Darkest Before Dawn (Ended)

[annabell]

Anna pulled her brown leather jacket over her usual blues and grabbed her car keys from her desk. It had been an unpredictably long night processing a handful of guys that had taken it upon themselves to strike one of the remaining downtown banks. They'd been clever about the whole operation, she gave them that, but bank security had been stepped up in the past few weeks. In the end they hadn't been fortunate enough to escape. She'd been behind her desk the whole time. So she was the only one available, by the time they were in lockup, to handle the paperwork. So she'd spent several hours over her usual ten hour shift printing them and getting them ready for detainment.

And she was exhausted.

Coffee failed to aid in that problem these days. The time that she allotted for sleeping was spent lying awake and staring up at the ceiling. Insomnia was taking its toll. Some of the cops, the ones higher up, had suggested her taking some time off, suggested she see someone, suggested getting a prescription for a sleep aid. Anna had shrugged it all off.

Once Gotham had some dignity back she would rest.

She pulled off her cap, unmasking a head full of tangled red locks, and threw it onto her desk. And with that, she was heading out the door when Brody (she wasn't sure that was his real name, but it's what everyone called him, so he was committed to her memory as Brody), from behind the dispatch station, called her over. To chat. As he always did when she was trying to head home.

"Busy night, huh?" he asked. Anna nodded silently, rolling her head this way and that in a desperate attempt to crack her neck.

But his next spoken thought was interrupted as a call came through the speaker on his desk.

"Attention units. We have a Ten-Double Zero at Marks and Fort. Lexus, black, 7..8..X-ray..Ocean..Adam..6."

Officer down? It never stopped. Not for one second.

Brody was responding to the call, so he couldn't bother with the formality of saying goodbye. Anna rapped her knuckles on his desk as a means of a farewell statement and ran through the hallway, through the parking lot, to her cruiser. She'd only had the car for a week, and it had only been granted to her because there were so few cops on the street now. So all remaining officers had gotten one... but she'd not been able to really use it except to drive back and forth between her apartment and the station.

Yeah she was off-duty, but it wouldn't hurt to take a detour. With the lack of cops available in Gotham, and a new one getting injured and/or killed everyday, sometimes another set of hands were good to have around.

---

It didn't take her long to get to Marks and Fort, though the sight spilled out in front of her was not a very welcome one. Six blocks had to be barricaded off because of the huge mess made of the street in the wake of a high speed chase. The Lexus had long disappeared. She didn't even bother to stop. She was sure they could have used her help... but her attention was elsewhere. Her attention was focused on the black Lexus who'd made quite a murder scene in its aftermath.

Reports came in here and there over her cruiser's radio of a black Lexus speeding through the streets, heading deeper into The Narrows. Anna swallowed a lump in her throat at the thought of the car's destination. No cop willingly headed into The Narrows unless they knew exactly where they were going. And no cop ever went in there alone.

But the men on duty were a commodity at the murder scene. There weren't too many out and about that were able to hunt down the perpetrator. Her mind debated back and forth with the whole situation. She could leave it to the few guys who'd be assigned to the task, head home, lie in bed awake... or she could do what is was in her blood that she was meant to do. And feel better about herself because of it.

Anna chose the latter.

She followed the reports, pushing her car deeper into the grittier part of Gotham. Past the abandoned buildings, past the alleyways that housed the nocturnal scum of the city, past the gangs and the druggies and the prostitutes... until her eye caught the car. A black Lexus, license plate number 78XOA6, that had been parked on the left side of the street. Anna felt her the knot in her stomach tighten up. She'd been so concerned with finding the car that she'd made no real plans concerning what she'd do when she found it.

She called in her finding to Brody who, although sounding less than pleased that she'd taken this matter into her own hands without proper authority, promised to call in back-up if she would just stay in her car until back-up arrived.

She promised.

And then when his voice faded from her radio, she broke that promise.

Anna pulled the M9 from the belt attached to her hip before making her way out of the car. Whomever had been maneuvering the vehicle was still inside. She could see the shadow of the driver as she made her way to the driver side door - gun out, heart exploding, held breath.

