Star in the East, Ares Shield RP on Persephone

[Lt. Karl Womack]

There’s a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch and it’s bringing me out the dark


The night, her time…their time.

While Womack remained calm, the Fat Mutha roared in a scream of rage and defiance, voicing the deeply buried anguish of its rider. Windows rattled in that particular block of The Red Light district, and more than a few of the citizens, stared in awe at the return of a dead man.

There’s a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch and it’s bringin’ me out the dark

Cruising slowly, Karl gave all those that desired it, a good look. Let word spread that he had come home to reclaim his territory from the barbarians. While the faceless masses gaped, his mind tried to throw Scarlet’s image into every scene and landscape of his old neighborhood, but Pao Nu had trained him well…and his love was felt but not seen.

The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all,
The scars of your love, they leave me breathless,
I can’t help feeling

A few paused in their tracks, when Womack’s eyes met theirs, casting a guilty conscience into even the most lawful. His was a visage that wore pain like a fine silk shirt, and garbed in such, promised injury to those that crossed him. Whispers floated around him but were bounced away by the Mutha’s rage before they found purchase in his ears.

We could have had it all

Finally, the bike rolled to a stop, and Karl’s boots met the stones of his home. Despite the tutelage of Pao Nu, Womack’s eyes rolled to the second floor of the building to his right…and the darkened windows found there.

Rolling in the Deep,

”That’s it,” he whispered to the ghost behind him, ”That’s where we lived…that’s where I found her.”

With a quick splash of gas, the fallen cop throttled the Mutha over to the curb, kicked out the massive bike’s stand, and swung off the bike. A crowd was ready made from the nightclub located in the next building, and a circle formed. The people, some with mouths open in utter shock, watched him with eyes recently born again.

You had my heart inside your hand

With Shanti at his side and the horrors of Golgotha behind him, Karl felt utterly invincible, and his voice meant for the ghost beside him and unrelated to the forming mob, formed dread and promise, as he spoke,
”Gonna kill ‘em, Shantassa…going to bring it all down this time,” for the first time that day, he turned and faced Shanti…faced whatever she was, ”You and me…we’re going to make things right…even if we crumble the pillars of Heaven to do it.”

And you played it to the beat


(music from Adele, Shanti Gm'd with permission)

[Shantassa]

”Gonna kill ‘em, Shantassa…going to bring it all down this time,”

Fragments inside. So small. So bright. Tiny flames.

”You and me…we’re going to make things right…even if we crumble the pillars of Heaven to do it.”

She raised her head, eyes so pale blue the vision wavered, as transparent as the wind that suddenly rolled through the narrow street, fluttering coat hems, carrying the sad scents of the low city to close lungs already aching, "Heaven's a 'llusion. Pillars jess stories some preachers tell. This you gotta end your own way, but I'm with you. I's right here, Karlov..."

"Darkness hides in daylight, hides in the places that keep it safe." A ghosted smile, wasted in the wind, and she nodded toward the nightclub, shifting her face towards the doors, "Places like this."

The breeze shimmered and she rode it, fragments of bright, fragments of life... fragments of memories. Ahead into the darker places where evil flowed like wine, where Karlov Womack's rage could shatter the decanters and leave it to pool in the open... Where her love, and his, could bring light to it's reflection, and expose it to the Universe.

[Zandra Sun]

Inside the Nightclub

Her throat felt raw and scratchy and she was certain there was no way she’d be able to sing tonight. He was so much bigger than her, stronger, his bulky figure smothering her petite frame. Her hands pushed his chest, trying to escape. Was she not screaming loud enough? She knew that there was a lot of chatter in the club, but surely they could hear her. Hear the fright in her screech.

The young girl was starting to lose her voice, her screams fading with each new start. She’d been singing for weeks and weeks without a day’s rest. Her vocal chords were worn out. Had this been his plan? Wear out her voice to the point where she couldn’t shout for help? It wasn’t like him to molest her in public places. A small touch to her arm or back here and there, but not this. He only sexually assaulted her in the privacy of their home or hotel. He was becoming braver and his temper was getting worse.

