UNLIKELY SUSPECTS
by DanK
A muscular woman tangles with a thief. F/F. 


A/N: Want to see your fantasies on paper? E-mail me at legion.live@me.com for
commissions. Use the subject header VALKYRIE.

Los Angeles is a city where anything can happen. Danger can come at you from
any angle, and it doesn't care what -- or who -- you know. It comes with
bullets or blades, sometimes with kisses and caresses. But all the variety of
its faces is meaningless -- it's always the same ugly, sick thing underneath,
and the only right answer is to turn and walk away. Don't play the hero --
don't play at all, if you know what's good for you. Why not? Because all too
often, the game is rigged.

I ought to know, I see the reports every day. My name is Charlie Warrant.
Yeah, that's my real name, and yeah, I know it's funny because I'm a Sergeant
Detective with the L.A.P.D. Go ahead and have your laugh, everyone does. Then
settle down and let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.

Nights in the city are the worst, but you probably figured that if you've ever
been in a city at night yourself. But take the worst thing you ever imagined
could happen in a city at night, and then imagine it ten times worse and a
hundred times weirder. That's what you get when the sun goes down in my city.
The hookers and the hoodlums, the muggers and the grifters, they're just the
start. Then throw in the drunks, the punks, the ones so far out on the edge of
survival they don't care if they fall off anymore as long as they can take
somebody with ‘em.

Then you get to the weird ones -- the guy who sits in the park watching a
woman walking her dog while he thinks about rape, but he's not thinking about
the woman. The paranoid delusional wannabe vampire who thinks he can drink
blood out of your car's gas tank with a hose and a funnel. They sound funny,
except when you read about ‘em in homicide reports about a woman stabbed while
protecting her pet or a motorist found bludgeoned to death beside his car in a
pool of blood and gasoline.

Let me tell you about one that tops them all.

Her name was Marisol Carria. Height, five feet nine inches; weight, one
hundred seventy seven pounds. At 11:28 PM, she left the cold neon and warm
incandescent lights of the Oak Barrel Sports Bar on South Hill Street.
According to the bartender who'd waited on her, she'd had a pair of rum and
Cokes, but she was none the worse for it.

He described her as exceptionally beautiful, despite packing enough muscle to
make the bouncers uneasy about the prospect of tangling with her if she got
sauced and went bad. Her eyes were a bright but deep shade of blue-green, like
the water just off any given $300 a night beach in the Caribbean. Her hair was
a rich honey blonde, long and curly in the way that excites just about any guy
who's awake and likes women. Her skin was fair and freckled; that complexion
and the eyes gave her delicate face a schoolgirl look, if you could imagine a
schoolgirl who could bench press you and two of your closest friends at the
same time. The passport she showed him said she was from Sao Paulo.

Marisol must not have liked the crowds or the noise -- or the stares -- at the
Oak Barrel, because by the time she left the place at a shade before half ‘til
midnight, the faint scowl on her pretty face told the bartender she wasn't in
the best mood. No one was sure where she was headed. Maybe back to her hotel
room at the Embassy Suites on South Los Angeles, maybe the inventively-named
Broadway Bar a few streets over in hopes of a more relaxed atmosphere.

Taking on the city alone, on foot and at night, was her first mistake.

As she headed northeast up Hill Street, the sounds of shoving echoed out of an
alley and paused her in her tracks. The scuffling continued, for a moment,
then stopped. Marisol turned at the alley; she would have started walking
again, thinking the sounds were just someone sneaking through the alley,
possibly a derelict molesting a garbage can -- except for the scream.

It was pitched high in panic and cut short by a quick, sharp sound. That sound
came again, the sound of flesh hitting flesh fast, and then a half-shriek,
half-sob and the sound of metal clattering and rolling across the dirty,
garbage-strewn alley floor. A woman being hit, falling, something knocked
over, possibly that trash can.

She stood still, listening. She wasn't sure, at first, what she should do. She
wasn't worried about the attacker, whoever it was. She knew the sounds of a
beating when she heard one -- that's what this was. That meant there wasn't a
gun, or she'd have heard a shot. No knife, or she wouldn't have heard that
impact and something falling -- guns were loud, knives were silent.

What she was worried about was the police. She was a foreigner here -- if she
got involved in violence, her passport might be revoked -- she might be
deported -- she still had a lot she wanted to see and do here.

But she couldn't let a defenseless woman be hurt, and it sounded to her as
though that were exactly what was going on, and unless she put a stop to it...
Marisol Carria turned and walked into the alley, about to play hero.

That was her second mistake. The alley was a maze of shadow and light, the
borders between the two shifting as the wind gusted intermittently, swinging a
trio of bare, hanging light bulbs on a long cord strung from the back of a
flop house.

