Running. Officer Laura Fawkes had been running.

It was like trying to remember a dream, and one that she was so sure of. The woman had been chasing a man, searching for… A… Kidnapping victim? It had to have been. Daisy was the girl’s name. Laura couldn’t remember her face, but she knew the girl was important to her somehow.

The man that she was chasing was a self-professed wizard, a man called simply Hurst. Their last encounter was… She didn’t want to remember it. The doctors had said something to her about forgetting, or repressing, or something like that.

It was the past. It didn’t matter. The present was what mattered. Now mattered.

Now she was here, at the warehouse. She pressed against the door calmly, easing it open.

 

This city was rotten. Laura had known that ever since she was a small child, ever since she was a girl. There were disappearances, constant ones that her parents, her teachers, even her commissioner had told her were above her league.

This one, this name, this girl. Daisy. She was the lead that Laura had been pursuing. She was the key to all of this. The disappearances were tied to men like Hurst, were tied to his circle of infamy. If Laura could get to Daisy, this would all be over.

 

Laura pounced on the first man, tackling him to the ground. She grinned at his alarm, at his panic. He hadn’t been expecting her. That was good.

He struggled to push her off, but it wasn’t so easy. She had the advantage of gravity on her side. All she had to do was cuff him, and…

“Hey! Get off of him!”

A voice distracted her. It was her partner, Thomas Raleigh.

 

Thomas was a good man. That’s what everyone in the station had said, and that’s what people kept saying now. “A good man for a good girl.”

Laura hated that. She hated being objectified next to the man, having to measure up to him. Lately, it was like everyone showered him with praise instead of her. Not that she was a glory hound, but she wasn’t the kind to let others take the praise for her achievements.

That’s why this case would end that. The girl, Daisy. She was important because she was how Laura would turn the tables on her partner.

 

Thomas pulled on her shoulders, and Laura relented. She grit her teeth at the man on the ground, then looked to Thomas, aggravated.

She didn’t need to speak. He shook his head, looking to her with something akin to dismay. “Laura, this is the third time this has happened this week. You can’t just jump everyone you see because”

He stopped, seeing the look in her eyes. The man’s brow softened, and he cupped Laura’s cheek. In spite of how she thought of him, her heart raced.

“Is it Daisy again? The business with Hurst?”

 

Laura had seen Hurst once before, so long ago it felt like a dream. She’d been close to catching him, on his tail. It was before she’d known about his connection to the disappearances. Back then he was simply another thug, forcing himself on a girl in an alleyway.

Ever-vigilant, Laura had moved in. It didn’t matter that she was off her route, Officer Fawkes always wanted to help others. She was good like that, always had been.

Laura remembered approaching him, announcing that she was a police officer. She’d lifted her badge with one hand, reached for her concealed carry with the other.

Hurst had escaped that day. She was too slow.  But he had left her with something. A name. Daisy. And that was as good a lead as any.This time would be different. This time he couldn’t run, because if he ran, he’d be leaving Daisy behind. 

 

Laura nodded to her partner, flicking her head to clear the hair from her eyes. She motioned for him to be quiet, and to his credit, he listened.

“Laura,” Thomas whispered, “you need to forget about Daisy.”

That hurt.

Laura hadn’t been expecting that betrayal, and she pulled away from him in shock, ashamed to have felt anything at his touch.

“Don’t give me that look. You remember what the doctor said.”

Laura glowered at him, and would have shouted him down were it not for the fact that she needed to keep quiet. They’d already made too much noise already, Hurst would run if he found out they were here, Daisy or not.

Laura knew his type, because she’d once been like him.

 

Humanity was a weakness at times, and it was one Laura hated to let go of, but glad to all the same. As a child, she’d been afraid of everything. She’d scurried at the sound of danger, no matter what she’d left behind.

Then she’d become a police officer, and all that changed. Her first case was what defined her, what gave her purpose. She’d run, and a woman had died. Since then, she didn’t run. Since then, she’d closed off that side of herself.

Thomas was right about the doctor. She’d seen psychiatrists, dozens of them. They’d all said the same thing about her, that she was stubborn as a dog with a bone. Once she had a lead, she wouldn’t let it go. It’s what made her a good cop, and a bad lover.

Marcus was the last of her affairs to leave. A Russian man who smelled too much of cigarettes and felt too much like home to her. She missed him, even now-mostly because it was her fault he’d left.

Of course, Thomas was single. It wasn’t like Laura was interested in him though, that felt… Wrong. She was work-driven, he was family-driven. She liked to stop criminals, he liked to help families. Night and day. Practically a different species.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the sergeant had paired them together, Laura would have ditched him long ago. As it stood now, she was stuck with him, and he was stuck with her.

At least he seemed to like it on occasion.

 

Laura glared at Thomas, but before she could say a word, her head snapped towards a loud thump. It was followed by another, then another. Heavy boots on the warehouse’s tile floor. She recognized those boots from the alley.

“Laura, no.” Thomas warned her. He held up his hands calmly, motioning to the fact that he was in plainclothes, the grey of his shirt and pants at odds with the stark blue of an officer’s uniform. “We’re off-duty, remember?”

Laura wanted to listen to him. She knew that he was making sense, that she shouldn’t pursue vendettas like this. She also knew that this might be her last chance to find Hurst.

 

Ever since that day, ever since she’d failed to grab Hurst, Laura had been reprimanded, scolded. It was her fault, too. She knew it as well as everyone else in the precinct.

“We need to take her off the case.” Another detective, she couldn’t remember his name.

“We can’t have an officer like her.” The District attorney.

“She’s not fit to be a cop.” The commissioner.

“But she saved that woman’s life.” Thomas.

Laura remembered why she was with him. It wasn’t because of marks, it was because he’d stood up for her. A pang of guilt stabbed at her chest, both from how she’d treated him and from the memory.

