It's the little things (Open)

Laura had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Perhaps even headed in completely the wrong direction. Instead of finding a farm with sheep and cows and most importantly, Mary, she’d found a beach. At first she’d stared at it. Sand, sea and sky. Then she’d got upset. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t even do this right.

Kicking off her shoes, not seeing or caring where they landed, she stomped down the beach to the water. It wasn’t a huge disaster, really. She had after lunch tomorrow to try and find Mary, or she could try and go now. She knew she was being silly, but she was cross. Cross at herself. Her feet hurt from the stomping, but she ignored the pain, kicking at the sand. Stupid. Why was she so stupid? She’d spent all her life trying to learn how to stop being stupid and she still was.

She swiped at her face, staring at the sea. If the sea wasn’t there she could get back to her uncle. She hated moving. She hated feeling guilty and messed up and cross. She hated every single little bit of this and she wanted to go home. Properly home too, not all these fake homes she’d had in the past year. Home to the apartment with the cupboard under the sink and the secret space under the bottom drawer and her uncle. Not with Mike and Fiona, not Louisiana, not New York, not here. Home. Stupid sea. Stupid Laura.

Turning around, Laura realised she had no idea where her shoes had landed. Feeling tears prick the back of her eyes, she wondered if she cared. Reluctantly retracing her steps Laura looked around. Nothing. No shoes. How had they disappeared? This was what she got for being cross. She wasn’t allowed to be cross. Turning back to the road she began the walk back. She didn’t have a watch and she had to be back by eight. And she was tired. Sad and tired. She wanted to curl up under her bed and not come out. She wanted to cry. Or die. Whichever was easier. She was sick of this.

She began to walk faster, concentrating more on the thoughts stabbing their way through her brain than her feet. The road sort of hurt, but Laura deserved it. She always deserved it. She wanted to go home. Tugging at her hair, Laura began to gnaw at a finger. Maybe she didn’t know what she felt? That seemed likely. It was a huge muddle of upset, guilty, worried, hurting, tired, angry-at-herself, miserable and homesick all mixed up and taking up room and arguing for attention. Her feet began to walk even faster, feeling the road prickle her feet, punishing her. Then Laura tripped and fell.

Feeling scraped, she leaned her head on the floor trying to remember to breathe and not cry. Picking herself up she assessed the damage. Grazes on her elbows, knees and arms. Not a lot of blood, nothing that wasn’t already drying. No danger to other people, at least not right this second. She tried to come up with some emotion, but she was still the same muddle of feelings, only sharper and achier and more homesick. Finally Laura decided she didn’t care. Didn’t care if she was late, or if people got annoyed or about her shoes or her hands or the time or anything. She just wanted to be good. And here she could be. No people, nobody to bother or hurt. She’d just stay here for a little while.

Sitting by the side of the road Laura examined the bottoms of her feet and found that they were red and sore, but not bleeding. Well, that was something at least. Curling her knees to her chest, she leaned her head on them and stared down the road without seeing it. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there but was that the light fading or just her imagination? Then she saw a person. Laura hoped they didn’t see her. She would have sat there all night, had she been left to it, almost as if her bones had turned to rock. A bad end to a bad day in Laura’s whole bad life.

Ever since the Sunday news broke the story of that murdered woman(poor soul) Quinn, like every other officer on green ridge was being pestered by town folk who either wanted to prod the woman for more information or complain about a resident of St. Christiana.

"..It is strange that the first murder in generations happens after they bring in all those children and people from New York...."

"...You can't tell us anything more about the murder, Officer?..."

"..It just shows you can' trust outsiders, especially ones that aren't all right in the head..."

"...The damn curfew's not far enough, they should lock the psychos up in that damn facility and interrogate every single one 'till somebody confesses..."

"..It wouldn't take more'n a session or two of waterboarding to get to the truth..."

"...The patients you see out and about are the least likely to cause harm, all of you fear mongering mothers are much more danger to them then they could ever be to you..."

The voices of mothers in the park. Gotta love women who've reproduced, it's like someone took away the logic function of their brain and replaced it with a fat wad of babywipes. It was a shame the only mother the officer overheard that wasn't acting like an alarmist douchebag was that new shrink, it would have been nice to see someone who wasn't getting paid by GR Biotech stand up and defend the 'crazies'...How quickly they 'normal' residents forgot that little section at the bottom of every application asking if you had any problem living around people with mental health concerns when it was convenient to them. No-one's wrists were twisted to stay on this silly rock and if they were so horrified and willing to point fingers at the most monitored residents with the least amount of freedom to commit murders in the first place, then maybe that lot needed to get on the ferry and not come back.

Quinn let one of the newer officers patrol the beach; she was a nice enough girl, born and bred on the island, coppery hair tanned skinned, grey eyed little wonder, and more then willing to wander the beach in case a couple crabs got horny or a narwhal decided to pop a cap in some clam asses. She snickered to herself at that image. The thing that took the smile off her face, was watching the younger officer head off, was noticing the gun in her holster. Quinn was far from a pacifist, having served in the coast guard she was aware that sometimes you had to get a little violent to et things done, conversely she did not believe that this tiny island, regardless of this recent murder, needed it's police force to carry weapons which was why Quinn didn't carry hers. There as always a level of subconscious intimidation when a person was approached by an officer with a weapon containing live ammunition, it escalated situations that need not be by the simple virtue that no one wanted to be shot.

As Quinn moved away from downtown heading towards St. Christina's Way, she thought she saw something in a bush. She crouched low and tentatively reached her hand in, expecting to feel some mother animal sink it's teeth into her hand eliciting the kind of language that would curl hair, only...
"The hell's a shoe doing in a bush?" a annoyed sigh passed through her lisp as Quinn pulled back form the bush and brushed her uniform off and the shoe...it was kid sized, well teenager-y, she prayed she wasn't about to find a couple kids canoodling...again. the were worse then she was as a teenager, at least when she wanted to get a little piece in the park she kept her clothes at an easy to acquire, and throw on while running distance form her and the activities she and her bushmate were up to.

With a shoe in tow Quinn headed back up the road when she noticed a person, a girl shaped little person curled up on her self by the side of the road...barefoot. Okay that was what she got for making assumptions. It was Laura Richardson, she remembered the girl, she was one of the sadder cases, Quinn scoffed quietly, this was one of the big scary new your murdering teenagers all those stupid soccer mom's were trembling over?
"Hey Laura... what happened to you?" she stopped and crouched beside the girl, close for conversation but with enough distance not to crowd her.