What she saw when she got deeper into the alley made her heart sink. A young
woman, perhaps in her mid twenties and of average height and build stood
glaring down at a short, petite woman with mousy brown hair and large gray
eyes behind metal-rimmed glasses. She didn't wait to see what had gone on
between them.

The smaller woman's hair was long and messy; it looked for all the world like
she'd been roughed up a bit already. She wore wire-rimmed glasses perched high
on her nose, and her high cheekbones set in a narrow, pale face didn't sport
any bruises. But her thin, narrow little body was clearly trembling as if she
expected to be hit at any moment.

Her face darkened further in the dim light as she started walking toward the
aggressive-looking young woman, gaining speed. Normally a mellow, laid back
girl, there was something about the pathos of the poor, small girl being
intimidated and roughed up that set Marisol's blood boiling.

The large, powerful muscles of her shoulders, biceps, thighs and calves flexed
as she moved, warming and swelling in response to the increased blood flow as
she became increasingly angry at the thoughts passing through her mind. By the
time she reached the would-be female mugger and the much smaller, thinner
girl, she was furious.

Without asking any questions or speaking even a word, she broke the stare
between them by reaching out and snapping her strong fingers around the
mugger's bicep, spinning her to face Marisol so hard the smaller woman nearly
lost her footing. When she looked into the other woman's eyes, though,
something made her pause for just a split second -- those eyes were full of
fear, but they were still searching -- she was afraid, but she hadn't really
seen Marisol yet. So what was she already afraid of?

That's when the mousy girl stepped forward and rammed her fist into the
mugger's ribs, under the arm Marisol was holding, hard enough to knock her
completely loose of the taller, muscular woman's grip and send her tumbling
across the alley to slam into the opposite wall.

Marisol stepped back, feeling a sense of vicarious victory for the younger
woman and pride in her for standing up for herself against someone who would
take advantage of her. Then the instant faded, and it occurred to her to
marvel at the sight of the larger woman struggling on the ground, sobbing in
pain as she cradled her side where she'd been hit.

Her confusion only deepened when the mousy looking girl, rather than running,
walked with an easy confident gait across the alley to the fallen would-be
mugger and delivered a savage kick directly into the hand that cradled that
side with enough force to literally bounce her fallen opponent off the brick
wall behind her. The other woman shrieked in pain and anguish, and it was then
that Marisol realized that hers was the voice she'd heard from out on the
street, not the voice of the smaller, thinner woman.

Feeling a flush of anger and shame color her face, Marisol stood fuming. The
smaller woman adjusted her glasses, straightened her shoulders and leaned down
to grab a fistful of the other woman's dark t-shirt. The logo of some heavy
metal band Marisol had never heard of was splashed across the front of the
garment. The two women were dressed completely differently.

This, combined with the downed woman's greater height and body mass -- five
feet seven and perhaps a hundred thirty pounds to the mousy girl's even five
feet and what looked to have been a build that would put her weight at only a
hundred pounds, if that, were what had given Marisol the idea that the smaller
was the victim of the larger.

The beaten woman wore that dingy t-shirt, a pair of jeans with stringy holes
in the front at her thighs, and a pair of sneakers. But looking closer,
Marisol could see that her look was only that -- an image, a pretense. She
could see, as the smaller woman hauled her forward, that the neck of the
t-shirt was still tight, meaning that it was nearly brand-new. The holes in
the jeans, too, were perfectly symmetrical; the pants had been designed to
have holes there. The sneakers bore a white, red and black pattern, and the
whites of them gleamed. Clearly, the larger woman was into the "grunge look,"
but was well off enough to pay top dollar to achieve it.

"Stop!" Marisol told the mousy one. The other woman turned and cast a mellow
look at her before turning back to her victim, who cowered with her back
pressed hard against the brick wall as if she hoped to simply melt into it and
away from this bizarre nightmare. The mousy one reached back with her right
arm, the left clenched white knuckle tight around the wad of dark fabric
within, and slammed her right fist forward into the trapped woman's face with
a crack that echoed off the walls of the alley, snapping her head back to
bounce with a softer report off the rough, hard wall behind her.

Marisol stepped forward, towering over the smaller woman, catching her right
arm as she drew it back to strike again. The smaller woman didn't struggle or
pause in Marisol's grip, however -- instead, she drove her right fist forward
despite Marisol's strong grip, nearly pulling the muscular Brasilian off her
feet.

The "mugger", whom Marisol could now plainly see was actually the victim here,
slumped to the side, blood running from her nose in a dark fan that joined the
blood seeping from her swollen and cut lips. There was no way to tell exactly
how badly she was hurt, and now Marisol didn't have the time.

The small, skinny woman turned to look at Marisol directly, then smiled -- it
was a sweet little smile, angelic even... except there was an undercurrent in
it of venom, of something dangerous lurking just beyond sight, like black ice
on a dark road in the dead of a winter night.

