Only in Darkness

5: To The Rescue

Detroit, Michigan

2018

Marlowe's sight was blurry as she came to, her head throbbing. Memory foggy as her mind muddled through a painful haze. Any sound she could have made muffled by the gag in her mouth. Her side aching to the rhythm of her heart beat.

Only when she pulled at the cuffs around her wrists, forced behind her back, did she become any more aware. Panic filled her every sense as the dark room around her. Uncomfortable floor, and newspaper covered windows-

Her eyes blew wide, pupils dilatating. Her chest picking up as her breathing turned ragged. No, no, no. Screwing her eyes shut, Marlowe tried to reign her panic in but, if anything, the action only made everything worse.

Sirens wailed, flashing red and blue lights filtering in harshly through the newspaper covered windows.

"You're okay. You're okay. Dad's got you. You're okay."

Sudden pain in her scalp and finger tugging at her hair ripped her from the flashback, her thoughts still moving as if through molasses. But she could recognize a police uniform anywhere.

"Shut up would you-" Her captor spat; face screwed up in a sneer. No clue of what was about to happen to him. All because he was a subpar kidnapper and had left her legs unbound.

She nailed him in the crotch, the man falling back with a groan and giving her room to get her hands out from behind her. The man pulled his gun and Marlowe acted.

In an instant she was on him. Thin fingers wrapped around his hand holding the gun and pushed it up. Her kneeing him in the stomach and using his own weight shift against him as he let out a pained grunt and keeled forward. Yanking his arm in her grasp down and twisting, pulling him over her back. Slamming him onto the ground. Dislocating his shoulder in the process and straddling his back. His gun clattering out of his broken grip.

The chain of her cuffs found its way around his neck. Gurgling sounds escaping from the man as she dug her knees into his sides, her boots pinning his legs painfully to the rough wooden floor.

"No! Kyle Please!"

"This is gonna hurt."

A thick crack sounded, like that of a tree being blown over in a tropical storm. She let go of her grip on the tree, letting it to the forest floor with a mighty thud. Scrambling off of him and falling over herself as she ripped the cloth from her mouth.

Finding herself on the floor, pupils shaking. Hair splayed out around her like a golden halo, her chest heaving, adrenaline racing through her fast pumping blood. Rolling to the side, facing away from the lifeless body, she felt a chill rake up her spine like the claws of the three furies trying to drag her down to Hades.

Not for the first time in her life she was left fighting the pull and the chill filling her fingers with icy pricks. "Get up." She didn't recognize her voice.

"No! Kyle Please!"

"Stop it. Stop. Stop. Stop." She begged, curling in on herself and trying to cover her ears but the cuffs kept her from doing so. The metal biting into the skin burning red from friction and pushing her farther into her memory.

"This is gonna hurt."

"Leave me alone." Marlowe pleaded one last time, voice breaking. Knocking the cold metal against her forehead, harder and harder with each contact. As if trying to beat the memories out of her head.

It was only the sound of foreign footsteps that dragged her out of her own personal hell. Back on high alert, her eyes drifted to the gun two feet away.