"Both hands out of your driver side window where I can see them!" she yelled at the Lexus, "Now!"

[annabell]

It wasn't the reaction she'd been expecting and it caught her off guard. Usually when she ordered someone's hands out of a vehicle window it took them a moment to comply. They were trying to hide an open bottle of alcohol (usually by drinking the contents), or they were swallowing a baggie full of narcotics, or they (more often than not) were trying to get rid of any incriminating evidence - like throwing a gun under their seat - or zipping up their fly.

So his quick response made her job that much easier. The fact that he had a handcuff around his wrist and was secured to the car door did not. It meant she had to approach the vehicle without being able to fully assess the situation. She couldn't order him from the car, couldn't order him on the ground, couldn't quickly inspect her suspect and her surroundings.

Yeah. She should have waited for back-up. But that option wasn't available to her now. She couldn't ask the man to hold off while she backtracked to the cruiser and awaited help. Anna cursed herself under her breath and took a step forward slowly, trying to hold her shaking hands steady. Her gun was quivering right along with her fingers.

"Please lady you have to help me. This guy's a lunatic. He attacked me, and took my car, went on a rampage through the city. Now he has me chained in here."

The man's voice sounded genuinely anxious. Anna glanced at his right hand, which hung out the open window. His left arm, his restrained arm, was barely visible from her viewpoint. Crap. There was no possible way she could inspect it farther without being right on top of the suspect's vehicle. Anna was attempting to steady her left hand enough to allow her right hand to move from her gun and crawl downwards to the flashlight attached to her hip. But his sudden words made her right hand fly back up to the gun.

"He thinks he's the real Batman. He says it's hunting season for dirty cops and whores. OH MY GOD, WHAT'S HE DOING TO THAT GIRL?!"

One of his fingers was pointing towards a building to his left where, in the shadows, she could make out a tall, dark figure standing over a much smaller one.

"Not a good idea, Anna," she muttered to herself, "Night time. Narrows. Alone. No flashlight. What in God's name were you thinking?"

She circled slowly around the Lexus, keeping enough distance between herself and the car just in case the man inside happened to be misrepresenting his situation. Her bigger concern, at the moment, waited in the shadows against the brick wall. She had no idea what to make of the whole situation. Lack of judgment had clearly put her into dilemma that, knowing Gotham, could very well be the last dilemma she would ever have to face.

If she lived through this, she'd be lucky if the Commissioner didn't take her badge.

Anna approached the figure from behind, keeping her stance sideways so that the Lexus and its occupant were still in view on her right, and trying to assess the situation taking place to her left. And the left side view became something she really, really didn't want to see. The figure had a gun drawn and pointed at a female... who couldn't have been much older than herself. The woman looked terrified (who didn't when they were staring down the barrel of a gun?). Her right hand was concealed in her right pant pocket. On the ground to her left Anna could just make out broken glass.

"Put your gun down on the ground slowly," she told the figure, trying to keep her voice from quivering, "and slowly put your hands in the air so that I can see them."

"Lady... you don't-"

"Now!" she interrupted, "Do not get on my bad side this early on in our impasse."

The man hesitated and Anna tightened her grip on the gun, her index finger hugging the trigger. She could hear movement behind her, and from the corner of her eye saw the door of the Lexus opening. Not good. The woman to her left was starting to back away as well. Anna wasn't sure which person was the biggest threat. She desperately wanted to assume the giant caped bat with the gun was her main target... and stuck with this presumption.

"Gun. On the ground. Now," she warned him once more, "I will not hesitate to shoot."

"Lady! What the?! I'm not even the threat! It's her!"

His tone was indicating his victim. Anna gritted her teeth and fired a single shot upwards to the left of his head. The brick above their trio exploded and rained down to the cement. The bat creature dropped his gun, where it collided with the sidewalk, and raised his hands into the air.

The woman had gotten about six feet away and Anna turned her gun towards that route next.

