by Martha Woods
* * *
“That is the last time that you talk about them that way alright? You might not like them, you might loathe them and want them to all die, but when I’m here in front of you would it kill you to have some fucking manners?”
He rubbed at his cheek, for the first time having something really spark behind his eyes before it was swallowed up by that gray nothingness that I’d felt since I sat down. “For the record Amy, I think that you’re different to the rest of them.”
“Oh? And how is that?”
* * *
“You give a crap. You’re not worried about surviving for yourself, you spend every waking minute of every day that you’re alive trying to find ways to help other people. That’s something that not only do they not do, pretty much everyone in this entire precinct doesn’t do that, this is just a job to all of them.” He smiled, and to my surprise there was actual, genuine pride behind it. “You’re what a cop should be, it’s just such a shame that you’re so set on throwing it all away for nothing.”
“And what are you doing? You’re fighting for the same bullshit that monsters have been trying to do throughout history, every time there’s something even vaguely different to what you want to be the norm you throw a fucking hissyfit and assume that it’s coming to kill you. I’m sure that a hundred years ago you probably would have been on the front line fighting against electricity, because back then that would have been considered just as much witchcraft as what I can do.”
* * *
“It’s not the same…”
* * *
“How would you know? You haven’t even made any effort to understand why we are the way we are, who we are, what we want to do… you’ve just jumped to killing all of us!” I clenched my fist, my throat tightening up as my voice lowered in anger, “Why… why did it have to be the two of them first? They were just kids Rick, why did you have to do that to them?”
* * *
He at least had the decency to look ashamed, there was a small glimpse of the Rick that I’d known when I chastised him for trying to send four innocent men to jail, back when he cared about law and order instead of this petty vengeance. But all sight of that man vanished when his gaze hardened, tone turning to ice and his features to stone.
“Because we needed to start somewhere.”
That was it. That was the entire reason that those two young men had been killed in such horrifying ways, the reason why there were parents without sons and siblings without brothers, why I hadn’t been able to sleep properly without seeing the vacant look in their eyes or the cuts in their bodies. Because it was just bad luck for them.
I felt like strangling him, grabbing him by his ears and slamming his face first into the table until he finally got it through his head to apologize for all that he’d done, to beg not just me but the families of those that had been killed for forgiveness. But when I was just about to start I noticed that he wasn’t looking at me anymore, nor did he have that same hardened look on his face. Instead he just looked… surprised, and when I turned around I couldn’t really help but react the exact same way.
* * *
We’d been hiring interns lately, through the same program that had hired me eventually, though in recent years they’d gotten a lot stricter with who they let in. I wasn’t going to say that I was the only reason for that, but I was definitely part of the reasons for that. One of these new interns was Bruce, a quiet little Oklahoma boy who just wanted to move out here and help people as best he could, so he could be like the detectives he grew up watching on tv who always get the bad guy and make sure that everyone lives happily ever after.
The same Bruce who was standing in the doorway of the lab, mouth open and eyes wide, clearly having heard what we’d been talking about to a truly dangerous degree.
“Hi Bruce,” Rick said, waving lightly and placing his hand near his knee. “Been standing there long?”
* * *
“I… uh… yes sir, since um… since the bit about witchcraft,” He stumbled over his words, clearly fighting to make sense of it as he was saying it. I had to sympathize, when you’ve just been introduced to it there’s absolutely no way of being able to do that even if you have a relatively open mind, if you’re a farm boy from Oklahoma then all bets were off. “Sir… is she telling the truth? Did you kill two people?”
* * *
Rick let out a short laugh, shaking his head and wiping at his eye. “You make it sound so mundane, like it’s easy to kill two people. But yes Bruce, I did. Which is why I’m sorry.”
Before either of us could react Rick brought his hand from under the table, my eyes only processing the gun in his hand right before he shoved his chair backwards and stood, taking aim and squeezing the trigger twice. The boom of the gunshots was absolutely deafening, matched only by the yelp of agony that pushed through Bruce’s lips when the heavy slugs sank into his chest and exploded out his back, painting the wall behind him a vivid red and leaving him sprawled on the floor, feebly breathing his last and trying to reach towards us for help.
I couldn’t do anything to help before Rick planted another slug right between his eyes, taking aim at me before I could even hope to do anything in return. “Don’t,” He said, “You might be fast with that knife, you might be fast with magic, but you’re not going to be faster than a bullet. Don’t test the theory.”
* * *
“Fuck you!”
* * *
I yelled, pointing roughly between him and Bruce’s body. “You just killed an employee with your service weapon, do you not see how that might mean that you’re screwed now?”
