the whirlwind

The radio buzzed lightly, voices of dispatch and the units he’d left behind in the girl’s apartment to secure the place and gather up the last of the evidence he’d marked out with them with terse words and the reluctant jab of a finger. Nothing from the hospital yet but maybe that was a good sign. You got the call fast when it was bad news. The docs and nurses, they didn’t wanna break it but when they knew it came with a crime attached, they let you have the news in those empathetic tones, like you were the one whose lives would be shattered by the grief of a lost loved one. Chase curled his fingers tighter around the wheel as he drove, knuckles slicing white against tan skin, short nails digging crescents into the leatherette coating. No news was gonna be good news, his own call to the girl’s family – if he could track down a number for them – easier for that.

Chase pulled a hand free, buzzed the window down to let the cooler fall air in. A slap to his face that was edged with the ozone of the scatter of rain they’d predicted that morning. Was the girl gonna wake up in a couple of hours to the sound of that rain rattling against the window of her hospital room or was she never gonna hear it again?

He swallowed back pile, glanced up at his own apartment building as he passed it. Stopping in would’ve been easy, a momentary reprieve from the report he was gonna have to write up the minute he got back, every detail of the beating the girl had taken from the guy who was supposedly her boyfriend spelled out in heartless black and white. Any guy who could … No. Chase huffed out a breath, tightened his hand back around the wheel. He’d had scuffles on the job, had fought for his life when … those guys had jumped him, taking the heavier beating for it but he’d never raised his hand like that outside the job. Never to a woman.

Staring down at his knuckles for a moment, Chase could almost see the smears of red over them. Glittering slivers of glass peppering his skin, snagging at his feet the day after when he’d woken up in the shower, rusty stains trailing over his skin, over the tile towards the drain, the icy cold trickle of water that was all that was left in the tank running down his spine just enough to have him shuddering. The voice in the back of his head laughing, not bordering on hysterical the way he’d been. Lower, happier, almost proud. Like he was …

The air wasn’t enough to push the nausea back. He sniffed it in regardless, the spotless hand coming up to rub under his nose like that’d erase the scent of blood or bury the mental images back in that little box in the far recesses of his mind that he kept it all in. Dark eyes ticked around the street that was streaming past. Folks on the sidewalk, smiling, strolling like they didn’t have a care in the world. Kids running in the square, bright streamers of toys in their hands. Cars stacking up at the lights, the radio bursting into life as he pulled up behind them.

”D-3, this is Dispatch. We have a visitor asking for you at the station. What’s your ETA?”

He’d called dispatch as he’d left the apartment, noting everything the way he’d been trained to as a rookie. Heading back. Won’t be long, girl’s on route to the hospital. Available. Was this the girl’s boyfriend handing himself in? It’d be a fucking miracle if it was. ”Five minutes. Just keep ‘em there.” No enquiry about who it was yet, if it wasn’t the boyfriend chances were he’d be ready to bolt again the way he had done after the bloody row had erupted.

No need to try and steady himself now. Chase went to pull around the other cars, a hand reaching out to flick on the dashboard light but the traffic signal was already turning green. He settled back, rolled through and … shit.

The car swung out of control, just a slow pull at first, then faster, thumping straight into the back of a Buick parked at the curb. Chase threw an arm up but the air bag popped anyway, his head already thrown back out of range. He twisted, saw movement beyond it in the street. Squinting at it he started to try and punch the bag down, to deflate it out of his face but the voice was already rising. His name croaked before it was repeated, the orders cried out.

Fingers fumbled at the lock of the door, shaking just enough that it took him a couple of attempts to get it unlatched. Shouldering his way out, Chase stared at the guy with his mouth hanging open. He could still feel the vibrating impact of the crash in his bones, his vision almost shuddering at the edges like he was seeing that face like he had his hands earlier, glittering, slicked with blood, the scars that bisected it now darker lines oozing … ”Were you the one at the station? The boyfriend?” Confusion rumbling through him, then snapping tight as he took a step closer.

