Descending

Chapter 1

Breathing hard, Marcia Grey raced through the abandoned jewelry store. As she ran, she was careful to avoid the broken glass that was scattered all over the smooth wooden floor. To her relief, police sirens wailed outside the building; Marcia and her fellow officers needed all the help they could get to catch the criminal who was cornered within this store.

Marcia jumped at the sound of a shriek from the Southeast corner of the store. Trembling, Marcia drew her gun and started to run faster. Suspense sent her heart racing as Marcia leaped over a broken display case and bolted around a corner. However, she skidded to a stop when she saw two figures huddled against a wall. A tall man with brownish hair and tanned skin stood facing the two people, his gun pointed straight at them.

"John?" Marcia breathed.

The man with the gun turned to face Marcia.

"It's ok Marcia," the man assured. "we caught her."

Marcia sighed with relief. An average-sized man with jet black hair seemed to be pinning someone against the wall. This was another one of Marcia's co-workers, whose name was Matthew. Though Matthew was kind of skinny, he held much more strength than many people twice his size.

Hugging his opponent tight, Matthew spun around and walked out of the corner. In his arms, he held small blonde girl who appeared to be no older than seventeen. Though she was being hauled out of the store with guns aimed at her from all directions, the girl didn't appear to be very upset about it and made no attempt to escape.

Marcia's eyebrows furrowed as she examined the girl. "This is our criminal?"

"Yup." replied John, his eyes and gun still aimed at the girl as they walked. "Her helpers ran away, but we managed to catch her."

The girl looked like the complete opposite of all of the other criminals Marcia had seen... even the female ones. The only thing that Marcia found suspicious about the girl was the careless smirk she wore as the two men guided her out of the building.

As the four people left the jewelry store, they were instantly approached by two other police officers.

After staring at the girl quizzically for a moment, one of the cops turned to Marcia. "Is this her?"

"Yes." Marcia said.

For a moment, Marcia thought she could see a flash of dread in the girl's eyes, and her next action seemed to be an attempt to conceal it.

"Dang..." the girl said, patting one of Matthew's arms that bound her tightly to him. "your arms are fucking solid! Do you work ou-OOMPH!!"

The girl's sentence was interrupted when Matthew shoved her into the arms of a young, brown-haired officer.

"She's all yours." growled Matthew, crossing his arms.

"Dick." the girl muttered to Matthew as the officers forced her toward a police car.

Just as the officers were about to shove her into the backseat, she suddenly resisted.

"Wait," the girl hesitated. "before you take me, I have to say something."

As soon as the officer loosened his hold on her, the girl whirled around and thrust her knee between his legs. When the young officer yelped in surprise and doubled over painfully, the girl shoved past him and the other officers and bolted down the sidewalk. Before any other officers could react, Marcia raced after her. Surprisingly, the girl was actually pretty fast, but sadly, due to her larger, sturdy body frame, Marcia was not.

"Stop!" Marcia shouted, though she knew it would have no effect.

The girl glanced behind her and shot Marcia a proud smirk.