She reached up, delicately took off her glasses, and tucked them away into the
purse slung from her shoulder -- Marisol's eyes narrowed as the woman's hands
had to search for room to drop them in there. "That isn't yours, is it?" She
asked suspiciously.

"It is now." she answered with a light laugh -- there wasn't any anger or hate
or malice in it. None of this had any emotional impact for the woman at all,
apparently, other than a sense of casual enjoyment for her; beyond that, total
indifference. She could just as easily have been playing a game of billiards
or watching a television program or dancing with a man under the lights of a
club.

The woman looked up at her -- and up -- and smiled. "I want yours, too." She
looked Marisol over, then shrugged. "Okay, you don't have a purse. But your
billfold, whatever money you're carrying. Credit cards, I.D., all of it. Hand
it over, sweety, I don't want to have to hurt you too much. You're hot, I'd
hate to ruin you."

Marisol blinked and shook her head. "I must have not heard you good." she
answered, her accent obvious. "Did you say --"

"Okay, I'll say it slower." the small, skinny woman's tone was condescending
now, and even if English was Marisol's second language, it didn't make her any
less angry to hear that patronizing tone. "You. Give me. Your..." she fished
the unconscious woman's billfold from the purse, holding it up into a shaft of
light in one hand, opened to display cash, debit cards, identification, "This.
Yours. Give it to me." she pointed to her victim, who still lay unconscious,
slumped against the filthy alley wall. "Or I. Do that. To you."

"No." Marisol growled, "You. Won't." Without waiting to see what the smaller
but improbably strong woman would do, Marisol snapped her arm forward, her
fingers curling into a tight fist at the last possible instant, and slammed
her fist into the smaller woman. The kinetic force, backed by Marisol's
greater weight and body mass, was enough to stagger her would-be robber back a
few steps, but somehow -- through incredible lower body strength, superior
balance or a combination of the two Marisol had no idea -- she remained
standing.

She grinned back at the larger woman, her smile gleaming teeth in the
darkness; an odd, chilling vision that reminded Marisol of the illustrated
book her mother had read to her as a child, "Alice Through The Looking Glass",
specifically of the weird, menacing and phantomlike Cheshire Cat.

That was when the thin, frail-looking woman charged at the towering,
well-muscled Marisol. Marisol saw it coming, stepping to the side an instant
before her attacker passed her. But it wasn't fast enough -- the big muscles
of her thighs must have flexed an instant before she sidestepped, telegraphing
the evasion, because she felt something hard crash into the back of her skull
like a lead-filled sap.

She staggered as her perception blurred for an instant, but kept her feet,
turning in time to see the smaller woman lowering her hand again -- it was
flat, as if she'd simply slapped Marisol with the back of her hand.

Her little hands came up, curling into fists now as Marisol's did the same as
if by reflex. Then, oddly, she relaxed and smiled again, shrugging out of her
gray female business jacket to reveal a white blouse, dropping her prior
victim's purse to the damp alley floor, the jacket on top of it.

Marisol shrugged -- a lucky shot, must've been. Maybe she was holding
something in her hand that the bigger woman couldn't see, like a lead-filled
blackjack. It didn't matter. She raised both arms, curling her fingers into
fists, curling her fists down slightly to flex the huge cords of muscle in
forearms and softball-sized biceps into vivid relief. "You see these, little
girl?" she asked. "You don't want to start trouble with me.

The smaller woman laughed, a light-hearted, joyous laugh that bubbled down the
dank walls of the alley like a stream of mirth. "Oh!" she cried gleefully,
"Oh, that's pathetic!" She reached out, her hand quick as lightning, and
seized Marisol's right bicep in an iron grip that tightened further until the
bigger woman was groaning in pain. Then the mousy one began to tractor her
down to her knees, the fingers crushing Marisol's bicep like steel pincers.

Marisol blinked back tears of pain, fully caught off guard by the little
woman's irrational mockery in the face of her clearly physically superior
adversary, and then the excruciating tangible proof that she was far, far
stronger than she looked or had any reasonable way of being. The mousy little
one cooed, "Look at this." She lifted her arm to the side, looking first at
the thin bicep and then at Marisol. "Look how much bigger you are than me --
I'm flexing, can you even see it?" Her arm had hardened, but only slightly --
she looked like a rather anemic girl who should have been as weak as a kitten.
"You should be able to wipe up this alley with me... but you can't. I've never
even set foot in a gym, but I'm going to mess you up and take what I want from
you, because you can't stop me. Are you ready, Miss Muscles?" She giggled
girlishly and abruptly released her terrible grip on Marisol's bicep with a
shove, flinging her away. Marisol stared through teary eyes at her arm, which
already showed a horrifying set of black bruises spaced to exactly match four
fingers and one thumb. She looked up in disbelief at the tiny little predator
of a woman.