Daisy was how she’d make this right. She’d find Daisy, and the guilt would go away.

 

Laura dashed from Thomas, trying to hide her tears. It was the fastest she’d moved in a long time, faster than he could keep up with.

“Laura, no! Please, I’m begging you! Stay away from Daisy! Stay!”

Laura didn’t listen. Did that make her a bad girl? She hoped not, or at least hoped that Thomas wouldn’t think so. She didn’t want to disappoint him. She only wanted the pain to end, wanted her conflict to end.

Hurst was right ahead of her, so close. She could hear his footfalls, could see his coat, could smell the cheap stink of deodorant on his body.

Hurst turned as she approached, and the face of her nightmares loomed into her vision.

“Ah, hello there.”

 

That was how he’d greeted her that night too.

“Ah, hello there.”

The man had turned, letting the woman he’d been holding go. Laura hadn’t expected that, nor had she been expecting him to walk towards her. Her gun had felt heavy in her hands, it was the first time she’d drawn it.

“Stop.” She had said.

“You some kind of cop?”

“Officer Laura Fawkes.”

“No, no. That’s not right. You don’t look like that to me.”

“What, I don’t look like a cop?”

He had been getting closer to her, too close. She had wanted to pull the trigger, but her body wasn’t working the way it should, wasn’t responding how it should.

“No, sweet thing. You don’t look like a Laura.”

He had lifted a hand, and there had been an actinic blue flash.

 

Laura remembered. No. She flinched, falling back from the man, reeling away, her head spinning. Nothing felt right, nothing was right. No, no, no. Nothing made sense, because Hurst wasn’t human, which was impossible and possible at the same time.

She remembered the feeling of bone twisting as magic ripped it apart. Her bones… Not ripped apart. She remembered the feeling of her muscles searing with pain as they were stretched beyond their limits. She remembered her screams, her pleas for mercy. Her pleas, devolving into pitiful sobbing whimpers…

Worst of all, she remembered his last words to her.

 

“You don’t look like a Laura.”

She hadn’t replied, couldn’t have replied.

“You look like a Daisy.”

That was all Hurst had said before unleashing his magic upon her. That was all Hurst had said before Officer Laura Fawkes was transformed into a Tibetan Mastiff.

 

Daisy was a dog, and Laura was… Daisy? Daisy was Laura? She looked to her muzzle; to her paws in shock. Her heart hammered in her furry chest as she struggled to remember-no, as she struggled to forget.

Daisy had to… No, she was Laura. Laura had to…

 

“She needs to forget.” The doctor had said. “Because the more she thinks of herself as this dog, as this… Daisy, the more she’ll regress. Since she ran from him, she was able to remember part of her life, but… Well. There’s nothing we can really do if she loses herself.”

There was a pause, then the doctor had started to speak again. “Of course, that’s the worst part. It’s like her mind’s trying to catch up with the fact that her brain’s now Daisy’s. That’s why she ends up… Well, you see her.”

Daisy had been in control then, and she’d been slobbering a veritable puddle onto the doctor’s faux-Persian carpet.

 

Daisy… No, she was Daisy… Was supposed to think of Laura. She couldn’t be Daisy, she’d been Daisy before and each time it took her longer to return to Laura.

Daisy flopped her canine ears, whimpering loudly, struggling to remember Laura. She knew this wasn’t right, knew she shouldn’t be thinking of this, shouldn’t be remembering Daisy, but she was, she was because Hurst was there, he was right there.

“Laura! Laura!” Thomas called. He’d been taking care of her since she’d changed, since she’d been declared inhuman. He was the only one who thought she was still human, the only one who saw her as more than Daisy.

Thomas ran up to her, grabbing her collar and looking to the man, looking to her tormentor. “I’m so sorry, did she hurt you? My dog’s a special case, don’t worry, I’ll compensate you for it.”

Daisy wanted to scream at him, but all she could do was bark. Her fur shook as she trembled, her large body heaving with breath after feverish breath. It was so hard to remember Laura, so hard… She looked up to Hurst hatefully, to the man who’d walked off scot-free because he’d turned a witness into a dog.

Not just that, no. She had become a dog, and she had ran. In her panic, in her fear, Daisy had ran from the man, an oversized dog in the scraps of an undersized police uniform. A woman had died that day. A dog had been born.

“Hey, man. Don’t worry about it. I love dogs, honestly.” Hurst smiled down to Daisy, and she felt her hate ebbing away at the expression.

He was happy, so Daisy wanted to be happy. She wanted to. No, she didn’t want that. She wasn’t a dog, Daisy was human, was a name she couldn’t remember, a face she couldn’t think of. Her heart pounded harder, and her eyes widened.

“What’s her name? You said Laura?”

“Yeah, easy Laura. Easy, Laura. Don’t think about the other girl, you remember what the doctors said, you remember what it does to you. They said you might not come back.”

“Pretty weird way to talk to a dog, man.”

“She’s a special case. Laura? Laura, come back to me.”

Daisy whimpered. Why did Thomas keep saying that name? That name was hurting her head, was hurting her heart. Her tail tucked between her legs, and she let out a loud whine of distress.

“I don’t think she likes that name.”

“No. No… Laura?”

Daisy whined.

“Laura?”

Daisy whined louder.

“Daisy?”

The dog barked happily, bounding to her feet and licking her owner’s face. He was crying and she didn’t know why, so she kept licking his face to clear his tears and cheer him up.

“Ah, Daisy. That’s a cute name, man. I think she likes it, too.” Not-Thomas looked to Daisy and closed one eye. It was a gesture she didn’t recognize, so she forgot it immediately, and continued to nuzzle and shower her Thomas with affection.

Daisy was important. Daisy was a good girl.