“Get off me!” she shouted again, pushing with her hands, kicking her feet. The tears streamed down to her ears and hair. She had tried to apologize. She’d tried to take back what she said. He wasn’t a bastard. He wasn’t a tyrant. He wasn’t a rapist. He wasn’t evil. He wasn’t any of these things as long as it would get him off of her. As long as she wasn’t sore to the core for another day in her life. “Help! Somebody, please!”

It didn’t seem to be working. She wasn’t strong enough to push him off, just enough to keep him from unbuttoning his pants, but she could only last so long. She stopped shouting, taking a moment to sob. Not again. She couldn’t take this torture again. The pain was too much. She shouldn’t have said anything. She should’ve let him insult her. It was stupid to talk back; her mother had taught her that. Why hadn’t she remembered?

“Stop!” she screeched, hearing him compare her beauty to her mother’s. The girl lifted one hand, feeling him collapse a bit more onto her, scratching at his face. She caught him right above the eyebrow and moved down over the eye. He gave a pained gasp, moving off of her a bit.

The small girl turned onto her stomach and crawled toward the door, not finding the strength or time to get up at that very moment. The wooden floor scratched at her arms and hands. She could feel the gathering dust stick to her skin. But nothing felt worse than having his hands on her, feeling as if there were bugs crawling over her skin. There was nothing worse than the pain her body felt once he was done. Nothing was worse than the shame.

As she reached up for the doorknob that led to the dining area, his beefy hand wrapped around her ankle. She shrieked, being dragged back to him. The teenage girl began to kick, hoping to God that he’d release her under such struggle, but he kept his grip. Her skirt lifted, covering her exposed stomach. He’d still have to strip her of the lace tights. She felt the wooden floor scratch and scrape her back and she groaned in pain. She shouted again.

His hands moved further up her leg as he pulled and the horrible sensation running over her body grew worse. She tried to slap them away, hoping the rings on her fingers would cause extra damage. It was as if he didn’t feel them. She sobbed again.

“No,” she whined, “please, no! I’m sorry! Please don’t!” The tears continued and it became hard to breathe. She tried screaming again, but she was having trouble controlling her sobbing and breathing. After a few moments, she screamed again, listening to it reverberate around the small room.

His fingers curled around the hem of her tights. This was it. She shut her eyes tightly, giving another scream of panic and fear. If this one didn’t work, she would give in to her doom in a claustrophobic back room of a club she was supposed to perform in.

This post has been edited by Zandra Sun on May 11 2011, 02:36 PM

[Lt. Karl Womack]

"Darkness hides in daylight, hides in the places that keep it safe...Places like this."

The wind carrying Shantassa’s words pulled the white v-neck shirt tight against his blasted body, revealing the marks of Pao Nu and the newly returned muscle of Karlov Womack.

As he followed his own ghost, the crowd parted, throwing themselves away from the spirit he had become to them.

Trash strewn heavy and dark, the alley between his old building and the neighboring club was surprisingly quiet despite the muffled din of the dark city and the sheer numbers of beings surrounding it. Unsure why he was there, Karl was about to question his companion, but as it always did…the Past came calling.

”Get off me!”

The plea broke the silence…and broke through the stout walls of Pao Nu’s design. There just feet from his love’s last stand, Karl heard the night that Scarlet had died, as he had so often in his nightmares.

”Help! Somebody, please!”

Logic, absent before Pao Nu’s training, tried to explain away the moment with claims of Time and Space.

Scarlet is dead.

Scarlet is silent.

But the shattered heart of Karlov Womack heard differently. Time meant nothing, he had been given a chance…a chance to save her.

”Stop!”

Please…oh God please…I’m pregnant!

Lost to the hope, Womack drew forth Pau Nu’s ebony pistol, while his shaved head jerked and twisted, trying to pinpoint the cries, but the echoes in that urban canyon bounced the pleas of past and present, leaving him unable to orient himself.