"Aw, this just isn't fair, is it?" the small one laughed mockingly. "I'll bet
you still think I just caught you by surprise, don't you?" She quickly worked
her fingers down the front of her white blouse, slipping each button free
after the last, until she stood in just a lacy white bra. Her chest was as
small and narrow as the rest of her, so thin she could almost have been
described as scrawny, small but perky A-cup breasts entirely failing to push
the bra's tolerance at all, her ribs showing plainly in the stark contrast of
light and shadow that filled the alley.

"I'll give you a fighting chance." she scoffed. "Your best shot, go right
ahead. In fact --" she grinned like a shark, "I'll give you ten!"

Marisol climbed back to her feet, seething with rage at the impudence of the
little pipsqueak. She drew back her fist, ignoring the ache in her right
bicep, and slammed it forward into the flat little stomach, stepping into the
blow to really drive it in and through her target. The little mugger took a
step back but didn't even seem winded as Marisol's big, hard fist made contact
with a resounding smack!

Blinking in disbelief, Marisol let fly with another blow that had, if
anything, even less effect. The mousy little woman cracked a sweet little
smile. Marisol growled with effort as she drove a third crashing blow into the
woman's stomach -- and her target's grin only widened. By the seventh blow,
the mousy little woman was giggling, by the ninth roaring with laughter.
Roaring herself in fury, Marisol drew back and shot the last of her punches
home so hard the impact jarred the bones of her fingers, wrist and forearm.
All the effect it had was to launch the smaller woman, who howled with mirth,
a few steps back.

"My turn!" she crowed triumphantly, and stepped forward launching a vicious,
blindingly fast jab that impacted against Marisol's hard, thick abs with a
solid thunk! It drove the wind out of her, that first shot, and her abs ached
like she'd been slugged in the gut with a baseball bat.

She didn't even see the second shot coming, it was so fast and followed so
immediately after the first. It felt like a hammer blow directly on the same
already sore spot as the first, and the breath would have exploded out of her
except that she hadn't gotten any breath back yet. her eyes began to water
against the pain and she felt the hot sour tang of bile in the back of her
throat. She finally got her arms up to ward off any more blows, but she
already had a sinking feeling that against hits like those, it wouldn't matter
in the slightest.

The third punch hit her in the very same spot again and she felt a blaze of
pain erupt in her gut, not the jarring jolt of agony from the punches but
something else. The third punch came in uninterrupted, Marisol's arm aching as
it was easily knocked aside by the blow.

The fourth punch landed in the same spot again with a strangely wet sound, and
Marisol lost her balance, toppling backward, which fortunately spared her any
more immediate punishment. She wheezed in a racking breath and began to cough,
hard, the copper-salt taste of blood in her mouth.

Marisol stumbled to her feet again after a moment, still coughing up thick
wads of blood but glaring venomously at the little bitch. Who launched herself
at Marisol again, surprising the larger woman. Marisol had expected more guile
in the attack, but this time the diminutive female attacker came straight in
showing no pretense at subtlety. Marisol, on the other hand, still remembered
the smaller woman's deceptive speed and power. She shifted her weight to one
side, then swept her large, powerful thigh up and in, bending her leg at the
knee to shoot her knee up and into the charging woman's chest.

The blow rattled the attacker for a moment; Marisol didn't underestimate her
opponent this time, however, and had no pretensions about knocking her down
with one blow. Instead, she followed it up by pivoting her calf down and
stomping down hard into her attacker's lower body, thrusting the heel of her
foot down to connect with the smaller woman's thigh and drive her down to land
hard on her skinny ass with a shriek of surprise and pain.

"Oh, my god!" a voice came from the side. Marisol looked and saw that the
average-looking woman in the designer grunge had regained consciousness. She
still slumped against the wall, but she was shaking herself back to clarity,
staring in awe at the spectacle before her of the towering amazon finally
having apparently turned the tables against her tiny but terrifying assailant.

"Are you okay?" Marisol asked her. But she didn't get a chance to hear the
answer.

The mousy woman coiled her legs up under her and sprang to her feet. "Look
out!" the average-looking woman shouted, but as Marisol snapped her eyes back
to her opponent, it was only in time to see the flat of the other woman's palm
just before it slammed into her gut. She tensed her abdominal muscles, but it
was an instant too late as the strike landed, crushing the wind out of her. It
felt like she'd just run full speed into a hardwood beam end-on.

Marisol's eyes bulged as she tried to draw in breath, wheezing against her
clenched diaphragm, clutching her stomach, which now ached. The opening she
left her attacker was as wide as the city itself, and it was exploited
mercilessly.

The small, thin woman took two quick steps, launching herself into the air and
slamming her other palm into the bridge of Marisol's nose. An audible snap was
heard as the strike hit home, and Marisol's knees buckled in the wave of pain
as her eyes watered, blinding her momentarily to her attacker's position and
movements.

