The Wave

The New Guy

Everyone was abuzz a few weeks after the anniversary of the Blood Park incident.  Sarah cast a glance at Neo as they strolled onto the Criminal Investigations Division (CID) for a morning birthday donuts and tacos get together for one of their investigators.  These were usually a bit animated sort of events, but everyone seemed to be over amped that morning.  It was too early for that kind of animation in Sarah's opinion.  Neo raised a brow at her and quickened her step, not wanting to miss out on what had everyone stirred up.  That was the inherent trait of all that worked in CSI had in common, an inability to not be right in the middle of things.  Sarah was too tired to quicken her step.  She had been having the worst dreams the last week.  It was the same every time the anniversary came rolling around.  Triggered.

She had started therapy while being pregnant with Ti.  She had fought doing it for years, feeling like it would make her weaker.  Little did she know that it was exactly what she had needed in life.  Her childhood had been a shit show and when she discovered she was pregnant, she didn't want anything from her own upbringing to rub off on her unborn child.  She had no idea how life changing it would be, but she was finally able to heal.  It had been a long process and there had been several times she had wanted to quit.  She was glad she didn't.  She knew her nightmares would be worse this time of year if she had and this year... it hit her harder than the last few.  Perhaps it was because of the milestone of ten years.  She wasn't sure but... she had started smoking again.  She had stopped after that bullet ripped through her lung and had been in the hospital long enough to get past the withdrawals.  Then there was Ti coming and that had kept her clean even longer.  She never wanted her children to see that.  Yet now... she had started again.

It had been egging her on all day long as she worked that gruesome crime scene.  She had a feeling it wouldn't be the last body they would have, the manner in which the woman had been killed looked like some kind of sacrificial offering.  Her body had been posed; it was obvious.  The monster had even carved an intricate symbol into the victim's right hand before carefully posing her left index finger to point at her heart.  She had obviously been raped and tortured, for how long only the medical examiner could determine.  Sarah knew in her bones they had the beginnings of a serial killer.  The jittery sensation the scene had produced had only intensified as she started having flashbacks to Blood Park.  On her lunchbreak she had bought a pack of Marlboro Menthol Gold bands... formerly known as Marlboro Menthol lights.  She then fought the rest of the day as she processed the evidence collected from smoking.  Barely.  The Dojo had helped take the edge off and she was so tired, she had gone to bed.

Only to be woken up by a fucking nightmare that was so real, she was sweating and shaking.  Even after opening her eyes, she could see the events in her mind.  She had laid there for a long time before slipping out of bed, going into the living room to fish out the cigarettes before sneaking outside.  She was wrecked emotionally and quickly sucked down two while crying silently.  She had then snuck back into the house, taking a shower because she hated the smell, but it had taken the edge off enough that she was able to go back to sleep.  Now it was her new ritual.  Once the boys were in bed, she was out the back door.  Neo had caught her, then joined her two nights before.  She was not a regular smoker, but she did smoke when she was with someone else that did.

They talked for a long time that night.  Sarah was grateful for her.  Neo had started working for Hays County about a year before she had and had been tasked with her initial training when she had been hired.  The two had bonded over Naruto.  She was crazy about Itachi Uchiha.  The room she now occupied was so reminiscent of the one that Sarah once had before that it was almost surreal for Sarah.  She had boxed up almost all of her Kakashi stuff and put it in storage.  She couldn't get rid of it, but she couldn't keep it around herself after losing him.  That became even more predominant when she had married Joe.  Now that he was gone, she had pulled out the framed photograph that Kakashi had snapped of the two of them and set it on her dresser alongside one of her wedding photos.  The artist sketch that Melissa had doctored she had also framed and set next to the one of the two of them together. She could now look at both without being dragged into the pit of hell.  She would never put them away again.