Chapter 5: Sensation

Daylight. That damn bright light in the sky. I pulled the covers over my head and tucked myself in for more sleep. The air was a little cold, so I wrapped my arms around my naked body.

Wait, naked body? I don't sleep in the nude. I opened my eyes and looked down at myself. The light through the thin sheets let me see that I was definitely naked. My eyes widened and I sat up. The sheets pooled into my lap as I looked wildly around me.

I was in my bed in my dingy apartment. The bed was a mess of tangled and tossed sheets, and the pillows were on the floor. My clothes lay in a pile beside the pillows. Bright, midday sunlight streamed through the grimy window that looked out on an alley.

I swung my legs out of bed and winced. My body felt like I'd shoved it through a meat grinder and molded it into loose burger patties. Every muscle was tense and sore. I stood and wobbled on my shaky legs. I stepped over to the pile of clothes and lifted my shirt. It hung loose in front of me and spun in a slow circle. The light from the window revealed all the tears and claw marks from last night.

I dropped my hand to my side and ran the other one through my clumpy hair.

"What the hell happened last night?" I muttered.

That wasn't to say I didn't remember it. I remembered everything completely, I just didn't believe it. Who would? I mean, I'd had sex with a stranger who climbed a four-story brick wall and broke into my apartment. Sure, he was handsome, but he was also a cold-blooded murderer. Hanging out with a guy like that was a big no-no for a police officer, but I wouldn't have minded another go with him.

"What?" I yelped out loud.

Had I really just wished for a trespassing murderer with the name of 'Shadow' to have sex with me? I shook my head. It had to be the two days I'd been out. I must've had my brains beaten more than the doctors noticed. Maybe I'd go back to that one doctor, that Lowell guy, and see what he thought about these strange urges. He seemed to know what he was doing, or at least he seemed to be good at pretending that he knew stuff.

 I sighed and glanced at the clock on my nightstand. My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open.

"Shit!"

It was one o'clock in the afternoon. My usual shift started at nine. I jumped out of bed and slipped into my uniform. It was tighter than I remembered and I had to wiggle into the pants. The shirt was tight across the front of the chest, but I somehow managed to get the buttons together. I made sure the collar was high enough to cover the scar across my neck. The men gawked enough at my breasts, I didn't want them to use the excuse they were looking at my war wound.

I raced out of my apartment and ran into someone who stood just outside my door. I caught a heavy whiff of marijuana on their person. My training meant that I jumped back and grabbed the butt of my gun. A grungy-looking guy stood in front of me. His baggy shirt and pants were covered in stains and dust, and he had a lopsided grin on his face. His eyes were bloodshot and his shoulder-length hair was greasy.

He tilted his head to one side and looked me over. His words were slurred and he swayed from side to side. "Hey there, what's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"I live here. Who the hell are you?" I questioned him.

He shrugged. "I'm just staying with one of my buddies around here. We have a pretty good time together, but we'd have a better time if there was more of us." His lecherous eyes stopped at my tight shirt. "Yer kind of pretty. What do you say you come see us sometime?"

"Not interested," I replied.

I dropped my hand from my gun and pushed past him. He had enough smell on him for me to arrest him right then and there, but I'd have plenty of time to pick him up later once I picked up car so I could drive him back to the Precinct. As it stood, I didn't want to take a suspect into custody and have to ride a bus all the way to the precinct with him in tow.

I caught one of the downtown buses and reached the precinct by two. The precinct was one of those old marble buildings with a long flight of hearts steps up to the front door. Not exactly handicap accessible and she didn't have as much space as we needed, but the old girl had weathered through a lot of tough years and deserved the respect she got from the people who worked in her and the neighborhoods we patrolled.

 I climbed the steps and walked through the front doors. There was a long desk in front of me and hallways on either side. A short, swinging door at the far left side of the desk was a shortcut to the desks behind that one. That was the main department area where we processed suspects and spoke to witnesses. The place was a madhouse, but two o'clock was always a busy time for us. That was when all the druggies like my friend at the apartment woke up and made trouble for us.

At that moment we had half a dozen drug dealers being fingerprinted and marched to the back of the building where there was enough jail cells to fit the whole block full of dealers. My fellow officers were bagging and inventorying evidence, but that didn't keep them busy enough to miss my entrance.

I walked through the swinging door and towards the back of the desks. I desk sat at the back close to the rear wall where there were separate offices for the higher ups. The guys, and most of them were male, looked up from their work and grinned at me. They weren't leering. Most of these guys were like brothers to me, and that made my job just a little bit harder. They teased me whenever they got a chance, and today I had a bullseye painted on both the back and front.

"Hey Selena! Aren't you supposed to be mummified?" someone shouted at me.

"I chewed my way through," I quipped.

"I thought you were dead," another teased.

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated, now if you

gentlemen will excuse me I've got some trouble to cause," I returned.

I was nearly at my desk when one of the men stepped into my path. At

six-foot-four he was a giant of a fellow with shoulders as broad as I was tall. He grinned down at me, and I rolled my eyes. His name was Detective Andrew Bart, and his desk stood opposite mine across the narrow aisle. We'd had our differences in the past, mostly on cases where we were shoved together. He always wanted to strong arm the truth out of everything, even if that meant breaking a few chairs and a few jaws. Needless to say, we didn't get along.

"What the hell are you doing here? The docs said you wouldn't be out of the hospital for at least a week," Bart commented.

I tossed my jacket onto my chair and tried to get around him, but he stepped in my way. It was like dealing with a movable brick wall, if I was

 out to insult the wall's intelligence. "I'm a fast healer, now mind moving? Stupidity is contagious and I've been in the hospital enough lately."

He sneered at me. "Why don't you take your sorry-ass excuse for detective skills and go back there?"

"Because then your sorry-ass skills would feel lonely, now move it." I shoved him aside more strength than I thought I possessed and marched to the back of the room.