Water streamed and gushed, the sound swirling and eddying in rhythm with the pain in Marley’s side. It was too fast, too constant, too loud. Marley couldn’t think. Every thought was a thickness, sluggish like her heartbeat. The rain was warm, too warm. Mixed with the blood pooling on her lap. Rain filled her eyes, dripped down her face. The rain had soaked through her clothes long ago. Maybe she’d been sitting here for hours, dirty concrete beneath her wet jeans. The pipe above her spewed dirty rainwater from the roof. Marley thought about moving but she couldn’t. Her body refused the message from her brain, and she didn’t want to break the cocoon of warmth. Summer rain and her own blood. Ugly and peaceful.
She shouldn’t be here, though. Something important was in that thought. More important than the knife wound in her side, the bruises on her neck, or the pain in her hands. Fault and blame formed a sharp line, dividing her world into then and now, into consciousness and sleep. Marley shuddered, the first movement she’d made in a long time. She shouldn’t be here in this alley in the rain. The knife should never have come between them. It was the last in a long line of mistakes.
Marley moaned, and the sound dislodged some of the heaviness. The effort to open her eyes felt huge and impossible. Her body felt numb, the hurt replaced by nothingness. Move. Move. But nothing happened, and Marley could only be grateful her tears didn’t mix with the warmth of the rain and blood before she slipped down into sleepiness. Summer rain pattered against her neck, the sound of the water out of the drainpipe receded, and Constable Bridget Marlowe lost her fight with consciousness.