"But it's always been you─from the very beginning it's been you."
She smiles, impossibly sad. "No, Glenn, it hasn't."
─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
A traumatized SWAT rookie, a pizza boy, and a sheltered farm girl find humanity in each other when the...
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PROLOGUE
"Remain in your vehicles! I repeat, remain in your vehicles—we will open fire—!"
The pavement is hot, gravel sparkling with decaying embers. Vision hazy, her ears ring loud, loud enough she almost gives into the instinct to cover them as a child would. Lungs weak with each heave, Beckett tugs her weight onto bruised hands, lifting her abdomen painfully slow. It feels like there's not an ounce of oxygen in her body, like she's been wrung dry.
Feet scurry around in the peripherals of her vision, akin to roaches fleeing.
Spinning, spinning, spinning.
So much screaming.
Who the fuck threw a grenade?
"Rookie! Rookie! Get the hell up!" A voice shouts, thundering in the cavern of her skull. A few moments pass before she realizes it's directed at her. Slinging her head up, she meets crystal blue irises, starkly contrasting crimson vessels burst along the whites. "C'mon, get the fuck up! There's too many!" His voice is frantic yet firm, and Beckett finds herself following without hesitation, grasping his outstretched hand.
It's only then she realizes her gloves are torn, no doubt from the blast's impact, blood clinging to the sickly pale flesh she hasn't regained feeling in.
"Return and remain in your vehicles until further instruction. We will enforce compliance." The PA system resounds down the block, interference static squealing simultaneously.
He pats her helmet once she's wavering on foot, but only succeeds in scrambling her brains more. "Civilians have broken the barricade, we need to move backward and reform."
Nodding off his orders, and partially the nausea, she bends to her discarded riot shield—a thin crack lining the polycarbonate, a chunk off the corner. Salvageable.
"How many are left?" The air is smoky, and shadows blend indistinctly with shadows—not a silhouette of gear can be made out. The cruiser behind them has been ransacked, no officers to stake claim.
"You and me for now, we'll find more on the way." He's glancing around too, face grim. Blood everywhere. Beckett coughs, grime clogging her trachea. "Reinforcements were supposed to be here by now." Tone voicing his worry, she feels something curdle in her stomach; hopelessness, confusion, anger.
Blue Eyes—she wonders how concerning it is she can't remember his name—meets her gaze. Aquamarine melding with mismatched hues, panic must stare back because he softens considerably. "Hey, none of that, Rookie. We've got this," he commends, but his words tremble unconvincingly. "We just need to—...?" He trails off, snapping his head back.
They're completely engulfed in darkness now, illuminated only by distant fires. She's not sure if it's night, or if Atlanta has truly faded into hell.
During high school, she once read that in emergencies, dinner tends to be left on the stove. And as an apartment building on their right erupts into flames, Beckett feels a wave of nostalgia crash over her. Oh, how she wishes she was back in that damn classroom, worrying only about how to smoke pot in the bathroom without setting off an alarm.
