August 2007: Miami
It’s hot. Indian summer, muggy Florida hot, and there has been nothing for days to give them a break. The case is big – and they’ve been working around the clock. Detective Montoya is the only to answer the call considered to be another prank, another in a long list of dead ends. They won’t catch this guy anytime soon. They’re exhausted, and he keeps slipping through their fingers. But the caller swears she heard a scream, and saw someone that vaguely resembles the APB and sketches that have been circulating for months now. The call came in, and Izzy answers – she’s on her way to grab some dinner anyway, she’ll make a quick pass by.
Three hours later, and still no report in.
Four hours later, and someone calls Sarge.
Five hours later, and the police force swarms the last known where abouts of Detective Izzy Montoya, desperate for a lead, a clue, anything…
They find nothing.
The 24 hour mark:
Detective Montoya, it’s a pleasure to meet you.
Fuck you.
I’d heard that you were a mouthy one. I like those best. I’ve been waiting…
They’re gonna fuck your shit up so hard.
…for you to make just one little mistake. A Rookie Mistake. And here you are.
Kiss my ass.
…tsk tsk tsk, princess. You’re mine now. We’re going to have so much fun…
She spits in his face, and the crack of his knuckles backhanding across her face reverberates through her head. So she spits at him again. It’s the last she remembers for a while.
36 Hours and counting
The room is small. She’s pushed herself to her feet and paced every inch of it, pounding on walls on the door, screaming for help until her throat is ripped and raw. Progressively more and more agitated, the enormity of her situation starts to press on her and she can’t… No.
Use the time – she uses the time for the nail in the proverbial coffin for when shes free and the asshole is theirs. She centers herself in the middle of the room, breathes deep, and listens. She does it again and again, until she knows everything that has happened within the past week in that little room. Every. little. detail.
Including exactly what was done to her after she fell unconscious.
Shes going to rip the motherfucker apart with her bare hands…
Back to her feet, pacepacepacescreambeatscreampace the room gets smaller by the minute.
Oh Princess, my little toy, my precious kin… Here he comes again, and he’s not alone. He brings others. He brings Rage.
[pushherinpushherdownlockthedoorsbarthewindowsthereonthefloorthereisasmallspaceonthefloor
fourtherewerefourandthispainisnothingjustalittlemorecomeonebitchyoulikeit
rageragerageragefuckingkinswomanfuckingwhoreragerageragejustaspotonthefloor
lockthedoorblockthewindowragerageragerage]
Soon, there is only darkness.
48 Hours and counting
She hurts. Everywhere. There’s nothing that she can move that doesn’t cause a flare of agony. It’s dark, and she can’t see anything, though she’s not sure for a long time if it’s due to swelling, lack of light or if she’s blindfolded. It turns out to be all three. Her wrists are chaffed and raw from the ropes wound around them, and when she lifts them to grasp at the blindfold to tug it down – they meet resistance. She squirms, and twists, hands beating all around her to figure just how much room she has – answer? Not much.
She can’t control the panic, she can’t control the voices, the memories, she can….not…control…anything… She screams and fights and beats the sides of the coffin sized space until she loses consciousness again.
72 hours
It is not her brothers of the MPD that find her first, but instead a local pack, led in the right direction by another Fenrir Kinfolk on the force. When the Pack locate her, they do what she could not, what the police force could not – they completely destroy the twisted pack and the kinfolk [serial murderer] that took her, that had evaded the police at every turn. It would take quite a bit of coverup, of convincing stories, but in the end, they were successful, and Detective Josiah Brant, Fenrir Kin, earned commendations as he was the one who called it all in, who the mundanes will figure had freed her. One of the Pack healed enough of her wounds to ensure her survival, though not all so that it fit consistently with the story they would tell the Human world.
But no matter the healing, no matter the understanding, no matter what was done – they couldn’t completely free her completely. The scars are unseen – but no less real. Some prisons are never fully escaped…
Present Day: Chicago, 8pm
It’s been a week of this. The boys of the division have stopped filling her desk with pamphlets after Detective Vaako had a talk with her, though they still watch her, still waiting, still hoping to get a name. When John Thornton held her in the breakroom yesterday, they all breathed a sigh of relief. The bond between the two was obvious, and they know the asshole who did this to their partner and friend won’t get away with it. Izzy lets them believe it. John will too. The others won’t mention it, just like they won’t mention that kiss either, or the fact that Izzy let John hold her, where she wouldn’t let any of them in. He has her trust, and he is one of them. It’s all they need to know.
And again, they don’t wake her when she falls asleep on the couch in the breakroom. It’s a little thing – but they can watch over her while she sleeps, at least.
10pm
She jerks awake with a strangled sound, and Finn is there in an instant. She fights him at first, until she realizes where she is, until the vision of the breakroom comes into complete focus. She falls back onto the couch, and groans, almost running her hands over her face before she remembers, and then simply looks at the ceiling.
“Finn, you were off hours ago.”
“..I know, but so were you and..”
“Go home, Finn.”
“Izzy…”
She sighs, softly, and leans up to wrap an arm around him and pull him close. It’s a brief moment of comfort, of normalcy, before she leans back again. “I’m fine. Go home.”
“You want me to call Detective Thornton?”
“No. I’ll be leaving soon.”
“You sure?”
“Finn.”
He goes.
10:20 PM
She still refuses to shower at the brotherhood. “Living” there to her is impossible and she only does so by the loosest of definitions. In the women’s locker room, she rests her forearms against the tile, lets her head hang, and the water run hot down her back – so hot that it leaves her skin red and warm to the touch. The dreams still cling to her, reminding her of things she’d rather forget, things brought forth again with the current situation. She sighs softly – and then jumps when she hears his voice..
“How long you gonna keep this up, Montoya?”
“I’m naked here, Sarge.”
“And? Answer the question.”
“I don’t know. Not much longer.”
“I called Thornton.”
“I know.”
“I understand you prefer not to partner, but…”
“Sarge, I’m fine. Just let it be.”
“The boys want revenge.”
So does she. “I know.”
“I can’t have this affecting the department. Get a handle on it, Iz.”
“Consider it handled.”
“Go home.”
“Throw me a fuckin’ towel.”
11pm
She sits in her car at the Brotherhood, smoking. It’s been a week. That’s all she can think of, it’s been a week and she’s still fucking furious, she’s exhausted, and she completely mentally drained. But, just like she has done every night so far, she finishes her cigarette, grabs her briefcase filled with tonight’s paperwork and file folders, and goes inside to take her place at the back table.
In a situation completely out of her control, she controls what she can.