Baton

Two policemen stood at the bend in the alley, half obscured by shadow.

Their presence felt too large for the space. Broad shoulders in dark uniforms. The glint of a badge. The familiar weight of a utility belt heavy with radio, cuffs, and gun.

The older officer stood in front, one hand raised, palm out, the other hovering near his belt. His stance was firm and practiced, the posture of a man who expected obedience without question.

The younger one lingered a step behind, less certain, his eyes flicking between Ellen and the mess at her feet.

Ellen’s pulse thundered.

She stayed frozen, her hands half buried in the pile of clothes.

The older cop stepped closer, boots grinding against wet pavement.

“I said, hands where I can see them.”

Ellen’s head snapped up. Her breath caught mid inhale, her heart slamming against her ribs. She gingerly pulled her hands free from the suitcase.

A memory surged, sharp and unwanted.

Her stepfather’s breath. Whiskey and sweat filling the narrow hallway of their old apartment. His fingers closing around her wrist, grip too tight.

Did I say you could leave?

Ellen blinked hard and shook it away.

“Good,” the officer said, his voice low and husky, the kind that never needed to be raised. “Now raise them higher and step away from the suitcase.”

She hesitated. Adrenaline locked her muscles, making them feel thick and sluggish, as if she were moving through water.

Slowly, carefully, she uncurled her fingers and raised her hands, palms out. The sleeves of her oversized cardigan sagged, the fabric still heavy with rain.

The officers advanced, boots crunching softly against the wet ground in a steady, deliberate rhythm.

The younger one hung back, his gaze sweeping the shadows between the dumpsters, scanning the alley as if expecting someone else to emerge. His posture was stiff. Uncertain. His jaw was tight with something that was not quite fear, but not confidence either.

He’s new, she realised. Still learning where suspicion belongs. Still adjusting to the weight on his belt.

She might have clung to that thought.

If not for the other one.

The older officer moved with certainty. No hesitation. No doubt. The confidence of a man who had done this too many times, who no longer questioned whether he was right.

His thick handlebar moustache twitched as he studied her, thumbs hooking casually into his belt loops. Too relaxed. Not reassuring.

Ellen smelled him before he spoke.

Cigars.

The scent coated the back of her throat, mingling with the filth of the alley.

She swallowed, fighting the urge to step back.

“I’m gonna ask you some questions,” he said, his voice slow and measured.

Then it snapped.

“And don’t you dare lie to me, you hear me?”

She flinched.

Did I say you could leave?

The officer’s eyes narrowed, searching her face for a crack. A tell. Something he could use.

Then his gaze dropped.

The open suitcase.

The damp clothes, streaked with mud from the park, spilled around her like evidence of a crime she hadn’t committed.

“Who’d you steal this crap from?” he asked, as if offering her one last chance to confess. A smirk tugged at his moustache. “And don’t try telling me it’s yours.”

Ellen’s breath hitched. The air felt thick now, suffocating, pressing too close.

“I didn’t steal anything,” she blurted, her voice too high, too fast. “These are my clothes. I swear. I just left my boyfriend. It’s all I have.”

For a heartbeat, the younger officer hesitated.

His eyes flicked to her, properly this time. Something softened in his expression.

But the older officer did not move.

His gaze stayed fixed. Cold. Appraising. He wasn’t trying to believe her. He had already decided.

Ellen met his stare as long as she could.

Then his eyes dropped.

Not in submission.

Something else.

Slow. Deliberate.

Her stomach twisted as his gaze travelled downward, lingering. Letting her know he was looking.

A sharp metallic snap split the air.

Ellen jumped.

So did the younger cop.

The baton gleamed in the dim alley light, polished and familiar in the older officer’s hand. He held it loosely, casually, as if he hadn’t just cracked the air open. His stance never shifted.

A slow, satisfied breath left his nose.

Then he barked, “Rodriguez!”

The name cracked through the alley like a gunshot.

“Yes, Chief?” Rodriguez answered quickly, though his voice wavered, unease creeping in around the edges.

“What’s the booty?”

Rodriguez blinked. “The what?”

Chief’s expression hardened.

