Chapter 12 The Present #2
A younger officer glances between them, frowning. “Detective? You know him?”
The man doesn’t answer right away. His eyes are locked on Cassian like he’s seeing a ghost and trying to decide if he wants it to be real.
Then, barely above a whisper:
“He’s my wife’s cousin.”
The silence that follows is sharp.
Cassian looks unchanged, but something shifts in him. A muscle clenches. A breath is held. Nothing visible, but I feel it. Like the air drops a few degrees.
“Sir?” the younger cop asks again, hesitant.
“Back off,” the older man says, still staring at Cassian. “Give me a moment.”
The others hesitate, then retreat.
When they’re gone, the man takes a single step forward. His voice is softer now. “You disappeared.”
Cassian’s mouth doesn’t move. His voice scrapes out like gravel. “After Sabine.”
That name—Sabine—rips the air open. Was it the name of his sister? Judging by the way the man flinches as if literally slapped, I’m inclined to believe so.
“You didn’t come to the funeral,” he says. “You didn’t call. No one knew where you went. And then... nothing. For years.”
“There was nothing left,” Cassian says flatly.
“I buried her,” the man says. “I stood there with your mother. Your sister in the ground, your name in the wind, and I had to explain that the last family she had left was gone.”
Cassian doesn’t speak.
“We dressed her in her favourite dress,” the man continues, quieter. “The one you gave her. Did you know that?”
Cassian closes his eyes for half a second. That’s all he gives away.
“They said you died with her,” the man says. “We held a second funeral. An empty coffin. Your mother collapsed.”
Still nothing from Cassian. But I see it: his fingers twitch, the smallest tremor in the cold soldier routine.
The man takes another step. “And now you’re here. In cuffs. Looking like hell. And the man who killed her? Found dead. Wounds identical to hers.”
He pauses.
“Tell me that's just a coincidence.”
Cassian’s eyes lift slowly. “What would you do if it wasn’t?”
The man doesn’t answer.
“What would you do, Grayson,” Cassian repeats, low, deadly calm, “if some sick bastard did all that in front of you and you had the power to make it hurt back?”
“I don’t know,” the man says. His voice has gone hollow. “That’s the problem.”
They stand there, the space between them thick with things unsaid. Grief. Fury. Family.
Finally, the man, Grayson, inhales like it hurts.
“I should arrest you,” he says. “Drag you in right now.”
Cassian’s reply is quiet, steady. “Do it.”
“No protest?”
“You think I’ve been running from prison?”
Grayson stares at him, jaw tight. “Then what have you been running from?”
Cassian’s silence is long. When he finally speaks, it’s barely audible.
“Not everything that dies stays buried.”
Grayson looks like he wants to say something, but whatever it is gets swallowed. His face flickers with something too complex to name. Regret? Betrayal? Love? Shame?
Then, all at once, he turns away. He scrubs a hand down his face. Breathes out.
“I’ll buy you a few minutes,” he mutters. “But I can’t hold them forever.”
He doesn’t look back.
Cassian closes his eyes.
And for the first time since I met him, he looks like a man who has nothing left to fight.
“Give me your phone number,” Grayson says. “At least do this much for me.”
Cassian doesn’t move.
For a heartbeat, I think he’s going to reject it. I think he'll stand there like stone, shackled, impassive, swallowing his ghosts whole like he always does. But then he lets out a slow exhale through his nose, opens his eyes, and nods once. It’s the smallest motion, but from him? It feels seismic.
“Back pocket,” he says. His voice is hoarse now. Not weak—never that—but… spent.
Grayson doesn’t reach for it right away. His eyes flick down to Cassian’s handcuffed wrists. Then, with a sigh that sounds more like surrender than decision, he steps forward and fishes the phone from Cassian’s back pocket himself.
He taps something in.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he mutters, handing the phone back.
Cassian doesn’t reply. Just takes the phone, cradling it in his cuffed hands like it weighs too much.
Grayson steps back again, running a hand through his graying hair. He glances toward the other officers, who are still lingering by the tape, watching. Then, without looking back:
“You’ve got ten minutes.”
And he walks away.
Cassian watches him go.
Not until the man disappears behind the crime scene tape does Cassian’s body shift again, the invisible tension cracking out of his spine.
The soldier in him doesn’t crumble, but something inside him sags, like the world just kicked his last leg out from under him and he’s too tired to land on his feet.
I step out from behind the tree, leaves still tangled in my hair, dirt clinging to my skin. My mouth is dry, my chest tight, but I move.
He doesn’t look at me at first. Just stares ahead, locked in a trance, eyes hollowed out by memories I can’t reach.
Then finally, finally, his gaze flicks toward me.
“You saw that?” he asks, voice like grit and rust.
I nod.
He doesn't flinch, doesn’t defend himself. Of course not. That’s not Cassian. He just watches me, waiting for something I don’t know if I have the words to give. Sympathy? Forgiveness? Understanding?
Maybe all of it.
Maybe none.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” he says at last. “You look like shit, though.”
I glance down. Mud crusted on my sleeves, grassy streaks at the hem of my shirt. “Gravity gave me a kiss. Took it personal that I escaped her for five years.”
A breath slips out of him. Almost a laugh. Almost.
But the smile never comes.
Then he shifts, the metal of the cuffs scraping faintly as he raises his wrists.
“We should go.”
I don’t answer, not right away. Instead, I reach into my pocket and pull out the locket. The one etched with those two small words: My first.
I hold it up so he can see it. Watch as the recognition settles in his eyes like a storm behind glass.
Cassian nods once.
No words. None needed.
We slip into the car like ghosts—quiet, invisible, half-faded. I follow his instructions, fingers working clumsily at the cuffs until they fall away with a muted click. He rubs at his wrists without a sound.
By the time Grayson’s ten minutes are up, we’re already gone.
The crime scene disappears in the rearview mirror, swallowed by trees and asphalt and the stretch of road ahead.
But even as distance grows and safety starts to flicker on the horizon, one thought anchors itself in my chest like a nail through bone:
Cassian has ghosts.
And if they’re anything like mine?
They’re not done with him yet.
And they don’t let go easy.