Marisol could hear the scream of the average woman, then running footsteps. At
first, Marisol had wanted to save that woman from what she supposed was some
desperate man playing tough -- now, she felt a pang of shame as she found
herself hoping that the little monster of a woman would chase her previous
victim.

But she had no such luck. The mugger had what she wanted from the rich girl
and had now turned her full attention on Marisol. Stepping forward, she
reached out and seized a fistful of the front of Marisol's white blouse, which
was now speckled with blood, and began to drag her backward, deeper into the
shadows of the alley.

Marisol felt a sharp stab of fear at how easily this tiny woman was moving her
-- the woman couldn't be this strong! Yet her efforts to stop their progress
into the deeper shadows were fruitless. She couldn't get her feet under her --
kicking out to try to hook her leg around a heavy-looking crate only brought
the crate skidding along with them until it spun slowly off Marisol's foot and
came to rest again. There was nothing to grab hold of with her hands, which
still cradled her broken nose anyway.

"Let's just come back here," the smaller woman giggled, "and see if you don't
have a change of heart about giving me what I want!" Swinging her hips and
lifting her arms up, the tiny woman lifted Marisol almost to her feet --
swinging her entire body, powering up and around with her skinny legs, she
lifted and then launched Marisol toward the back wall of the alley, laughing
loudly as her muscular victim tumbled to land in a heap of mercifully dry
refuse.

Marisol lay groaning on the dirty pavement for a moment, her entire face
flaring with white hot pain from her broken nose. She could taste the salty,
bitter taste of blood in her mouth as it ran from her nose in a river, and her
senses were already growing hazy from blood loss. She untangled her arm from a
length of wildly disorganized rope and sat up.

Just in time to see her attacker advancing on her again. "No more..." Marisol
begged. "No more, stop!"

The diminutive woman paused, standing over her fallen victim, and then did
something so unexpected that Marisol had trouble believing her pain clouded
eyes. The woman stood over her, smiling, and then winked, as if the entire
thing had been a playful joke.

Marisol blinked as the woman walked over to where she'd dropped her other
victim's handbag, took her glasses from it and put them on again, slung the
bag over her shoulder and then just stood there. Marisol didn't get up -- only
watched the woman. But there was nothing more; her attacker simply stood there
looking out at the mouth of the alley. Not speaking, not laughing, not
moving... just watching.

Finally, Marisol climbed to her feet. The world tilted around her -- she had
to get herself to a hospital, had to stop the blood flow. It seemed that now
the little terror was done with her. She took a step forward on trembling,
unsteady legs. Then another. She passed back through the shaft of light from
the incandescent bulbs, and the hot brightness of them stung her eyes into
watering anew.

She staggered forward, one step at a time. The other woman remained
motionless, watching the mouth of the alley and the street beyond with a
leisurely, mellow look on her face, as though she'd suddenly realized where
she was and was calmly taking stock of her surroundings. Something about that
suddenly sent a chill up Marisol's spine -- there was something cold and
disconnected in the seemingly innocent action. Something inhuman.

Marisol shuddered but continued moving forward, coming abreast of the small
woman. The mugger moved with the speed of a pouncing cat, spinning and
slamming her arm out straight to her side, then unfolding her elbow with a
snap that sent her fist into Marisol's ribs. She didn't even look when she did
it.

Marisol was sent staggering, barely keeping her feet, and slammed into the
wall of the alley, knocking what little breath she could get through the blood
and mucus that filled her throat out of her completely. She tried to turn her
back into the wall but didn't make it, hitting the wall with her side, the
side of her head smacking into the broken concrete with a dull thud.

She began to slump, but small fingers closed around her throat and began to
squeeze, holding her up and forcibly finishing her turn, slamming her back
against the wall. Marisol's brown eyes bulged, shining in the dim light.

Then the smaller woman dropped her to the alley floor, glaring down at her.
"You're pretty good," she said. "I don't think anybody has given me as much of
a fight as you. But you lost. And now you're going to do something for me..."
her hands unfastened her prim business slacks and she stepped out of them
slowly. The rest of her was as skinny as her chest and arms, with the possible
exception of rather well rounded ass and hips. The small woman smirked down at
Marisol. "You're going to eat me."

She straddled Marisol's prone form, grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanked
Marisol's face into her crotch, not gentle about the broken nose. The pain of
having that nose tweaked as it bumped against the woman's hard pubic mound was
so intense that Marisol couldn't even scream but merely whimper. "Do it, Mizz
Muscles," the girl taunted, "Or maybe I'll just finish you off and ride your
face anyway."