Turning around in the alley, Womack screamed into the newly born Persephone night,
”SCARLET!!!”

His paper-thin flesh stretched and corded with his reissued muscles, and tears bled from his eyes, clouding his vision just as the pleading echoes clouded his hearing.

But he was not alone…not anymore. Shantassa stood beside him, and her arm rose. Three fingers curled under her thumb, and Karl was given a heading by the compass of his soul. Not sparing a second, Womack followed his ghost’s cue and kicked in the door targeted by Shantassa’s index finger.

”No…please, no! I’m sorry! Please don’t!”

Finally uncovering the source, Womack’s murderous gaze snapped left, tears flying from the blue orbs with the act. Lost in a fantasy that had been his greatest desire for a long, dark age, he screamed from the very core of his being,
”SCARLET!!! I’M HERE!!!”

Splintering into fragments, the portal, the last obstacle, between he and his love ceased to be and in the darkness Karlov Womack fell on Laurent, the step-father of Zandra Sun, with the wrath of angels.




(line from Ares Shield Season 1 Spiritu Santi Sunset, Shantassa GM'd with permission)

[Zandra Sun]

All was quiet except for her labored breathing and heavy sobs. He had won again. The victim clenched her teeth, but before her tights could be pulled down, a loud bang overcame the suspenseful quiet.

“SCARLET!!! I’M HERE!!!” a strong voice shouted. Despite its strength and apparent anger, she also heard pain. Anguish. Something she knew quite well. She had screamed like that after her mother's death. Her aunts had had to restrain her, lock her in her bedroom. Her mother had been her world and the only one who had loved her and actually conveyed it. So, she knew this pain. The pain, this desire to change the inevitable past, to move an immovable force.

But her mind only comprehended it as a fantasy. Maybe it was her own mind crying out in the form of another, projecting. The desire to be rescued from the monster of her nightmares playing, a dream to make her pain go away, her suffering fade for just that horrific moment in time. But wait, her name wasn't "Scarlet". Why would her mind change her name?

She felt the large weight lift from her in a clumsy hurry. Breathing became easier, her lungs no longer feeling as if they would collapse or give in on her. She wasn't smothered; her body was free, the sound of footsteps running from the room. The noise from the club grew louder before, from what she could comprehend, a door shut, muffling it once again.

The teenager’s bright brown eyes snapped open. She sat up and looked around, finding a larger man standing in the doorway that led to the alley. She stared at him with wide eyes. Although she was relieved - in fact, her bottom lip trembled as a sign of oncoming tears of solace - fear still took a strong hold of her spirit. This man was bigger than her stepfather and looked a lot rougher. And her primary idea of men kept her in a bubble of anxiety. Men were evil.

[Lt. Karl Womack]

Too dim to see through the darkness and the blood rage, Karl’s ice blue eyes gave way to the brute hatred housed in his scarred knuckles, his battered muscles, and his shattered heart. Somewhere his mind screamed that his pistol was useless; Scarlet could secret a bullet meant for a bastard. The thought and a flick of his wrist sent the weapon flying into the darkness.

The smell of sex and savagery saturated the small room, incensing the already berserk cop. Following the gasps, he dove into the darkness and separated the two forms with enough force to split an atom. Feeling his way with his right hand, he grabbed the larger of the two forms, pulled him closer, and viciously backhanded the huen dahn into the wall. However, while his other appendage dealt in the dimension of violence pure, his left hand reached for the hand of the woman he believe to be Scarlet, and upon finding it, he grabbed it tight to let her know that he was here and that Hell had come to those that had wronged her…had wronged them.

Shantassa slid between Karlov and the girl on the floor, the girl with the dark brown eyes that carried whispers and tears of a thousand girls before her. Invisible as the breeze, insubstantial as sunlight, Karlov's own fractured conscience, squatted down, arms wrapped around her knees, between the girl and the violence being done.

Lips moved of silent accord, the thought her own, but the words, the voice, were Karl's own, muttered so long before to shield her from his own violence, "Look away."*

Don't see him like this, don't see his violence, and his rage. Just see the one thing that it carries always. Only see the justice.