“The bags, Rodriguez. What’s in the damn bags?”

Ellen barely breathed as Rodriguez crouched, rifling through the open suitcase with mechanical movements. His fingers were careful, hesitant, as he sifted through her life. Her last remaining proof that she existed.

This isn’t happening.
This isn’t happening.

Rodriguez straightened and rubbed the back of his neck. “It just looks like clothes and stuff, Chief,” he said, uncertainty still clinging to his words. “I think she’s telling the truth.”

For half a second, Ellen thought that might be enough.

It wasn’t.

Chief didn’t move. He stood where he was, baton extended, eyes fixed on her. His silence was deliberate. Not empty. A message. Whatever truth Rodriguez thought he saw didn’t matter.

Then Chief stepped back. Slow. Measured. The baton hovered, never lowering, never quite rising. He stopped beside the suitcase.

Ellen’s lungs locked as he prodded her belongings with the tip of the baton. Not searching. Playing.

Socks. Shirts. A bundled hoodie. Each flipped and nudged aside.

Then the baton caught on something.

Something small. Delicate.

Lacy fabric unravelled from the pile, hanging limp from the tip.

Oh God.

It swayed gently in the breeze. A bra. Pink. Cheap.

Hers.

Chief gave the baton a lazy twist, making the fabric sway. His lip curled.

“These yours?” he asked, his voice casual and mocking, the cruelty effortless.

Heat flooded Ellen’s face. Humiliation, sharp and burning. She nodded, unable to speak.

Chief’s expression darkened. “I asked if this is yours.” His tone stripped of mockery now, replaced by pure authority. “Show me some respect and answer so I can hear you.”

The words cracked down the alley.

“Yes,” she gasped, her voice too small. Too thin. “Sorry. Yes, it’s mine.”

Chief tilted his head, eyes dragging over her, slow and deliberate, as if weighing her. The lace still dangled from the baton like a prize.

“Well, Officer Rodriguez,” he said, stretching the words with false deliberation, “it seems we’ve got ourselves a little dilemma.”

Rodriguez shifted, his weight rocking subtly from one foot to the other. Small. Almost invisible. Ellen saw it anyway.

“A dilemma, Chief?”

Chief nodded, moustache twitching as he cast another slow look at Ellen. “Exactly. A suitcase full of what could very well be stolen clothes, and a suspect who swears they belong to her. So how can we be sure?”

Ellen’s stomach rolled. Nausea rose hot and fast.

He’s not asking Rodriguez.

He’s already decided.

Chief lifted the baton slightly, the bra still hooked at the end. He brought it beneath his nose.

He inhaled.

His eyes fluttered closed.

The alley tilted.

The world slid sideways.

She was seventeen.

Back in the house with yellowed walls, smoke stains, the air thick with whiskey and sweat. She had come home late. Too late. She remembered the way her stepfather’s head snapped up. The way his nostrils flared as he took in the smell of night on her clothes.

He knew.

He always knew.

He sniffed her like an animal.

Then the hand came down. Hard. Sharp.

Her lip split on the first blow.

Did I say you could leave?

She learned quickly. Men like that didn’t just want control.

They wanted proof.

The alley snapped back into focus.

The air pressed down on her, damp and suffocating. Her skin felt tight. Trapped.

Chief still held her underwear beneath his nose.

Rodriguez shifted again, jaw tightening. His discomfort was obvious now. Maybe disgust.

He still said nothing.

Ellen’s fingers curled into her palms, nails biting hard into skin.

“What we need,” Chief murmured, lowering the lace at last, his voice thick with something private and conspiratorial, “is a way to prove she’s telling the truth.”

Ellen glanced toward the mouth of the alley. Desperate. Pleading.

Someone has to be there.

No one came.

She looked to Rodriguez. Searched his face. Willing him to intervene.

He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Shame sat there instead. Heavy. Familiar.

Just like her mother’s silence.

Chief stepped forward and stopped inches from her. The lace dangled again from the baton’s tip.

Then he thrust it toward her.

“Take it.”