Marisol had never felt so utterly and undeniably violated and humiliated; but
she had no choice. She was totally convinced now that not only could this
little witch do what she said, but that she was so absolutely psychotic that
she would do it. Marisol snaked her tongue out despite the pain, finding her
now mugger-turned-rapist's tight, moist folds and working her tongue in, then
exploring with a slight up and down motion to find the woman's clit, resigning
herself to the idea that if she had to do it, it would be best to do it
quickly and well and get out of here.

"Ohhh, that's it, bitch..." the woman moaned as Marisol found her pearl and
gave it firm pressure, "Yeah, eat that clit..." Marisol tried to ignore the
woman's voice, tried to ignore the unexpected wetness forming at the juncture
of her own thighs as the woman's moans ascended in pitch, volume and urgency.
"Mmmmmm... Yeah, that's it!" the woman's body tensed under Marisol's frantic
tongue, the thin legs coiling tighter around Marisol's cheeks, "Oh, god...
oh... god... yeah! Yes!" A flood of hot girl-cream washed over Marisol's
tongue, into her mouth and nose, and Marisol panicked, trying to pull away but
only succeeding in stimulating her attacker into higher throes of climax as
Marisol was forced to desperately swallow her cum or drown in it.

Finally, with a last shuddering gasp of pleasure, the woman stood, completely
nude and glaring triumphantly down at her beaten and used victim. "So much for
muscles. Get up." Marisol turned over and spat a thick mouthful of blood and
cum, then screamed in pain as she blew a broken nose full of the stuff out.
She stayed there on hands and knees, looking at the thick puddle of bloody
spunk on the alley floor, unable to move or even think, her mind and body
overloaded.

The smaller woman stepped forward, impatient, and yanked her to her feet by
her hair, spinning her around, then shoved her hard against the wall and
seizing Marisol's throat in her tiny, bony fist once more, squeezing so hard
Marisol thought she heard something pop. It may only have been one of the
girl's knuckles, but it was a sound that sent ultimate terror coursing through
Marisol's blood.

The other fist rose into Marisol's sight seemingly in slow motion, then closed
in and cracked against her eye with a mind-splitting crack. It was followed so
fast by the crack of her skull impacting against the concrete wall so fast
that the two ran together.

Marisol's vision was already darkening when the fist rose again a second time.
Marisol didn't feel or hear the second punch land home, loosening three of her
teeth. She didn't feel the wall sliding up her back or the ground rising to
cradle her unconscious body.

"Miss?" the voice she was was hazy and unfamiliar, the language seemed alien
to her ears. "Miss? Do you know where you are?" She shook her head. "You're at
Good Samaritan Hospital. Can you tell me your name?"

"Marisol Luisa Carria." Speaking felt strange, as if her mouth was stuffed
with thick, soft cotton although she could feel that it wasn't. Moving her
tongue over her teeth, she felt something other than gauzy numbness, a sharp
but small pain that faded as quickly as she took her tongue away to whimper.

"Somebody really did a number on you." the voice seemed to turn, speaking more
softly. "Write that down and give it to the officer who brought her in."

"Okay."

"Thanks." Unseen footsteps faded down a hallway. Marisol was thinking,
thinking hard. Something flashed up out of the dark sea of clouded memory -- a
bright light in a dirty place -- then was gone. The woman who had been
speaking stepped into view. She was tall and blonde, wearing a greenish smock.
Not skinny, not fat; not pretty, not homely. The only thing Marisol could
really associate with the way she looked was that this nurse reminded her of
her childhood friend Lucia's mother.

"Ms. Carria, can you tell me where you're from?" The nurse's voice was soft
but professional; of course, that's what happens when ‘caring' is nothing more
than a part of someone's job. The nurse stepped around to the other side of
the bed which finally began to resolve itself in Marisol's senses as a soft,
firm presence under her. Something troubling shifted as the woman moved to
Marisol's left -- she blurred. It was then that Marisol first became conscious
of the fact that that entire side of her field of vision was blurred and
distorted.

"Eu vim de Sao Paulo." she answered. The nurse paused, and it took her a
moment to realize why -- she'd meant to answer in English, knew that was the
correct language here, but the words had come out in her native Portuguese
anyway. "I'm from Sao Paulo." she corrected. "My passport is in my billfold."

The nurse gave her a sympathetic look. "Ms. Carria, you didn't come in with a
billfold. The officers who found you are pretty certain you were robbed."

Another flash -- hands in her pockets -- small but unstoppable -- howling
gusts of pain blowing over her mind as her battered body shifted one way, then
another, as the hands dove into each of her pockets, emptying them.

"I was." Marisol answered after a long moment. She hoped no questions would be
asked about it -- she didn't have any answers to give. She tried to force her
mind to focus light on the dark holes in the memories she could now feel
trying to surface, but nothing was forthcoming. The left side of her face
began to ache.