Standing, Womack threw his entire being into the shadowy figure against the wall, seeing not a man named Laurent but a shrunken Lord of Crime . Karl’s fist sunk deep into the gut of his target, blasting his last fifty breaths from his lungs, and a split second later, his forehead exploded into the man’s face, obliterating his nose. Never before had Violence, in its primal essence, found a subject so willing to commune its will…one that wasn’t a Reaver.

Hands tried to fight him back, clawing and pleading, but what superficial wounds Laurent managed to produce, lacked the stopping power needed to knee a titan.

As Womack’s dance increased in destruction, Fate intervened to save a monster.

Laurent inadvertently grabbed the chain around Womack’s neck and jerked it free, sending both his badge and wedding ring into the darkness. Fantasy and Fact fought as tide and beach, and though believing Scarlet in the room with him, Karl released Laurent and dropped to his knees, frantically searching for his two sacred bits of precious.

Staggering away, Laurent fled as if pursued by Lucifer himself, which, in truth, wasn’t far from fact.

Wild with fright, Womack’s bloody hands combed the darkness, searching, but ever the cop, he managed to yell to his partner. Though a ghost to all but him, Karl refused to disbelieve Shanti’s presence,
”Shantassa, get that mother rutter!”


In the darkness, Womack’s badge dropped onto Zandra’s chest, and Scarlet’s ring rolled to a stop against the girl's hand...the hand Karl had held moments before.


(Laurent GM’d with permission)
(Gray, in all of its perfection, provided by the E)
(Just a reminder: Shantassa is invisible to all but Karl)

*(Line from Ares Shield: S.1, Reputations) http://z3.invisionfree.com/Big_Damn_Verse/...topic=452&st=73

[Zandra Sun]

"Look away."

She did as he said. Not that she had any complaints or arguments, but she was highly submissive. Especially to someone so much bigger than her. Even if she had wanted to argue, she wouldn't have. She was still frightened that he may have been saving her only to do the same thing her stepfather had. She couldn't be sure of her safety and she wasn't.

She pulled her skirt back down, the fabric only reaching mid-thigh. The tears began to fall from hers. Tears of relief and terror. She heard the the sounds of flesh against flesh, fist meeting cheek, the painful grunts of her father. They sounded so different than the ones he made when he had her pinned beneath him. Her vision clouded with tears and the world around her seemed to spin and twirl from her mild nausea. The memories of what she had suffered made her sick.

When the badge landed on her, she trembled, picking it up. She was shaking, her hands unsteady as she looked at the badge. The Alliance. She'd heard Laurent complain about them several times. She was from Paquin, a moon in the Border, and the impoverished part at that. Her stepfather was not a big fan of The Alliance and she'd heard nothing but bad about them. How invasive they were. How unjust.

She felt the ring tap her finger and glanced down at it. She didn't dare pick it up, though. She just stared at the small piece of jewelry, her tears flowing gratuitously. The sounds of rapid footsteps caused her to look back towards the fight. Colorful light dimly lit the small room. Her eyes moved toward the door as it slowed to a stop.

”Shantassa, get that mother rutter!”

Who was he talking to? It was only the two of them. That thought didn't last long, though. He had escaped. Laurent had escaped and there was no way he'd forgive her for this incident. He'd come for her. There was no way he wouldn't. And his vengeance would be mighty.

A sob escaped her and she pulled her knees to her chest, leaning her head down to cry on them. Maybe escape was not possible and she was doomed to a torturous life.

[Shantassa]

”Shantassa, get that mother rutter!”

Ties that bind, even ephemeral ones, hold us anchored, hold us safe, keep us together...

The former chyeh looked towards the door and back to Karlov with a shake of her head, "He's gone. Jess a lowlife thug. S'not worth it."

She shifted close again, whispering at Karl's shoulder, a fading memory dancing in shadows-play, trying to clear the illusions, of which she herself was a part. A finger raised, unable to touch, unable to wipe tears from either face, Karls or Zandra's, "She needs us now."

