LEFT IN THE DARK

LEFT IN THE DARK
SURACHAI KASEM'S POV (Age 34):

The pain hit before the light did. A heavy, sickening thud at the base of my skull made my stomach heave, pushing hot nausea straight up my throat. I kept my eyes squeezed shut. My cheek was pressed against the gritty, damp asphalt. The street was completely dead. No footsteps. No engines.

I forced my eyes open, squinting against the harsh, yellow glare of a distant streetlamp. Queenie was gone. The sidewalk was completely empty. I planted my palm on the ground to push my dead weight up, but my hand slipped. My fingers squelched into something thick, wet, and warm.

I pulled my hand back into the light. It was coated in dark, sticky blood. Right next to my fingers, soaking up the edge of the puddle on the concrete, was a crumpled white cotton handkerchief.

My bruised brain stalled. Was it my blood? Or hers? I dragged myself onto my knees. The street tilted violently. I swallowed down the bile and scanned the narrow shadows between the locked iron grilles of the shop houses. Nothing. Just empty concrete.

The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Queenie. Standing over me. Blank. Cold. But my skull felt like it was split in two. Head wounds play tricks on you. They make you see things in the dark. Someone had just crushed the back of my head with something heavy. I didn't know if she was the one holding the weapon, or if someone dragged her into the alley while I was bleeding out on the street.

What I did know was that I loved her. And if that memory was just paranoia playing tricks on a bleeding brain, she was out there in the dark with a killer. I couldn't just leave her.

I patted my hip. My heavy police-issue radio was still clipped to my leather belt. I unhooked it with a shaking, bloody hand. The thick plastic casing was scratched from the fall. I pressed the transmission button, smearing crimson over the side.

"Sompong."

Dead air. Then the radio clicked.

"Kasem?" Sompong said. He sounded half-asleep. "What time is it?"

I leaned over and spit blood onto the pavement. "Get to the old commercial strip. Past the clinic. Right now."

The speaker popped. Sompong was suddenly wide awake. "Surachai? What's wrong with your voice?"

"Jumped." I dug my fingers into the brick wall next to me and pulled myself up. My legs shook. "Hit from behind."

"I'm calling the medics—"

"No ambulance." The noise from the radio made my head pound. "Just get the patrol cars. Lock down the blocks around the clinic."

"Why?" Sompong demanded, his cop instincts fully awake now. "Did you get a look at the guy? What did they take?"

I looked down at the puddle on the pavement. I looked at the bloody white handkerchief. Then I thought about the cold, indifferent stare of the woman I wanted to protect. I wasn't going to make her a suspect. Not yet.

"I was walking Nurse Queenie home." Talking made my jaw ache. "I took a hit. When I woke up, she was gone. There's blood on the street out here, Sompong. I don't know whose it is."

"Shit." I heard keys rattling over the speaker. "I'm on my way. Keep your eyes open."

I let go of the button and pushed the radio back into my belt pouch. I leaned against the brick, reached down, and picked up the bloody handkerchief. I didn't know what the truth was anymore, but I was going to find her.
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SOMPONG'S POV (Age 35):

Surachai's radio call made my stomach drop. I threw the patrol car into drive and ran three red lights getting there. My tires slid across the damp asphalt of the old commercial strip before I slammed the brakes. I left the engine running and hit the pavement.

Surachai was propped against a brick wall. His face was the color of dirty chalk. Blood poured from the back of his skull, soaking his collar. He didn't even reach up to put pressure on it. His dilated eyes were locked on the empty street, hunting the shadows.

"Surachai," I said, my hand hovering over my holster. "Sit down before you drop."

He ignored me. He just pointed a shaking finger at the ground. "She's gone."

I looked down. A dark puddle of blood stained the concrete. Surachai was gripping a soaked white handkerchief.

"Whose blood is that?" I asked, stepping into his space to check his eyes.

"No idea." He leaned his weight against the brick so his legs wouldn't give out. "Hit from behind. Woke up alone."