Her body obeyed before her mind caught up. Her hand extended, trembling, fingers brushing the cold, wet metal of the baton as she pulled the fabric free. It felt wrong in her grip, like it no longer belonged to her. Like it had been taken and reshaped into something else.

Chief smirked. The look men wore when they enjoyed watching something collapse.

Then he began to circle.

“What’s your name?”

The shift in tone sent a fresh chill through her. Polite. Almost gentle. The way a butcher soothed an animal before the knife.

Her lips were dry. She swallowed twice before sound came out. “Ellen,” she whispered. Then, hurriedly, “Ellen Persephone.”

He hummed, tasting it. “Ellen Persephone.” He let the name linger, thick and slow. His gaze travelled over her from head to toe, assessing, weighing, like she was an item on a shelf. “That’s a pretty name.”

He leaned in close enough for her to smell the stale, acrid breath curling from his mouth. “Ellen,” he said again, savouring it.

He liked saying it.

That terrified her.

“Let me ask you something,” he continued, voice smooth and coaxing. “Assuming for a moment that these really are your bags, would you say they’re precious to you?”

The question was a trap. She knew it even as she answered.

“Yes,” she said carefully. “They’re all I have.”

“Exactly. That’s exactly what I thought.”

He moved behind her. Boots scraped against wet concrete, slow and deliberate. Each step filled the space between her breaths. Then the subtle shift in weight, the soft jingle of his belt. He was bouncing on his toes.

Warming up.

“Now imagine this,” he said, voice syrupy, patronising. “If someone were to take those precious possessions from you, you’d want them back. Wouldn’t you?”

Her fingers twitched around the lace.

“Yes—”

He chuckled, low and pleased.

“And you’d want the law to help you, wouldn’t you?” His voice softened further. “Someone like me.”

Her eyes flicked to Rodriguez.

Please.

His face had gone pale. Jaw tight. Hands fidgeting. He looked like a man standing at the edge of something he didn’t want to fall into.

He knew.

He knows.

He still didn’t move.

The baton struck her thigh. Sharp. Controlled. Not enough to bruise. Enough to remind her who decided pain.

She yelped, stumbling as the world tilted. Before she could steady herself, his voice crashed down on her.

“What did I say about using your words?”

Whiskey breath. Fingers digging into her collar. A backhand across the mouth.

What did I say, girl? Answer me when I speak.

Her hands shook.

“Show me some respect,” Chief said. “Answer the question.”

“Yes!” she cried, the word breaking apart as it left her.

He hummed, satisfied. “That’s better.”

The baton returned, but this time it didn’t strike. The cold metal slid against her thigh, slow, deliberate.

Worse.

“But here’s the problem, Ellen.” His voice dropped, the playfulness dissolving into something intimate and poisonous. “I can’t quite figure out how to prove these are yours.”

Her body locked. Muscles seized, rigid with the useless hope that stillness might stop time.

His breath brushed her ear. The scratch of whiskers. Cigar smoke. “Luckily, I believe in you. I think you can find a way to convince me and Officer Rodriguez that what you’re holding really belongs to you.”

The baton pressed lightly against her inner thigh.

Rodriguez stood frozen. Jaw clenched. Fingers twitching. He wasn’t okay with this.

He still wasn’t stopping it.

The world narrowed.

Think, Ellen. Think.

Nothing came.

Except submission.

Her hands moved on their own. Clumsy. Shaking. Fingers fumbling with her cardigan. Missing the button once. Twice. Finally popping it loose.

Then another.

Then another.

A ringing filled her ears, drowning out the city. Wet fabric slid from her shoulders. She pulled free of the sleeves.

The cardigan dropped onto the suitcase with a damp thud.

Her t-shirt clung to her skin, translucent with rain. She crossed her arms, fingers hooking the hem, starting to lift it.

“Good girl,” Chief whispered.

Then a voice cut clean through the alley.

“Hello. Is that The Washington Post?”

The words were calm. Precise. Absurdly out of place.

For a moment Ellen thought she’d imagined it.

Chief flinched.

Just a fraction. Barely visible. But it was there.

The voice continued, unhurried, utterly unconcerned with the scene it had stepped into.

“I have a news story you’ll be very interested in. You’ll want to hurry.”