"Well, there are a couple police officers here with some questions for you."
the nurse smiled reassuringly. "Do you feel up to talking to them?" Marisol
nodded. The nurse stepped out of her field of view, and two tall, broad
shouldered men in black Los Angeles Police Department uniforms came into view.

"Ma'am." the shorter of the two, a lean man with close cropped hair, nodded to
her. "I'm Detective Warrant, this is my partner Sergeant Romero. We'd like to
ask you a few questions. Mind if we sit down?" He had a pen and a notepad in
his hand. Marisol nodded and they sat. "Ma'am, do you think you could give us
a description of the man who did this to you?"

"I really don't remember..." Marisol shook her head, agitated. "I don't --"
The Cheshire Cat grin flashed through her mind's eye again. "I..." Another
image, of the alley wall rushing toward her. She flinched.

"Ma'am?"

A sound -- a girlish giggle. Marisol closed her eyes, concentrated, the
memories so close to the surface again. The Detective was asking her
something, but it didn't register on her what he'd said. Another image -- the
grin moving out of the shadows, into the shaft of light -- Her eyes flew open,
her breathing quick and hoarse as the memories finally coalesced and focused.
She looked over at the two officers.

"Ma'am, are you all right?" The one named Warrant leaned toward her slightly,
concern etched in the corners of his eyes and the downturned edges of a frown.

"It wasn't a man." she told them.

Warrant straightened. "How do you mean?"

"You're not going to believe me." she shook her head, but continued anyway.
"It was a woman. She was... very short, and slender."

Warrant looked dubious. "You're sure about that." The pen had frozen in his
hand.

"Yes, of course I'm sure!" Marisol sat up, her cheeks flushing. The effort
caused more pain and she lay down again.

Warrant was apologetic. "I'm sorry." He shared a look with his partner. "I'm
sure you understand we're a little skeptical." The pen continued on the note
pad.

Marisol composed herself and nodded.

"Do you remember details? Height? Weight? Any scars or identifying marks?" She
gave them as much as she could remember, as little as she had been able to
make out in the alley, which diminished as the attack had progressed.

"Thank you, Ms. Carria." Warrant said at the end of it. "We'll be in touch
about the billfold. You may want to contact the Brazilian Embassy about your
passport and status."

"Thank you, Officer." They stood to go. She called out before they turned
away, "Could you one other thing for me?"

"What's that, ma'am?" Warrant asked gently.

She had a hard time getting the courage to speak the request -- not for fear
that Warrant wouldn't grant it, but for fear of what she'd see if he did. But
her face felt wrong, and she couldn't go without knowing. "Could you bring me
a mirror?"

Warrant sighed unhappily. Clearly, he'd been expecting to be asked this at
some point. She wondered if he'd had to do this for someone before. "Yes,
ma'am." He returned a moment later, handing her a small mirror framed in white
plastic and looking away as soon as her fingers grasped it.

Warrant and Romero could still hear her screams and her sobbing as they
stepped into the elevator at the end of the hall.

Sixty days heals some wounds. Some. Some of them it heals entirely, some
partially and some even time can't touch. Marisol had never recovered her
identification, nor her credit cards, her cash. A hostel had taken her in out
of charity while she argued, then pleaded with the embassy to help her find a
way home.

They kept promising to get in touch with her. After 45 days of living on bags
of canned food from the Salvation Army and crying herself to sleep at night on
a thin mattress that smelled of old sweat in a room shared with two
methamphetamine addicts and a drunk, all three of them prostitutes, she no
longer bothered with the Embassy.

She had only one thing on her mind on the morning of Saturday, June 21st. At
1:45 AM, she stepped into the alley off Hill Street. It was deserted except
for a lone black cat whose long, matted, tangled fur marked it as a fellow
refugee from the world. It glared at her with huge greenish-yellow eyes,
hissing as it backed away from the intruder into its grungy domain.

She reached the back of the alley, seeing no one. She knew what she had come
for, had made the decision the instant she had held the mirror before her face
in the hospital and saw the sunken lids where her left eye should have been,
the long empty space that had been occupied by three of her teeth, the
re-shaped and plaster-covered nose. She had been beautiful once. Now she her
beauty had been demolished and she was stranded with nothing, far from home
and devoid of hope.

And the alley was empty. So even the mercy of escaping her cruelly destroyed
life would be denied her, and she'd be forced to exist like this for God knew
how long. She lowered her face into her hands and began to weep, a low,
pitiful moan of misery that didn't even have the strength to reach the mouth
of the alley.

When she reached the end of a long breath filled with tears, before she drew
the next one, a sound caught her attention. She turned to look, thinking
someone must have heard her and would now shower her with "Are you all right?"
and "What's wrong?" as if it weren't too late and too obvious for those
questions now.