My brain hit a wall. I had spent the last five days building a quiet case against Nurse Queenie. She was my primary suspect. The inside woman who helped Yaak forge those cremation papers. But this scene didn't fit. Why leave a pool of blood on an open street? It was a sloppy mess. Unless she staged the whole ambush just to throw us off.

"You need a medic," I told him, grabbing his shoulder. "You have a severe concussion."

"No." Surachai shoved off the wall. His boots scraped the pavement. "Clear the block. Whoever hit me might still have her."

I looked at him. He was absolutely terrified for her. I knew exactly how hard he had fallen for the girl, even if he tried to hide it at the precinct. I wanted to shake him. I wanted to tell him she probably set up the ambush herself.

But I had zero hard evidence. Just a cop's hunch. Voicing those doubts right now wouldn't solve the case. It would just alienate the only partner I trusted in this department.

I kept my mouth shut. I unclipped the flashlight from my belt and snapped it on.

"Alright," I told him, pointing the beam into the dark alley. "Where was she standing?"

The beam of my flashlight cut through the heavy, wet air. We walked the length of the alley in silence. Surachai limped beside me, his breathing ragged and shallow. We stopped at the spot where he said Dr. Lert had been slumped. Nothing. No drag marks in the dirt. No scuffed shoes. Just an empty space against the wall.

"We need eyes on this," I told him, keeping my voice low. "Any banks on this strip? Pawn shops? Someone has to have a camera pointed at the street."

Surachai leaned heavily against a roll-down metal gate. He pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting a wave of dizziness. "Gold shop on the next intersection. They might have a tape rolling."

We left the alley and walked the perimeter of the block. I kept one hand on my sidearm, sweeping the flashlight over the awnings, the tangled power lines, and the concrete overhangs. We checked the facade of the gold shop. We checked the corner pharmacy.

Nothing. No lenses. No mounted security boxes. Just rusted iron grilles and peeling paint.

I killed the flashlight. "The entire strip is blind."

"They knew," Surachai grunted, spitting another mouthful of bloody saliva into the gutter. "Whoever set this up picked this exact spot because there's no surveillance."

"Let's get back to the blood," I said. "Before the rain washes it away."

We circled back to the mouth of the alley. Surachai was fading fast. His skin was turning a sickly shade of gray, his jaw clenched tight against the pain. I pointed the flashlight back at the wet concrete, tracing the edge of the puddle to see if there was a drip trail leading out to the main road.

The beam caught a sharp, metallic glint.

"Hold on," I muttered.

I crouched down near the base of the brick wall, right where Surachai had taken the hit to the skull. Wedged in the damp dirt and crushed cigarette butts was a thick piece of metal. I pulled a cheap plastic pen from my shirt pocket, slid it through the center hole, and lifted the object into the light.

It was a ring. Heavy, tarnished silver. Way too bulky for a woman's hand.

I stood up and held the pen level. Surachai squinted, leaning in close. The face of the ring wasn't set with a stone. It was a flat crest, stamped with a deep, crude engraving of a coiled serpent wrapping around a lotus flower.

Surachai’s breathing stopped. He stared at the metal.

"Chaiya," I said. The word tasted like ash in my mouth.

The Chaiya syndicate didn't hand out membership cards. They used these. Everyone under their umbrella—from the extortion enforcers breaking legs at the shipping docks, right down to the servants sweeping the floors of their private estate—wore the exact same silver stamp. It was a brand of loyalty.

Surachai reached up and wiped the back of his neck. His hand came away wet with fresh blood. "Lert," he whispered. "The rumors about who was funding his charity clinic. They were true."

"And whoever hit you belongs to them," I said.

I pulled a clear plastic evidence bag from my jacket and dropped the ring inside. It clinked heavily at the bottom. This wasn't just a ghost story anymore. We finally had a piece of hard, physical evidence tracing the blood in this alley right back to the most ruthless crime family in Bangkok.