/Take Me Away to the Dark Side/

Summary: Post season 3. The Major Crimes division sets out to solve a double homicide. The murders soon turn out to be more than simple. Meanwhile, friendships blossom and hearts align. Ensemble fic. Crime/dark/gore/romance.

Disclaimer: Major Crimes and the characters belong to James Duff.

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Prologue

21st August 2013

Los Angeles

What is time without a beginning?

…

Melinda Gareth, pristine in a navy blue swimsuit, sauntered onto the new deck adjourned to her house. The late night lay cocooned in the scorching heat from the day and the tiles of her deck were still warm to touch. The preceding days had been like a sweltering oven, a heatwave of Sahara proportions enclosing Los Angeles.

Melinda's house was up hill with an exclusive view of the city, it lay between a cluster of priced housing and a generous splatter of palm trees obscuring the neighbors to the south. From the spacious living room, glass doors opened up wide to the new veranda and the tiled deck that led to the swimming pool.

The moon was clear in the night sky. It hung low on the horizon, full and proud, a tinge to its shine that reminded Melinda of the starry stickers she used to plaster on her ceiling as a child. The city threw the night into an orange hue, brightening what would otherwise constitute complete darkness. Nighttime in a large metropolis was different than the darkness outside city limits; less frightening on the surface.

The night sky was devoid of clouds and the clear view was comforting.

The swimming pool drew her gaze, the image of moonshine shimmering on the surface. Its light illuminated half the pool, the other half was dark and formless where trees threw their shadows. Melinda strode forward, a towel in hand that she deposited on one of the sun chairs along with her phone and a bottle of chilled water from the refrigerator. She pushed her hair up and knotted it in a bun at the back of her head.

She stopped at the edge of the pool, her toes just on the brink of the warm tile. She stretched, tilted her head back and blew out a long breath.

Working a twenty-four hour shift messed with the muscles in her back and neck. They were tense and all knotted up, aching from standing upright and from striding at a fast pace to and fro all day. Swimming laps would help; the ease of the water would help her muscles relax, would take her mind off things and cool her down.

The water would be fresh.

Cool.

It was what had gotten her through her shifts at the hospital, and the warm climate with the humid winds.

Melinda dove in headfirst.

For a short second, as she glided through the water, slick and cool, it was bliss.

Then it was agony.

Her eyes fluttered open under water, the pain unbearable. It stung and the pain crept in through her closed eyelids when she tried to keep them shut. Her skin felt aflame by the time she took the first stroke under water. By the time she resurfaced, it was gnawing into her skin, burning and boiling beneath it.

The pain stung her lips, boiling inside her mouth, and she sputtered as gulps of water slid down her throat.

By the time she reached the edge of the pool and managed to crawl up and out of the water, she was on all fours gasping for breath. The insides of her throat burned and her skin itched. It burned and burned, going deeper into her skin.

Her phone lay on the sun chair furthest from the pool.

She tried to crawl to it, her stomach in uproar. When she reached the first sun chair, her stomach contracted and she ended up, arms slung out for support, dry heaving what little was in her stomach. It splattered on the deck; bits of tarnished bread, yellow bile and fresh spots of red blood. She kept gagging and vomit ran down her chin, the metallic taste of blood poignant.

Melinda reached for her small rectangular phone but it fell from her grasp, her fingers tensing up and unable to hold onto anything. She likened it to a spasm, the way it felt, and the way it crawled through her body and left her immobilized. She felt drained of all energy and she sank down, the warm tiles of her deck cool against her burning face.

Out of her periphery vision, she noticed a shadow by the entrance to her house. The shadow moved past her, the sound of rush of clothes was loud near her ears. The figure bent down by the sun chair and picked up the water bottle.

The figure then kneeled by her side and offered her the bottled water. Melinda gulped down the offered water, hoping it would rid her of the stinging pain in her throat.

It only worsened the pain.

It was not water in the bottle. It was the same substance that was in her pool; foul-tasting, stinging and vomit-inducing.

Her body convulsed in pain, trying to get the liquid out again.

The shadow moved away and picked up her phone, for a short, sweet moment Melinda thought the person was going to call an ambulance. But the dark-clothed figure, lithe and tall with no discernable features, only stared back at her, face hidden by the cowl of a black sweatshirt. The figure observed her for a long beat, shadows moving and clearing part of the lower face. There was slight stubble and long thin lips that parted into a malicious smile, noticeable white teeth.

The creep held out her phone and it fell to the deck, loud clang against the tiles, the cover most likely broken. A boot kicked her phone and she heard it scatter across the tiles and land with a plop sound in the pool.

Melinda tried to reach out, tried to grasp for the black material of trousers the figure wore, but the stranger was just out of reach.

"Help me, please," she managed to sputter, her throat raw and bleeding. It was painful to speak, to breathe, but she had to, her voice low and raspy, "please…"

Her breathing sounded ragged, her vision veiled when she tried to open her eyes. She felt hazy and tired, dizzy and short of breath. Her stomach was knotted up in pain, her insides, mouth, throat and esophagus burned, a pain that seemed to worsen with every moment. Powerless, helpless, fear sprung forth within her, welled up under her skin and blocked out every other thought.

She tried to speak again, the half-gasped 'help' only sounding like a guttural squeak when it left her mouth.

The figure simply squatted down and stared.

…