* * *
“It’s not my service weapon, this is just some saturday night special that I picked out of evidence, could just as easily have come from your purse considering all it’s evidence data was erased.”
So that was his plan, frame me for shooting Bruce and then just watch the rest of the pieces converge on me, not very elegant but… cops are usually pretty rabid when it comes to going after cop killers, and given that Bruce worked here… yeah, things wouldn’t look good for me.
* * *
“Why though?” I asked, “Why not just shoot me and get rid of the evidence? It wouldn’t even be that hard to do.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” He sighed, “I guess… I’m just fond of you. I want to give you a fighting chance, which is why you have about thirty seconds to run before the overnight cops from next door burst through those front doors ready for action.”
* * *
“I…” Yeah, it was absolutely clear now, I guess it had been for a while now. “You’ve absolutely lost your mind. I don’t know what it was but… something broke inside you.”
“Maybe it did, yeah…” He shook his head, placing the barrel of the gun against his bicep and sighing, “I guess it did.”
“Wait!” I shouted, taking a step forward before jumping back in shock, the gun flying from his grip as he collapsed to the ground in a screaming mound of pain. I’d seen enough movies to see what he was doing and it was clear that he was far beyond me being able to help him, I’d wasted enough time waiting around trying to reason with him. Turning on my heel I was out the door before I could even blink, the sounds of his screams and yells that I was getting away already fading behind me.
* * *
However, the guards had radios, which I found out when I heard the telltale static crackle behind me as one rounded the corner, not even bothering to yell out a warning before a bullet snapped over my head and buried itself in the wall next to me. If I hadn’t been at the end of the hallway and able to throw myself through the door to the outside I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go, and I almost certainly would have been gunned down without another word. I had no idea that was how trigger happy we were going to be tonight, but given that I’d just watched my boss gun down an innocent intern just to frame me of a crime, I can’t say that I’m wholly surprised.
Hell, that’s not even the first illegal thin
g that I’ve seen happen in that lab, though it’s going to be a bit harder to convince everyone that our boss is now a murderer compared to one of the techs being paid off to sabotage evidence.
I’d gladly take a thousand incompetent lab techs over what I’d just gotten.
“She ran out here! Spread out and find her, and call a goddamn ambulance!”
Yep, if they knew to call for an ambulance then there was no doubt that they’d seen both the bodies, which was very bad news for me if they found me now. While I was never really one to care what any of the assholes here thought of me, if they suddenly started spreading around that I was a cop killer then that was going to be reason to care a lot, given that my survival prospects for the next week would rapidly diminish to damn near nothing.
* * *
That was one thing that cop movies never really exaggerated all that much, if a cop died the others became damn near rabid, hell, some of them actually started taking their jobs seriously around here! And if there was one thing that you did not want if you were on the run it was a sudden surge of competence which unfortunately came with a heavy number of itchy trigger fingers. Also not good.
Two more shots smacked into the concrete pathing next to me, shards flying up and scratching against my skin as I passed by. This was going to be a lot of paperwork that none of them were going to bother to file, and that almost made me more mad than the fact that they were still trying to kill me! They weren’t even doing a good job at it, which was reason to celebrate but jesus, just what are we paying these people for?
* * *
I jumped over the hedge, almost rolling my ankle on the landing and collapsing to the ground just in time for at least two more of them to unload on where I had just been, bullets ripping through the hedge and passing through where I would have been standing if I hadn’t fallen. There was no time to focus on my near death experience however, not when I’d finally broken their sight line and had a pathway out of here.
Crouched down low, I slipped along the edge of the concrete planter, not even daring to breathe too loudly lest one of them heard me and decided to be a little more liberal with his bullets. My car was in the alleyway in the cluster of buildings across the way, if I could just get there without being shot… I hated that I had to say that, but there weren’t many other options available to me aside from risking it.
* * *
“Fuck, fuck fuck fuck!” I grunted to myself, taking a series of quick breaths before pushing off in a hurry, ready to duck and weave the second that I heard anything remotely like gunfire. When they started shouting and screaming behind me it was obvious that they’d seen me, I hadn’t exactly made it difficult but now it was pretty important that I made killing me difficult.
* * *
“She’s over there!” They yelled, seemingly adamant about punctuating every word with another gunshot, sending the dirt and concrete around me sailing into the air like the world’s most brutalist inspired fountain. I ducked and stepped in time with each gunshot, some of them passing by me so close I could feel the air against my skin as they went by, but if something went right today I was determined that it was this.