He was shoving a hand back to ward off people rushing in like a fender bender was the most interesting thing that’d happened in the last decade. ”She’s … Nemo? What I did? What the fuck are you talking about man? What are you doing here?” His eyes were shifting, from the ones as dark as his own, back to those scars. Not thin white surgical lines like the ones that ran over his own body alongside those messier wounds, the dual marks of violence and the attempts to patch them up. More livid, ragged enough to have that burning rush of bile in the back of his throat again. The little kid they’d let tail along with them had been fucked up by someone … the Agnellis top of the list of usual suspects.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 1034

Nemo the lost sheep. All grown up and standing in front of him. Face twisted with those scars and some sort of inner anger he’d never seen on the kid’s face. He’d always been there, at least until the world had gone to shit with Georgie dragging Mikey some under that dark water of the Agnellis’ world. Tagging on behind them, quiet, meek for an Agnelli, seemingly happy enough with a few of the cards they traded pressed into his hands in generosity. Adults woulda called him pretty faced, glossy dark hair, those dark eyes that were more haunted than hopeful now, but no longer.

The guy who stood there in the road while Chase scrambled from the car, confusion and anger warring on his own lips while the world around him rang with impact of the crash, wouldn’t have been anybody’s description of pretty. Confusing maybe, angry, but somehow as cracked as that voice that croaked out of him. Damage inside as well as out maybe.

Was that an honest to God whimper? Chase’s brows furrowed, his hand settling above the holster on his belt. Half twisting around to look at the car and it’s slightly dented front end, he heard Nemo’s refusal. By the time he was twisting back Nemo was already smacking hands into his temples, like he’d knock something loose. The same way guys had when they were flying on something and losing their minds in the quarter, trying to rattle around brains seeing things not there while they cooked. ”Me what?” Chase rasped, shaking his head right back before the roar came.

Fingers twitched closer to the gun, not willing to pull it yet but something seeming to rise in the air like there was another wave to the storm about to come. Chase took a half step forward, feeling the dog right there just outside of his field of vision. Safe then. ”How in hell man? I haven’t seen you in years. What are you talking about Nemo?” Here for him. The call at the station, some part of his life in New Orleans reaching out now. Just after Mikey had got here. No coincidence, there never was any where the Agnellis were concerned. ”You take something on the way here?” If he hadn’t maybe he needed to.

Behind him Chase could hear the radio in the vehicle squawking. Maybe someone had called it in. Fender benders weren’t unusual in town, even in a place this civilised. The calls would be filtered through to the station, some patrol car with a couple of deputies sent out … to one of their detectives standing in the road with a guy they’d likely try and take in on first impressions alone.

Chase went to give ground as Nemo staggered towards him but the dog was already snarling beside him. He didn’t look down at the animal, not when the more dangerous of the two was right there in front of him. ”Down girl.” His voice was a quick bite, his hand extended towards the dog for a moment before Nemo’s whipped faster than he thought. A glint of light breaking through the gloom like it was spearing down just to shine off the edge of the blade.

In an instant the gun was out - Chase’s teeth gritted, hands steady on the weapon as he aimed it at a spot right between Nemo’s eyes. You didn’t shoot to wing someone, not even in a town like Mystic Falls. Something inside of him started to shake. He’d never had to draw his weapon here, not like in New Orleans. This was meant to be somewhere new, somewhere quieter. ”I dunno what you think I did to you man btu you’re gonna put that weapon down. We’re gonna get you some help but that’s not happening while you’re armed, Nemo.” Use their names, connect. Make sure that when you tried to close your eyes after this you knew exactly who you’d watched bleed out in the gutter. The same kid who’d lit up when he’d won a round of anything, like all his life til then had been nothing but losses.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 693

Afternoons spent in the conference room at the station. Some guy up front who’d crashed out of the PD and had sold out to a degree in psychology. Everybody in the station knew guys like that hadn’t been able to cut it and so they’d turned back around to try and help the men and women who were cutting it. Laughter had gone up every five minutes despite the grim discussions about the various psychiatric issues they’d likely encounter on the streets. Cops goofing off to avoid the cracking open the dam that held back the nightmares of all they had seen. Addicts so wired they could explode at any second, people practically on another planet, seeing things that weren’t there – hearing voices, being order around by demons. Nails tearing at their own skin, fists pounding against their head like they could knock the thoughts clean out. Chase had taken it more seriously than most but seeing it close up always made him nervous.

