Mike again?"

"The man who was almost stabbed to death and just left in the ambulance."

She snapped back to attention to the criminal scene that surrounded her, struggling to get a grip. She hadn't seen him for months, so Sam Evans up close and personal was like a hit of the most addicting drug yet to be invented.

"Okay." She grabbed a confused Martinez's pen and notepad and started taking notes. Notes that her deputies probably already had. "Mike Chang. Where do you know him from?"

"Around."

Great. She was going to get cryptic Sam. Out of all of his personalities, cryptic was her least favorite. She much preferred flirty Sam. Or lusty Sam, though she'd only seen it once in her life. Twice if one were to count their last encounter in his bedroom, but he'd been beyond exhausted. Hardly in his right mind.

Then again, the first time he'd been drunk, so …

She pretended to write down his statement. "Okay, how long have you known him?"

"Longer than most. Not as long as others."

"Right. Longer than most. Not as long as—"

"Are we done?"

She looked up at him. "Are you in a hurry?"

"I need to track down those men."

She lowered the pen. "This is an active investigation, Mr. Menkins. You need to go to the hospital and let us do our jobs. Why do you want me to run a tox screen on your friend?"

"Because he was stabbed. Multiple times."

"From what I understand, three men with knives will do that to a person they jump unexpectedly."

He stepped closer to her. "You don't get it. There could've been ten armed men, and he would've taken them without breaking a sweat. He's what they call an elite. No way in hell three scrawny weaklings can take him down. They had to have drugged him. Put something in his beer or tranquilized him with a shot on his way out somehow."

"Sam," Cedes began, but he stopped her.

"He wasn't walking right when he came out of the bar. And he was fighting back but it was like he was drunk."

"Maybe because he had just left a bar."

"A bar where he only drank one beer. Chang doesn't drink enough to become inebriated. Not when he's on a job. He's a soldier through-and-through."

"He is here on a job?"

"I don't know for sure, but tonight he seemed edgy. Hypervigilant. Like when he's working."

While that was interesting as hell—how would Sam know what Mike Chang looked like while he was working and what exactly did the man do for a living?—it could wait until he was looked after. If Sam was right, however, this wasn't just a random bar fight. This was a premeditated attempted murder.

Hunter walked up then. "I might be able to explain your friend's behavior."

Sam turned back, tightening his grip on the cap impatiently.

"According to a couple of witnesses, he got into an argument with a man at the convenience store this afternoon. They said it got pretty heated."

Sam frowned. "He didn't say anything about that."

"Why did he come outside?" Cedes asked. "Was he leaving?"

"I need to go," Sam said.

Hunter stayed him by showing a palm. "Wes Fahey was working at the Quick-Mart, if that's where you're wanting to go. We've already contacted him. He didn't see anything."

"Then who were the witnesses at the store?" He scanned the small crowd. "I'll talk to them."

Cedes had enough. "Give me your wrists," she said, her voice razor-sharp.

He spun around to her. "What?"

"Your wrists." She demonstrated by pointing to one of her own. "I'm placing you under arrest."

If rage had a name at that exact moment in time, it was Sam Evans.