But that wasn't what she saw, and she thanked God even as her guts knotted,
her stomach leapt and her heart sank at who it was. The Cheshire Cat grin
blossomed in the dark as the small silhouette advanced from shadow into harsh
incandescent light and sunk into shadow again as the small woman approached
her slowly but steadily.

"You're a very stupid girl." the small woman said quietly in the dark. "What
do you think is going to happen here?"

Marisol didn't reply. Instead, she straightened up, turning to face the evil
woman who had ruined her. Her fingers closed into tight, hot fists in the
dark. After the attack and with no money, she hadn't been able to continue her
weight training. She was weaker now than she had been; she knew that, and yet
it didn't matter to her.

There would be some small satisfaction in beating this woman, if she could do
it, return injury for injury, insult for insult. But she had no illusions that
she'd be victorious. She held no false hope... or, really, any hope at all,
anymore.

She did have this in her favor: she had nothing left to lose, or, more
accurately, nothing that she still wanted to keep. She took a decisive step
toward the small woman, lifting her hands. Her opponent giggled, that bright,
cheerful, hellish sound that had haunted Marisol's nightmares since the last
time she'd heard it.

Marisol reacted in reflex against that sound, shrieking out in hot, dark fury
as she swung her fist overhand, the strike sinking like a curve ball until it
impacted solidly against the small woman's forehead, knocking her off her feet
with such speed and force that she flew backward into a trash can, knocking it
over and continuing ass over shoulders to bounce at an angle off the wall
behind the rolling metal cylinder; the entire spectacle took a split second
and looked like a rag doll being hit with a baseball bat.

Marisol didn't stop to enjoy the sight. She panted in thick, feral breaths,
moving toward the stunned woman, gaining speed slowly but powerfully like a
steam locomotive. Her good eye shone in the dim light with murderous rage, her
glass left eye dull and lifeless, as she kicked the trash can out of her way,
sending it ricocheting off the opposite wall and rolling toward the mouth of
the alley.

The skinny little thing with the mousy brown hair was already on her feet,
though. Her wire-rimmed glasses fell from her face, broken, and she ignored
them, her eyes unfocused, apparently using only peripheral vision to see
Marisol's movements. "You're going to pay for those." she declared with a smug
look in the set of her jaw.

Marisol, instead of being drawn into conversation, stepped forward again,
bringing her elbow up and drilling her fist straight at the smaller woman's
left eye in an inspiration toward punishment of a very Biblical nature,
throwing her still large, still powerful right shoulder and hip behind the
punch. It was a punch that would have caved in the front of her little
opponent's skull --

If only it had connected. Instead, she felt the bones of her hand, wrist and
forearm jarred all the way up to her shoulder, heard the soft slap! as her
fist landed in something small and hard and was held anchored in place there.

She yanked back on her hand, but she couldn't budge it. She looked down; the
smaller woman just smiled back at her, holding Marisol's fist in her left
hand. Then she began to squeeze. The pain was immediate and overwhelming. Her
fingers began first to ache under the pressure, then groan, then scream up her
nerves and into her brain. Faintly, she heard the bones in her hand begin to
creak.

"Say goodbye, stupid girl." The smaller woman told her; then, mind-bogglingly,
the pressure of the woman's fingers on Marisol's hand rapidly doubled; there
was a quick series of thick, soft wet cracks followed almost instantly by the
sound of tendon tearing and snapping away from the bone.

Marisol's consciousness was flooded by blank white sensation, a searing,
blinding rush of data so overwhelming her brain failed to even recognize it as
pain. She felt heat flood from her into the crotch of the pair of ratty
second-hand jeans she'd found in the Donated Clothing box the previous day,
then spread down her leg.

The hard, cold pavement smacked into her knees and she looked up into the
arrogant, amused face of the smaller woman who now held Marisol's ruined hand
anchored in her tiny fist, her fingers alternately relaxing and flexing,
crushing Marisol's mind with waves of renewed pain.

Then she raised her other fist, and Marisol closed her good eye. The first
blow came hard and fast, rendering Marisol Carria mercifully unconscious.

Like I said, danger in Los Angeles can come at you from any direction and
wearing any face it chooses. For Marisol Carria, whose body was found with a
billfold containing her identification, credit cards -- unused -- and three
hundred dollars in cash, we don't know exactly where it came from or what face
it wore.

We do know what she told us, but what the M.E. listed as cause of death
couldn't happen the way her statement at Good Samaritan sounded. Even with a
baseball bat, nobody an even five feet tall and weighing a scant hundred
pounds could do what was done to a woman as tall and muscular as Marisol was.

Except the M.E. insists it wasn't a baseball bat -- it was a fist. Not even
two -- one. The fractures and internal trauma show the orientation of a right
fist, but not a left. Romero and I have had this case on our desks for a week
now.

Tonight, he got the crazy idea to go out to the alley where the body was
found, see if he could find any trace of a blunt weapon.

He's been gone for four hours.