[Zandra Sun]

The tears rained down he legs slowly, tickling her skin a bit. She was too distraught to notice, though. Her stepfather had escaped. She had warned herself not to get her hopes up, but seeing him hurt had sent her spiraling into an abyss of imaginative, positive circumstances. And those circumstances always led to her being away from him forever. She didn't know where she would go without him, but anything had to be better than Laurent. But seeing the door shut behind him had sent her crashing back down to reality, like the gravitational pull was suddenly not only holding her feet to the ground, but her whole body, as if trying to pull her to its core.

Hearing her sobs was almost like an out-of-body experience. It was like she was hearing someone else cry. But she knew it was her. Her voice was scratchy, raw, raspy. She could hear it in each sob. Her body shook violently with each desperate gasp for air. The idea of Laurent one day coming back for her felt like suffocation. It was getting harder to breathe. Could it be that this felt worse than that horrid man writhing inside of her?

She tried to control herself. She tried to regain a normal breathing pattern. But her sobs became an obstacle and she soon gave in to it. The adrenaline of the moment had faded away and she felt the power pain on her back. The burn from the scrape she'd received from being dragged across the floor. She didn't even feel the small trickles of blood trailing down her back. She gave a gasp of pain, quite different from her sobs, before returning to her audible crying.

[Lt. Karl Womack]

"She needs us now."

Scarlet.

Nodding in understanding, thankful that Shanti was there to set him true, Womack moved from fumbling on the floor to fumbling on the wall, looking for a pad to activate the small room's lights. Quickly he found what he sought, but he paused before sliding his finger down the touch-activated switch; afraid at what the light could bring.

Images of Scarlet’s raped and mutilated body flooded his mind, and smells of shattered perfume bottles mixed with the stink of murder, emphasizing his fantasy. The sobs finally moved his hand. Proving two very important things; the woman in the room was alive, and the woman was not Scarlet. Even before the lights flicked on completely, Karl knew that Time had not given him a path to repair the past. The girl on the floor was young in body, but her haunted eyes seemed to Womack among the oldest he had ever seen. Thoughts of Scarlet receded again, and Pao Nu’s teachings returned to reclaim his mind…forever. Still, he was not without compassion, and though his previous joy had disappeared, the cop in Karl couldn’t help but feel satisfaction at thwarting the depravity of an evil man.

Like wrinkles on the soul, he recognized the shock and abuse on the girl’s very being, so he moved slowly and deliberately toward her. However, before he got within arm’s reach, he knelt, taking the moment to the girls current level.

Incapable of anything resembling softness, Womack’s voice instead lowered into a rumble in an attempt to sound less deadly,
”Shitty day, huh?”

Scrubbing his hand over his shaved head, Karl looked over at Shantassa, and like it had since he met her, the sight of his companion showed him the way.

Returning his ice blue eyes to Zandra, he spoke from his heart,
”That ring, right there,” he motioned toward the floor beside her, ”belonged to my wife, and that badge in your hand belongs to me. Can’t think of anything in this life that means more.”

Slowly Karl’s scarred right hand lifted toward the shattered girl, an offer,
”I swear on them both that you’ve nothin’ to fear…not from me.”

[Zandra Sun]

”Shitty day, huh?”

Her sobs immediately ceased. It was something that she was trained to do. Whenever Laurent had spoken to her, demanded her to stop crying, she did. Hearing this man's voice, though much gentler than Laurent's, still made her crying cease. Conditioned behavior. Despite his question, she did not answer. She was too frightened. What if she said the wrong thing? What did he plan to do with her? It wasn't like she was strong enough to escape.

She lifted her head and finally got a clear view of him. No more darkness to shroud him. It made him less scary, but not by much. He was still much larger than she was, bigger than Laurent even. That meant he was definitely much stronger. She was such a tiny thing anyway. His blue eyes gave suggestion to coldness. Icy, and she wasn't describing the color. It was the attitude, a cold disposition. They were haunting with despair and regret. And she suddenly wondered, if she could read all of this in his eyes, what could he read in hers?