"Don't move," she told the figure, "I need you to stay right where you are while I detain him."

She could barely see the woman nod, but she'd stopped moving... for which Anna was very grateful. She was just starting to pull the bat's arms down to handcuff him with her right hand, gun still firmly enclosed in her left hand, when the noise right behind her back distracted her. The sudden arm around her neck forced her to stumble backwards which, in turn, made her drop her gun onto the sidewalk.

The bat took that opportunity to run. But not before stooping over to pick up both guns. The sound of his rubber soles slapping against the sidewalk was the equivalent to the sound of a bullet.

But it echoed far more loudly.

[annabell]

She'd been grabbed from behind countless times, so that didn't phase her. She'd perfected her elbow jab years previous, so she hadn't thought twice about throwing her arm backwards... it was routine. His defense in throwing his arm upwards to defend his face was routine for her as well. However, the vapor that discharged from somewhere on his arm was not. Anna's first instinct was to cover her eyes with the crook of her elbow, which left her defenses down.

However, no further attack came in a physical form. Instead the bricks around her began to vibrate as she peered out from behind her arm. In fact, the whole world seemed to be victim to the fierce tremors underneath the dull lumination of the lone street light a few yards away. Anna could feel her fingers grow stiff from the panic that was rapidly spreading throughout her body. Her lungs felt as if they couldn't get breaths in and out quickly enough. And closing her eyes didn't help matters. Instead the pitch black behind her lids only seemed to make her mind's vivid imaginations that much more terrifying. Anna opened her eyes to the shadows circling over head that were twisting into shapes of the one thing that had scared her since she'd been three years of age. Her eyes darted back and forth, taking it all in, and she desperately tried to cringe away from the few that dared to swoop down against her face.

The voice, the savage sound that emanated from somewhere in front of her, distracted her attention away from the nightmarish scene in front of her. Anna turned her head towards where she was sure the voice had spilled, and then she saw the clown. Her eyes grew wide at the details of the monster in front of her. Blood had sprayed against the white greasepaint, leaving traces of red splatters against the stark white. Blood poured from the its mouth. Every scream it managed shot forth blood towards her legs. Anna began to shake uncontrollably as she watched miniature versions of the giant clown emerge from the droplets of blood, and ascend up her torso. Her hands were quick to bat them away, but the more she knocked onto the ground the more attacked. A glance upwards met the giant clown that had peeled back his cracked lips to reveal a set of teeth that were razor sharp. It began snapping viciously as it lunged at her.

Anna screamed and fell backwards as she desperately tried to get away from the clown. She felt herself hit the ground, could feel the small pebbles that imbedded themselves in her skin upon impact, could feel the back of her head smack the concrete... but the pain from the fall was so far in the back of her mind that it was almost surreal. None of it compared to the feeling of her heart as it repeatedly detonated in her chest. Above her head the clown loomed precariously, its eyes burning with fire. Its fingernails had become long daggers that threatened her as it reached a skeletal hands towards her.

All of a sudden she was fighting the three year old redhead still trapped inside of her head. She was face to face with the three year old who'd been terrified at the circus and who'd cried until her parents had been forced to leave. She could remember the dread in the pit of her stomach as the white-faced monsters had pulled her away from her father's arms... from his protection. She could hear her mother scolding her for her embarrassing behavior. She could remember her brothers' balloons and clown masks that had been used to tease her in the car on the way home. Bits of flashes of that day paraded into her head, and the repetition of the clowns' laughter echoed repeatedly in her head.

Anna sucked in a breath and combated the tears wanting to spill from her eyes. No matter what direction she turned her head she could still see the same face hovering above her - and its voice, it's discordant tone that mocked her, played over and over again in her ears.

The world around her began to flicker at the moment she was certain she'd no longer be able to function. Her vision became hazy. So this is what it's like to die, she thought as her eyes closed. Somewhere above her head she could hear voices, but they were the terrible monstrous kind that haunted children in twilight sleep. They spoke of evil things under beds and in closets, things that she hadn't thought about in twenty-something years.