Darker Things

1: "Detective Vienna Lewis"

Waking up at six and going for an hour long run was something that had been part of Vienna's morning routine for as long as she could remember.

It started when she was fourteen as a coping mechanism after her dad passed and had stuck with her through high school and college and had given her a major advantage when she joined the U.S. Marines days after graduating.

Her determination to follow in her father's footsteps had allowed her to skip a grade when she was younger, meaning she graduated from high school age 17 and college age 20 which later led her to become one of the youngest Sergeants before her medical discharge at 28, a few months before the original end date of her second tour.

The start of her day was no different to usual, she was already awake when her alarm sounded, she got up and put on her running clothes which consisted of leggings and a top seeing as it was almost summer in Chicago.

She checked her phone whilst eating a protein bar before slipping on her trainers, shuffling her playlist and heading out the door.

After living in the same apartment for a few years, Vienna had a set route that she knew took just over an hour and would give her enough time to have a shower, get dressed and grab a coffee to go and get to work on time.

But that was what was different about today, she was starting a new job and wanted to be slightly earlier than usual so she cut the route short by two blocks in order to save time.

At least that was the plan.

Until she watched as two cars collided barely a block away from her.

Vienna had been running for around forty minutes and was about ten minutes away from her apartment when a car on her side of the intersection blew a red light and plowed straight into another car. Her fast run turned into a sprint as she ran towards the incident.

Her hopeful optimism, that she had somehow managed to hold onto after serving for eight years and being a cop in Chicago for five more, told her to check on the driver that caused the crash first as he may have passed out, had a stroke or a heart attack.

"Sir can you hear me?" Vienna asked as she tried to open the drivers side door, but was met with silence and the door wasn't budging so she moved onto one of the back doors which opened much easier. Having already concluded he was unconscious, she pushed her fingers to his neck and found a steady pulse and that was when she saw it. The several bottles of beer that were scattered in the passenger footwell.

Disgusted, she climbed back out of the car and rushed to check on the other driver. A passer-by was on the phone to 911.

"They're gonna want cops, he's drunk." Vienna said to the woman who was on the phone to 911 as she attempted to open the second drivers door, once again with no avail. The driver of this car was a teenage girl who was slowly drifting back into consciousness. "Hey, what's your name?" Vienna asked as she opened the back passenger door, allowing her to slide into the back seat.

"Abigail." The girl said groggily, obviously not aware of what had happened.

"I'm Vienna." She introduced herself as she saw a fire truck pull up. "Hey, keep your eyes open, the firefighters are here, and they're gonna get you out Abigail." She heard a guy issuing out orders to his team before he came up to the drivers door and tried to open it. "It won't open." Vienna said, grabbing his attention as he hadn't realised she was there. "The steering column is pinning her legs in."

"Kidd, get the jaws!" Casey ordered.

"The other driver was unconscious, drunk." Vienna told him.

"And who are you?" Casey asked curiously.

"Detective Vienna Lewis." She introduced herself. "And this is my new friend Abigail." She joked, bringing a small smile to the teens pale face.

"Captain Matt Casey." Casey introduced himself as he was handed the jaws. "This might be a bit loud." He told them as he pushed the jaws into the edge of the door and opened them until the door popped open to allow a paramedic to check Abigail out.

"You should get checked over too." Brett told Vienna.

"I wasn't in the crash, I was just down the block." Vienna said.

"You can be my extra set of hands then?" Brett asked.

"Yep." Vienna agreed, her fingers still brushing through Abigail's hair in an attempt to keep her relaxed.

"We need a c-collar and a backboard." Brett said to whoever was outside the car and almost immediately the c-collar was handed to her but she passed it back to Vienna who put it on Abigail. "You've done that before." She commented as she concluded it was safe to extract Abigail from the car.

"Two tours in the marines." Vienna stated.

It only took a few minutes for Captain Casey to extract Abigail and transfer her onto the backboard. Vienna used this time to get out of the car just in time to watch the other driver be arrested and thrown in the back of a police car after the paramedics concluded he had just hit his head on the steering wheel.

"I need to go to work, but I'll come and check on you at the hospital when I can." Vienna promised Abigail with a final squeeze of her hand. She checked she was okay to leave and after giving her card to one of the cops on the scene, she did so and ran back to her apartment.

By the time she got home she had ten minutes before she had to leave so she jumped in the shower but didn't wash her hair, then quickly got dressed and grabbed her badge and gun, clipped them to her belt. She didn't bother with a coffee as the adrenaline was still pumping through her veins.

Despite the unusual contents of her morning, Vienna still arrived at the district seven minutes early which was good considering she had only planned to be five minutes early.