”That ring, right there,” she glanced to the band as he gestured to it, ”belonged to my wife, and that badge in your hand," her eyes shifted to her shaking hand that possessed the badge. It symbolized power and, as much as she desired to have it, she also feared it, "belongs to me. Can’t think of anything in this life that means more.”

Bright brown eyes gazed up at him. Although he had crouched to be at her level, he still had quite a few inches on her. He seemed genuine about what he said. But how did she know he wasn't lying? Men were wretched creatures. Lying, cheating, aggressive, abusive, power hungry fiends. What was there to trust in this man? What made him so different than the rest of his kind?

She looked at the hand that he held out to offer her.

”I swear on them both that you’ve nothin’ to fear…not from me."

The teenager stared at his hand for a long moment, trying to decide. She was conflicted, afraid. What if this was a trick? What if he was lying? And then she repeated a question in her mind. What made him so different than the rest of his kind?

Her hand shaking, she gave it to him.

A promise. That's what made him different. A simple promise.

This post has been edited by Zandra Sun on May 23 2011, 01:39 PM

[Lt. Karl Womack]

Womack held Zandra’s hand as gently as he could, waiting to see if the girl pulled herself up. It wasn’t some type of subconscious boot-strap rite; more the need to keep her calm and not force his own physicality on her position.

Waiting for her move, Karl, ever the detective, began to question the events of the last few moments,
”Did you know him?”

It was a short simple statement, one that could be answered with one or two words, but for Womack, the answer, however short, would give him a starting point.

Still, beyond the horrible events, beyond the instinct’s of the cop, Karl couldn’t help but notice Zandra’s eyes, and the similarities he found there. Quickly his own ice-blue orbs rolled to Shantassa, seeing his companion bathed in the light of a history of violence. Returning to Zandra, he tried to dismiss the notions of Fate and Fact that sought to confuse Pao Nu’s logic using the riddles of Destiny.

"You must get up; only you can finish this. Those that have hurt so many...that have hurt us; you must cut them down, my love, and save others from our fate…save all the others from our fate.”

"This lao shi doesn't own your heart, xin’ ai de. It's inside you. Find that, and bring it home..."

The whispers of Scarlet and Shanti brought to light that which he tried to fight.

No matter how cold or removed he wanted to be, his was a path paved with souls…souls in need…souls he could help.

He tried to push the thought away, but it only pushed back.


(italicized lines from Golgotha, Blue from the one and only E)

[Zandra Sun]

The question took a moment to settle in her mind. It was as if it were being written out in front of her eyes, the words and letters unscrambling. Did she know him? Why did that sound like such a loaded question? Why did it sound like a trick question? It seemed like he was trying to test her intelligence or something. But she knew that wasn't the case, though. He was a cop. He was investigating the situation.

"My stepfather," she answered simply. Her voice sounded so different in her ears. She didn't recognize it. It was as if some other girl was speaking; she was just listening to someone else. But that's what life had always felt like to her. It had always felt like she was just a bystander of someone else's life. She was watching a tragic play or perhaps she was dreaming. And then the truth would hit her like a ton of ragged bricks.

She began pulling herself up with his help. As she straightened her back, she fell back to the floor, groaning. She finally felt the searing pain of the scrape on her back. The teen reached back for the injury. Feeling a sticky substance on the small of her back, she withdrew her hand, looking at her fingers. Blood.

She stared at the red substance, mouth opened slackly. Her eyes were wide with confusion. How had this happened?

This post has been edited by Zandra Sun on May 31 2011, 03:50 PM

[Lt. Karl Womack]

"My stepfather"

The girl tried to pull herself up but failed. Before Womack could help a shadow fell across them from the room's entrance.

”Step away from the girl! NOW!”

The order emanated from the doorway; its passion apparent but its composition the stuff of the phony brave. It lacked concrete and mortar, a command as paper thin as the person that delivered it.

