CHARLOTTE - Kenny Moore II drifted into a back-peddle, spotted a screen pass, took one step forward and let his heart do the rest.

The Pro Bowl slot cornerback stole a pass in Carolina for the second time on the day, and he took off as a Panthers player dived at his ankles. He was running through the fire now, out in the open grass, in a race back to feeling like himself.

He sprinted 66 yards untouched to the end zone to seal a 27-13 victory, channeling the speed that once got him that lightning bolt tattoo behind his ear.

Once his heart quieted down, he heard the chants.

"Kenny! Kenny! Kenny!"

Three sisters were in this Carolina crowd, along with a niece and his twin's best friend. The screams grew louder than four people could muster, into something amplifying and rhythmic, like a heartbeat.

"I told him after the game that it was really emotional for me to watch, watching him from last year to this year," Julian Blackmon said. "... It's nothing but love for Kenny Moore."

On the sidelines after the second pick, Moore stretched out his gangly arms like an airplane and began to jog in place, his footsteps matching the beat of the crowd. It's the dance he used to make, back when he was a Pro Bowler and the Walter Payton Man of the Year in 2021, before the hold-in and the ankle injury and the dip in play.

Before he wondered if he could find joy like this in the game again.

'A light in the darkness'

Thirteen days before he became the first Colts player to scored two pick-sixes in a single game, Moore took a stage in downtown Indianapolis with words on a projector behind him:

"A light in the darkness."

This was his second winter coat drive for families with single mothers -- families like he grew up in, as the sole boy with six sisters and a single mother in Valdosta, Ga. And as he thanked the overworked mothers and kids squirming in their seats for becoming a part of his story, he had to reconcile the fact that he didn't think he'd still be here, doing this in Indianapolis.

"From coming here at 21 years old and now I'm 28 years old, it makes me smile just thinking about Indianapolis," Moore said that day. "Being at the highs of the highs and being in the valleys of my life, it was here in Indianapolis."

Nine months before this, Moore was in a valley. He was on injured reserve with an ankle injury, hobbling out a 2022 season that was a disaster for the Colts and a nightmare for him, too. It was the year he tried to hold in for a higher contract only to miss on that, and almost everything else, and become a target for the ire of fans.

"I was basically in the shadows," he said then.

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The offseason would bring a coaching change and possibly another scheme overhaul. Some veterans could fall under the chopping block, and one of the highest-paid nickel cornerbacks entering his final year under contract wondered if this might be good-bye.

But as he packed up his locker and headed out into the January cold and the most uncertain offseason of his Colts career, he made a promise: If he was back here the next season, this would be different.

It would have to be.

The return of the lightning

Moore's journey in the game of football has never felt linear or traditional or just meant to be. That's why he didn't play until his senior year of high school, how he ended up at the local Division II school in Valdosta State, how he went undrafted and how he was cut by the Patriots ... and how he made the team in Indianapolis and then became a core special teamer and then a starting slot corner and then a Pro Bowler... and then fell to depths last season, when he didn't pick off a single pass and missed five games for a four-win team.

Peaks and valleys are his life, his position, his style. He told me once, at the peak of his play, that he'll forever fight a war with his own subconscious. The past two years gave him battle scars.

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But something has been different about Moore in 2023. It started when he called for meetings with general manager Chris Ballard and defensive coordinator Gus Bradley this spring to carve out a better role for himself and for the defense. It continued through the good vibes of hiring Shane Steichen and seeing his best friend, Julian Blackmon, move into a box safety role to play right beside him.

But he and everyone else knew the life would only really come back once he made those splash plays again.

And so bit by bit, they've arrived. Tackles for losses. Pass deflections. An interception against the Rams. Nearly a second one against the Browns, overturned on review. He was inching toward the type of night that could pop the lid off the bottle, to let that lightning bolt out again.

Sunday's game in Charlotte became the time. He and the Colts defense needed a pick-me-up after allowing 38 points and more than 500 yards to the Saints to lose a third game in a row. Someone needed to be the star with Zaire Franklin hurt and Grover Stewart suspended.

His former coach, Frank Reich, was on the opposing sideline. His sisters Kiki, Ebony and Kayla were in the stands after carpooling from Georgia. So many eyes were on him -- except for the quarterback's.

Carolina’s Bryce Young was taking hits and flailing weak passes trying to survive DeForest Buckner, Kwity Paye and a resurgent Colts pass rush. The No. 1 pick in the draft was trying to will a 10-point comeback as he felt the pocket close in on a second-quarter pass near field-goal range, and he flipped his head to his check-down running back and let the pass fly.

Moore stole that one out of the air, cut inside of Young and sprinted 49 yards for a touchdown.

"I just turned it up with the rush," Moore said. "The rush did a good job of giving me time to get there, turning the clock up and getting the ball out. If he didn't have any rush, he wouldn't have thrown it."

A simple football play turned into a seven-second highlight was proof of how trust works in a game like this.

"We know that if we get the QB off his spot," Paye said, "Kenny can come up with it."

Moore's first touchdown increased the lead to 20-3, which is a mountain for a rookie quarterback and one of the worst offenses in the NFL to climb. But the Colts offense froze again in the third quarter, and Young led one scoring drive, and he had the Panthers pushing into scoring range down 10 points early in the fourth quarter.

"We needed a playmaker to make a play," Buckner said.

So, Moore became that man again. Young went to throw a screen pass, rushed the throw and overshot it into Moore's arms. A second interception, on top of a pick-six, was already going to make for a career day. But Moore needed something more than that.

He owed it to himself, to his sisters in the crowd and to those kids of the single mothers he promised a brighter future to keep on writing a story that could have ended by now.

"I needed every moment that I've had this year for this organization," Moore said, "Just to feel like me."

He does this in practice all the time, his teammates say, but the world doesn't get to see those plays. Those are the process, which can often feel separate from the results. But they're the ingredients that help conjure the faith and the restoration, and he's been living in that space again this season.

"He's got a lot of experience in the position and in the game," free safety Rodney Thomas II said. "Just being able to see certain formations, to recognize what might be coming helps us all be on top of it so we can get a jump on it."

Moore never asked to be a leader, but that's what he's had to become through time and attrition. The 21-year-old who showed up as an undrafted rookie on waivers is now a 28-year-old Pro Bowler and he most tenured defender on the team.

"Every moment that I've experienced along the journey has been a historical moment for me," Moore said. "It wasn't just tonight and what they'll put in the record books, but going to New England, making it out of there to here, being a special teamer, getting my foot in the door, working each day to be who I envision myself being and then obviously being at this point right now in my seventh year. Each year is something I'm jotting down in my history."

Sometimes, the end isn't as near as it appears. Sometimes the light stays on and the legs get moving, the heart starts pounding and the crowd is chanting your name.

"That's the definition," cornerback Jaylon Jones said, "of how the real ones always prevail."

Contact Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: How Kenny Moore II became a light in the darkness