Call Me Blackbird

Detective North leans back in her chair. "Right," she says. "And she- Laura- '' she says pointing at me. "I'm Laurel," I say. "Right, Laurel, I had to read up on your file, and I found this," she hands me a thick red folder. She taps the cover. "This is your file," she says.

"Read the third page under 'Therapy'," she says. I quickly flip to the page and see my therapy diagnosis. "Dissociative Identity disorder is also known as D.ID, and posttraumatic stress disorder, also known as P.T.S.D " I mumble. "Yep," Detective Ross says.

Det. North glances at the last name on the page. "Johnson," she whispers to herself. She looks at me. "Your mother's name doesn't happen to be Pricilla Johnson does it?" she asks. I look at her and study the curious expression on her face. "Yeah, her name is- was, Pricilla. Det. North looks at Detective Ross. "Can I borrow Laurel here for a second?" she asks. He shrugs. She stands up and I follow her into the hallway. "There are cameras and audio devices everywhere, we're going outside," she whispers. We walk six or seven hallways until we reach the exit. I take a deep breath of fresh air and sit down on the steps. North looks at me. "You're not going to believe me, but-" she gets cut off by the doors bursting open.

Quite literally. A piece of door shrapnel hits me in the stomach and I can feel myself bleeding out through my black Led Zeppelin T-shirt. North gets hit in the side of her face, a part of the glass window leaving a nasty cut on the side of her face. She scrambles toward me protectively.

Detective North applies pressure to my wound. A bunch of people in black camo and gas masks comes out of the building. Everything seems to move in slow motion as the people stop at the top of the stairs with dust circling them, and parts of the door on the stairs. "Stand and deliver, move and we will shoot. Put your hands behind your head," A woman's muffled voice says.

Despite the increasing pain in my large intestine from the shrapnel stabbing me, I put my hands behind my head. North raises her hands. Her gray eyes are bright with fear. A thought pops into my head. Well dang. You're about to die because you got by a stupid piece of a door. Idiot. Then the same woman who spoke earlier raises her black combat boot over my head and everything goes black.

I wake up in a dark room tied to a chair. North is tied to another chair but they're strapped together. Her fedora falls off her head and onto the floor. "Sh*t," she mumbles. "You up kid?" she asks. "Yeah," I reply. "So much for the greatest officer in all of Miami," she murmurs. "Got kidnapped by a stupid gasmask crew. I should turn my badge in as soon- '' she pauses "As soon as we get out of here. I don't deserve to be an officer. This is the third time I've gotten kidnapped. The one hundred and eightieth time someone has gotten injured on my account-"

"Stop beating yourself up. If anything, when we bring these losers into the intake, you probably get a huge thank you. Maybe even a promotion," I offer. "We? No kid, I. You've already gotten hurt on my behalf. I'm not willing to let it happen again," she says. I notice my gut isn't bleeding, but it is bandaged. "They stitched me up, I don't see a drop of blood," I say. "Maybe we can get out of here," I start looking around.

I scan the room. "There's no point in trying to escape," a woman's voice says. German accent. I know this woman from somewhere. It's the same one from earlier I think. Great. I look over at her. She's wearing a thin black hoodie, a leather biker jacket with the collar buttoned over it, black pants, and steel-tipped black leather combat boots.

She has a samurai sword on her back next to a sack of clear explosives. There's a shiny black gas mask on her face. "Who are you?" North demands, aggressively turning her chair towards the woman.

"Yvette," she says calmly. "E-vet?" I ask, just to make sure. She nods. "Yes that is correct," she says. "However, my friends call me Blackbird." I nod. "My friends just call me An Idiot," I say. She tilts her head to the side. I hate when people don't understand sarcasm. "I'm being sarcastic," I offer. "Oh okay," she sounds monotone.

"I can't breath in this thing," Yvette says, lifting her mask off her face and pulling the hood off of her head. Her obsidian black hair tumbles down her shoulders and her kaleidoscope eyes are bright with excitement she has a small barely upturned nose. A thought tugs at the back of my mind. Long black hair, kaleidoscope eyes, slightly upturned nose. Black biker jacket, black shirt, black pants, steel-tipped combat boots. Who is this woman? I know you from somewhere, I close my eyes, trying to place the face. The question is, where do I know you from?

It clicks. Biker jacket, combat boots, a BlackBird- a crow. "This may sound weird, but can I see the back of your jacket?" I ask. My mind is racing as she turns around. The white laurel wreaths surround the white crow in the center. "Yvette," I whisper. Something is tugging at the back of my mind. I have a flashback of a moment that I don't remember ever existing.

