Blood by Stacie

Detective Matthew McRae slumped against the glass Emergency Room doors. Behind him, the doctor said, "Call it," and the nurse replied "2:43 AM." They'd worked frantically for over an hour to try to save the boy, forcing a trach down his crushed windpipe to get him to breathe, shocking his chest to jolt his heart into beating. But there was nothing they could do. The boy had been too beaten and broken.

Shawn Collins. Age 16. A good kid fallen in with a bad crowd. Another good kid fallen in with a bad crowd. And McRae's latest snitch. Shawn had told McRae about a new player in the neighborhood, named Marques, who was selling glocks cheap out of a hotdog stand on 53rd. McRae had Shawn buy a gun, then the cops had moved in and taken the bastard down. Shawn had been proud of his part in the bust. He told McRae he wanted to be a cop when he grew up.

But then came the frantic phone call from Shawn's mother. Shawn was missing, she cried to McRae over the phone. Find him, don't let them hurt him, you promised he'd be safe.

Shawn's mother's cries echoed in McRae's head as he watched the ER doctor cover Shawn's body with a sheet. Blood soaked through the material. It had already pooled under the gurney, running off into a drain in the floor. McRae looked down at his own clothing, also drenched in blood. Shawn's blood. He'd found Shawn in the playground behind the building where he lived. His crumpled body was hanging half off the slide. He moaned when McRae picked him up, and loosely held McRae's hand in the ambulance.

All McRae could say was, "Hang on, Shawn. You'll be safe. Hang on."

But there was nothing they could do. Too many broken bones, too many cuts and stab wounds, too much blood loss. A lot of that blood was on McRae's clothes. His shirt stuck to his skin as he stood and turned to the exit. Shawn's mother rushed in just as he reached the doors. She looked at him with eyes wide with fear. She searched his face, then her eyes were drawn to the red covering McRae's shirt, pants, jacket, even his shoes.

"Oh my baby, oh my sweet baby," she moaned.

"I'm sorry," McRae said, knowing how hollow it sounded.

"You're sorry? He's dead, and you're alive! And that scum Marques is alive! But my baby is dead." She pounded on his chest and face with her fists, and he let her, before finally grabbing her wrists. She stared at her hands, smeared with blood from his clothes. She pushed him away and walked slowly into the room where her son lay covered with a sheet.

McRae tried to stop at the precinct to fill out the paperwork on Shawn, but the sergeant took one look at him and sent him home to get cleaned up. He dropped his keys on the table as he entered the small, dark apartment he now called home. The lone lamp by the second-hand couch barely threw any light into the room. McRae didn't notice as he poured himself a drink and swallowed it with one gulp. It burned his throat, and he poured himself another.

The light on his answering machine was blinking, but he ignored it. He knew who the message was from. Daniel M. Talbot, Attorney at Law. Reminding him that if he didn't pay his alimony within 30 days, they would be forced to garnish his wages. Go ahead, Danny, he thought. Open a vein while you're at it.

He really wanted to talk to Kelly. He wondered if he called her now, at 4 AM, if she'd hang up on him. Or if she'd hear the need in his voice, and listen to him. He got as far as reaching for the phone, but stopped. He couldn't call her. If she hung up on him, he'd feel like shit. If she didn't and he unloaded all his problems on her, he'd feel like shit. A real win-win situation, McRae. He finished his drink, staring at the phone, wondering exactly when his life had fallen apart.

The answer nudged at him as it always did--Diquan Mitchell. But he'd been on the way down before he met Diquan; sending that innocent kid to prison just speeded up his fall. Jesus, first Diquan, now Shawn. He wondered which side he was on. Grabbing the Jack Daniels bottle, he headed for the bathroom.

He set the bottle by the sink and turned on the shower. He removed his jacket and peeled his t-shirt from his body. Blood had soaked through and smeared across his chest, like a child with finger-paints. He looked at his reflection in the warped mirror. He looked like shit. Pale, unshaven, bruised from Mrs. Collins' fists, and now wearing the blood of a 16-year-old boy who wanted to be a cop. He remembered having the enthusiasm that Shawn had felt, that desire to do some good and help people. He'd lost that enthusiasm a long time ago.

He wiped at his face, then took a swig from the bottle. He removed the rest of his clothing and tossed it into the corner. He'd throw it out in the morning. The blood would never come out anyway.

He stepped into the shower. The water still wasn't warm, and the cold water pierced his skin like needles. He reached for the soap and began scrubbing, the blood running down his legs and into the drain. Another drain. So much of Shawn's blood in drains. He scrubbed harder, making his skin red. The water got hot suddenly, and he continued scrubbing, trying to wash away all of the blood. Even when he couldn't see it anymore, he kept scrubbing, until he collapsed into the tub in an exhausted heap. He reached wearily and turned off the water, then grabbed the bottle and drained the rest of the liquid.

He didn't know why he kept going, why he kept trying to bring down the bad guys. Every day he went into work, looked at the stack of case files, and doggedly kept following leads, trying to find a way to stop all the guns that flowed into the city. One at a time; just stop one a time, and that's one less gun that kills one less person. He told himself that, and he told his partner that. Hell, he even told a reporter that after he'd made a big bust.

But a gun didn't kill Shawn Collins. He killed Shawn Collins. And in a few hours, he'd go back to the precinct, and start all over again.

THE END