Nemo was doing it now, pounding at himself in the throws of whatever he had going on. He’d lost track of him after Mikey’s case. The Agnellis had scrabbled back under their rocks, leaving Georgie’s reputation to rot like his worthless carcass in the ground. Signs of them had bubbled in the neighbourhood for years afterwards, boiling in the jail where Mikey was trapped under their thumb, but Nemo’s name had never cropped up in any of it.

It was obvious to Chase now that the years hadn’t been kind to that kid who crawled around the edges of everything. Dark eyes stayed locked on him, skittering from the scarred face to the hands that dropped away, the body wracked with that wreckage. He’d grown, shooting up from that scrawny half mute little kid to a rangy guy with something cracked upstairs. ”Three years since what Nemo?” he asked hoarsely. Keep him talking, get him to calm if he could … before someone called this in to the station and they ended up with people here more likely to take Nemo down with a bullet or a stun gun. Send that skinny body writhing to the floor.

Three years ago he’d been … A shudder ran through him, nausea rolling in his stomach like it had when he’d wake in the mornings, not sure where he’d been, blood that wasn’t his smeared over his skin. ”You’re not you man, you’re not thinkin’ right. I didn’t … I haven’t seen you since you were a kid. Someone hurt you man, they hurt you bad, but it wasn’t me.” His hands weren’t clean, Chase never would’ve claimed that but that. He broke his gaze with Nemo, eyed the scars that criss-crossed his face for just a second before he focused on a spot at the base of the guy’s throat. God knew what had done all of that that it hadn’t been him.

Nemo’s delusions had to be rushing in like fog off the sea, swallowing him up in a brain that was probably as scarred as his outsides. There’d be another on him now, the dog that’d been tailing him for days, who he’d left in the car, was out, snarling, seemingly breaking the spell that’d wrapped him up in that blanket of insanity. The flash of the blade shook him out of his own stupor, his voice snapping in warning to the dog, his gun out, up, aimed unerringly at Nemo’s head. At this distance there’d be no question about it, he’d drop the guy in an instant. Chase didn’t want to but he’d been on the job long enough to know that you didn’t always get the choice. It was about safety and right now that blade made Nemo a threat.

His head shook vehemently, teeth gritted. There were spots in his memory, more after he’d come around from the coma, spots that left him shaking and sick if he tried to push too hard on them. ”You’re not in your right mind. Crazy or not you’re not thinking right now, man. Put the blade down. Put it down now and we walk out of here. We get you some help, maybe then we find out who did that.” Chase lifted his chin, still not looking at that reddened, twisted face.

Not looking, not seeing. Not knowing to brace against that sudden force. Chase hollered as the gun flew back. Metal clubbed him in the face, stinging, cracking across his cheek bone, his brow, just missing the bridge of a nose that had been broken too many times already. Had he squeezed the trigger? The world blurred at the edges from the impact but Chase rapidly blinked it away, not seeing the bloom of red on Nemo as the slimmer man rushed him.

He threw his hands up, his trigger finger stiff, not bending as it should’ve done when he tried to ball it into a fist. Chase threw himself back, stomach hollowed to try and avoid the flash of mental, hands fumbling to try and get a grip on Nemo’s hands before it was thrust into his belly. ”No!” The growl rising from somewhere deep in him as the dog darted in again, throwing itself up to sink teeth into Nemo’s hand. The blade flew, the other fist landing on the animal’s head before it was sent flying aside.

Son of a bitch!

Rage filled Chase’s belly, sent his vision tunnelling. He didn’t care that the blade was close enough to gut him now. He was gripping for Nemo’s wrist, bending, trying to drive his fingers back towards his elbow. Bit by bit he’d snap him to pieces, leaving him sucking for water through broken teeth in a prison hospital ward. Chase’s elbow came up, aiming for Nemo’s temple. His knee driving towards his gut, looking for something solid to put him down on the ground. Red filled his vision, every bit of his body that connected singing with pain, the song of violence and desperation, of a thirst for vengeance he’d held in check for years that had now dragged out into the light snarling just like the dog had done.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 1028