I'm about six years old and training with Yvette, and she's wearing black camo cargo pants, regular shoes but instead she has on a black tank-top. Her hair is up in a messy bun. I'm wearing black leggings and black tennis shoes and a black tank-top like Yvette. I throw a punch, and she dodges easily. "Ball your fists correctly my little BlackBird in training," she said. "Your stance, Little Bird, do stance B then switch to A and alternate," she advised. I tried stance B.

I got a good hit in her gut and she folded over. "Uggghhh," she groaned. "Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow," she said. I stepped closer to her with my hands over my mouth. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean-" before I could finish my apology, Yvette had me in an armbar.

If you don't know what that is, It's where you grab someone's arm from behind their back and force them on the ground while painfully raising their arm backward. It hurt. A lot. I used my free hand to undo her hold then turn and launched a roundhouse kick at her. It connects with her sternum. Or so I thought. What had happened was she caught my foot just before I was about to land my kick then did this leg-type judo-flip. I landed hard on my back.

Yvette's bun had come undone. She looked down at me. "I win again My Little Bird," she says, laughing and making me mad. "I want my twenty dollars and my family-size box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch," she said triumphantly. "No fair I wanna rematch," I say. "That was the third rematch Little Bird," she says.

"I know I know," I say, in my Dexter Reid (from good burger) impression. She laughs and helps me up. "Have a present for you," she winks. She pulls a small leather pouch out of one of the many pockets on her cargo pants. I take the pouch and open it.

I pull out a box maybe three or four inches in width x height. I open the box and pull out an obsidian and silver ring. The band is silver but the center stone is obsidian. I look at the matching earrings. I put the ring on my middle finger and pull a necklace string/chain out of the box.

"For when the ring gets too small. You can still keep it," she said. I put the earrings in and felt more stable than before. I smile, feeling happy, then my vision ends and I realize I'm still in the stupid, hard, chair.

"Laurel are you okay," Yvette asks. Ooh, I'm untied yay, I think. "Yeah I'm fine," I say. Seriously, I didn't realize how much I had missed Yvette. There's a high chance I didn't know because I didn't remember. But I could never make myself forget Yvette after all the things she's done for me.

Before I even realize what I'm doing my fingers connect with the ring on my necklace. I study it. It's the same as when I first got it from Yvette. I'd polished it the morning before all that trouble went down, so it looks shiny and brand new. "Can I give you a hug?" I ask Yvette.

North turns her head and scrunches up her face and makes a circular hand roll movement. Yvette smiles. She opens her arms and I get up and hug her tightly. Tears start surfacing in my eyes. "I missed you," I cry. North looks even more confused but she stays silent. Yvette looks like she wants to cry too but is trying to be tough. Finally, she starts crying too. I missed you too Little Bird," she says. I stand there crying and hugging her for maybe a total of five to seven minutes.

North gives up. "Alright, please explain why you b**ch- lovely people, are letting your eyeballs sweat," she asks in her normal careless monotone voice. Yvette looks over. "Because I've just been reunited with the person I hold closest to my heart. The closest thing I've ever had to a daughter," she says, wiping her eyes. "And I haven't seen her in ten years," she adds quietly. North nods. "I still don't understand why you have to make raindrops on this perfectly good floor," she says.

"But get it I guess," she says. I glare at her. I look back at Yvette. "Can you show me around?" I ask. Yvette shrugs. "Guards!" she yells. Immediately, three guards enter the room. They start running at us. "Stop. Stand down," she orders. "I just need one of you to show Detective North around," She smiles kindly.

A guard grabs North's arm only to get judo flipped and the other two guards tackled and wacked with their own weapons. North glares at Yvette. "I can walk on my own, I don't need a stupid man to put his hands on me so that I can move my own two legs," she says. Yvette shrugs. "I think you need to dodge to your left," North does as she says. The guard tries to grab her again.

Yvette gets annoyed. "Alright, enough," she says, sounding very irritated. Then the guard takes off his mask. North inhales sharply. Yvette rolls her eyes. The guard has the same features as Yvette, just masculine, meaning, the guy's a ten out of ten. He has black undercut hair in a bun. He has perfect skin. I study the muscular physique of the man. SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESHH. North adjusts her fedora.

The guy has a german accent like Yvette. "Hello," he says. North starts scratching the side of her head with one finger and looking everywhere but at the guard. "Where's the bathroom?" she asks. The guard taps her shoulder. She looks at him. "Hello," she says over-enunciating the E.

Yvette smiles without humor. "This is my brother Yaasiel Leissay," She says. "Yaasiel, this is Officer Emma North," They shake hands and Yaasiel takes North by the hand to show her where the bathroom is. Yvette smiles at me. "It's so good to see you Little Bird," she says, and she sounds so genuine she makes me feel accepted for what feels like the first time in my life. She puts her arm around me and walks me out of the room to show me around.