Not letting go of Zandra’s hand, Womack turned his head until he looked over his shoulder at the uniformed peacekeeper pointing a gun at him. Karl’s eyes narrowed.

The only way this cop could have arrived on the scene as quickly as he did was because he had already been there, in the club. Whether muscle hired by the owner of the club or simply one of the fraternity of Persephone’s fallen, the odds spoke of the man being on the take, augmenting his paltry civil servant pay with the under the table pieces of silver of the underworld.

Beneath the ice blue weight of Womack’s stare, the cop was judged and found insignificant,
”Womack. Badge number 1984, the one there on the floor. I’ll handle this, so go on back to your jobs”

Confusion clouded the flatfoot’s face, rumor and legend warring with the fact that faced and addressed him,
”Womack? He…You died?”

Keeping his gaze fixed, he answered the obviously rattled man,
”It didn’t take.”

With a snort of admiration, disbelief or both, the cop holstered his weapon,
”Wow…Lieutenant Womack, shiny. Wait till the crew at the station hears about this,” pushing the stars from his eyes the man continued, turning to look at Zandra, ”I can take her, Lieutenant. C.P.S will be able to get her to her next of kin.”

Finally turning his eyes back to Zandra, Womack stared at her silently.

Next of Kin…Stepfather

His decision came without thought, but its DNA swirled with the code of Scarlet, Shanti, Damian Malone, and Beatrix Ladden,
”She’s comin’ with me. I’ll get her where she’s needin’ to be.”

”Sure, lieutenant, sure…whatever you say. You need me to do anything?”

”Yeah,” he growled while retrieving his belongings, ”Rutt off.”

If the man said any more, Womack didn’t hear it. Instead he knelt down, inspecting Zandra’s wounds from afar. Quickly he turned his attention back to the tortured girl,
”I’m going to carry you to my bike. That work for you?”

[Zandra Sun]

The teenager's attention snapped toward the new officer as he arrived. As she acknowledged where he entered from, a feeling of rage pushed out panic and despair. She felt her teeth clench and jaw tighten. Why had he chosen now to enter the room? She knew that they were being much quieter. She was no longer screaming. In fact, she could barely talk. If he heard them now, that meant he'd heard her cries for help. And that made her angry. More of a reason as to why men were the Devil.

”Womack? He…You died?”

She looked at her savior with eyes of awe, but fright. This man had... died? Or at least, he'd been assumed to be dead. What exactly was it that he did that gave him such a reputation, spread a rumor of endless slumber? She suddenly felt that fright return to her. What would he get her into? Would she be in danger again?

”It didn’t take.”

Wait, did that mean he'd died and come back? Despite her Hindi background, the teenage girl was a believer in the Christian faith. So, in her eyes, this cop became more amazing to her. Not only had he saved her life, but he seemed to imply that he had died and resurrected. That made him Christlike.

”Wow…Lieutenant Womack, shiny. Wait till the crew at the station hears about this.” Feeling the new arrival's eyes on her, she returned her attention to him, feeling her temporary feeling of awe shift into a bubbling rage. ”I can take her, Lieutenant. C.P.S will be able to get her to her next of kin.”

Her eyes widened. The law had dictated that she was her stepfather's responsibility even after her mother's family had fought to have her put in their custody. So, did that mean they'd return her to him? She'd rather die than go back.

”She’s comin’ with me. I’ll get her where she’s needin’ to be.”

She released a sigh of relief, a breath she hadn't known she was holding. She looked at her knees. At that moment, anywhere was better than her stepfather's custody.

She was so caught in her daze, the rest of the conversation went unnoticed by her. But the cop's question brought her out of it. She looked around, noticing that the other man was gone.

”I’m going to carry you to my bike. That work for you?"

That's when she remembered her fear. She may be allowing him to help her, but her predictions of the future were all negative, full of more harm and abuse. Her breathing picked up at the morbid pictures of her mind. She thought about asking "Where are you going to take me?", but what came out in a tired rasp was, "What are you going to do to me?"