So it should have honestly come as no surprise to me when one of the shots passed by too closely to my leg, scoring through the leg of my pants and tearing a jagged hole along the outside of my calf, the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through my system the only thing stopping me from collapsing to the ground and screaming out in pain. It didn’t stop me from stumbling though, thankfully reaching the first building before falling to the side into a small dip in the alley. I’d been hoping to be able to lose them in the bends, but with the drops of blood I was leaving behind it wasn’t going to take a very experienced hunter to tell where I was heading. Guess that means that my only option was to keep going and hope that I could reach my car before they could reach me, no small order.
Though I guess if they couldn’t see me it wouldn’t hurt to throw some obstacles their way.
Dipping my finger into the blood dripping down my leg, I reached up and drew a series of symbols on the wall, hoping against everything that my lessons had all paid off. If not I was really going to look like an idiot when they blew my head off. With each symbol finally drawn up I uttered an incantation and smacked my palm against the middle, watching it light up and start to crack the concrete wall, turning away and dragging myself off as the wall finally splintered and fell to the ground behind me. It wasn’t a perfect barricade by any means, but if I was lucky the sheer sight of a building being partially collapsed would give them enough pause to let me get to my car, all I really needed was one small moment of confusion and then I was away.
“She ran in through here! She- what the fuck?”
* * *
Well, they’d definitely found the wall, their voices faded off the further I went but last I heard they were arguing about whether I’d crawled into the ruined building or not, the rubble and new darkness doing a decent job of covering up the blood trail I was leaving on the ground.
* * *
Not completely though, with the loud footsteps I could hear echoing through the alleys towards me, but by the time they got close enough for me to actually start worrying I was in the driver's seat with my engine roaring triumphantly. I pulled out immediately, one of my pursuers swinging around the corner and immediately diving to get out of the path of my car, but the bump of the car as I passed him told me that I must have run over his foot.
* * *
Given that I myself had been shot in the leg not five minutes ago, I found my sympathy levels astonishingly low.
“Fuck you Rick, fuck this station…” I growled, turning roughly out of the alleyway and smashing a trash can with the back end of the car, “Fuck this city, fuck my leg. This whole sequence of events is fucking bullshit. Fuck this!”
* * *
Today has… not been my day, and honestly I have no idea if it’s going to get any better. By now I know not to ask for it to be better, because whenever I do that the exact opposite happens like some weird malevolent god has just decided to zoom into my wishes and replace them with a boot straight up my ass. So no, all I’m going to focus on right now is getting at least fifteen minutes away from the station then pulling into somewhere very dark where I can make maybe the worst phone call in my recent history, and boy is it in some really good company as of late.
I need an actual goddamn vacation.
* * *
Twenty minutes later I was in a parking garage still staring at my phone screen, an old shirt wrapped around the gouge in my leg and already soaked through with blood, but at least it was doing something to slow it. I was still going to need someone with either medical experience or some sort of healing magic, but I’d bought myself some amount of time at least.
God I was going to sue the shit out of this city once this was all over.
“Come on Amy just… dial the number already. It’s going to be worse if they have to hear it from someone else, and they’ll probably be in the line of fire as well from this.” I pressed the call button, placing the phone to my ear while sighing heavily, “It’s really impossible to have a normal life around me isn’t it?”
* * *
It was only a few rings before Damon picked up, he’d almost certainly been waiting by the phone for me to call him and let him know just where the hell I’d run off to. I didn’t know if he was going to be worried with me or absolutely furious with me, and honestly I was kind of expecting both. I’d acted like a massive idiot tonight and ended up getting shot for it, that’s kind of a license to get pissed at me.
“Hello?” He asked, “Amy what’s going on? Where are you?”
“I… went to talk to Rick,” I said, already wincing at how weak it sounded, “I thought that maybe I could get some answers or convince him… fuck, I don’t know what I expected, but it didn’t end up happening.”
* * *
“You went to see him alone? Amy what happened?”
>
* * *
“I need you to not panic ok? I don’t have much time to explain this so I need you to stay calm and listen to everything that I say, can you do that for me Damon?”
* * *
The quick breath of air that brushed against the receiver told me that he was about to immediately answer yes, but the pause afterwards made it clear that he was taking a second to clear his mind. Wise choice, considering what I was about to tell him. “I’m calm, please, tell me what happened.”
* * *
“I… Rick murdered one of the lab techs while I was speaking with him, then shot himself in the arm to make it look like I was the shooter. I ran out to get away and I got grazed on the leg, I’m not bleeding to death or anything but it hurts like hell.”
* * *
A quick gasp was his only answer at first, but after a moment to gather himself his tone was deathly calm, the quick clips at the end of his sentences the only tell that he had revealing that he was murderously angry. “Rick shot you?”