Chapter Twenty
Lyra
An unknown amount of time later, I’m seated in an interrogation room. My ankle still throbs—I’ve been denied medical care. Apparently, the officers assumed that my limping was just an attempt to getting out of being arrested.
Oddly, I haven’t actually been interrogated, or processed. There’s been no mugshot, nothing that I’d expect after being supposedly arrested on suspected charges of something to do with drugs. I was dragged straight here, seated, and left alone.
I try to convince myself that there might still be a way out—that I might get cleared of suspicion, get Tommy’s help, and get the fuck out of this godforsaken country.
But my ankle is throbbing like a motherfucker, and I can see that it’s swelling up and turning blue.
I can technically put some weight on it, which gives me hope that it’s not broken, but it goddamn hurts.
Badly enough that, if I do somehow get out of here in one piece and without a felony attached to my name, I’ll be hobbling my way to an airport or cargo ship, wherever it is I need to go to find my way to freedom elsewhere.
But would leaving really be freedom? I’d be on the run, again. Wasting money from my savings, again. Trying to survive rather than actually living. The last five months were absolutely miserable—is that the cost of my perceived freedom?
After some time, the pain in my ankle become unmanageable, and I try to recall the basic first-aid courses I had to take for my undercover work with Empire Journal.
I elevate my leg onto the cool metal table before me, grimacing and wincing my way through it, and pull off my shoe.
I should probably have chosen better shoes for running, not these boots with the short heels, but it’s not like I could sneak into Killian’s bedroom without him knowing and raid my closet.
Already, I raided the bank account, which is bad enough. I’ve never been a thief, but I don’t feel much guilt—Killian gave me the card and told me to spend however much I want on it. A few grand as withdrawals can’t really irk him that much.
The door behind me creaks open some minutes or hours later. I can’t tell, because there isn’t even a fucking clock in this room.
“What a mess you’ve made, Little Bird.”
All the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end, and goosebumps scatter across my skin like a rash. Not him. Anyone but Killian. Fuck, how did he even get in here?
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—
“What’s this?” Killian rounds me, coming to a stop right beside the table. “What the fuck is this?” He glares at it like it’s personally offended him. “Who did this to you?”
“This is the consequence of any attempt at freedom in this godforsaken country,” I rasp.
If he’s upset by my quip, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he turns a glare at a camera in the left corner of the room, and gives his head a slow shake.
I imagine whoever’s watching on the other end won’t live to see the end of the night. Or, at least, they won’t have their job for very long.
How many men go this far out of the way for their significant others? How many have a willingness to do whatever it takes to protect and avenge them?
“Come, Little Bird.” Killian pulls a chair from the other end of the interrogation table, and drags it next to me. He sits, carefully takes a hold of my calf, and lowers my ankle to his waiting leg. I hiss a little, twitching in pain, but it’s not like he goes out of his way to make it worse.
“Fuck,” he murmurs. “Good news is, it’s not broken, but that is one nasty sprain.” He sighs, raising his eyes to look at me with reprimand, as if it’s all my fault for trying to run away in the first place.
“I’d rather deal with this than a man who accuses me of being on my period when I get upset over his complete inability to function calmly and appropriately in a relationship.”
Killian hides an eye-roll. “Don’t be dramatic. I might not have handled it the best way—”
“You think?” I say with mock surprise.
“—but running away was still the stupidest thing you could’ve possibly done.”
“I had to try!” I snap. My voice deflates, and I feel my shoulders hunch inward. “I had to try. Anything else would’ve been unthinkable.”
“Yes, well.” Killian clears his throat. “Fortunately for both of us, you failed.” He sighs, shaking his head at me, as if I’m a child who can’t follow a simple set of instructions.
“You’re lucky I have the power to manage this fallout.
I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that we live in dangerous times.
Both of our heads are on the line.” He gestures down at my leg.
“While I hate seeing you hurt, I’m almost glad it’ll be a few weeks before you can run again.
Hopefully by then, you’ll have learned your place. ”
“My place,” I scoff. “As your compliant little captive? As your perfect Stepford wife? As a woman who doesn’t have any agency, and can’t even communicate semi-normally with the man who’s decided to claim her?”
“We can hash all this out later. Here’s what’s going to happen.
I’ve cleared everything with the chief of police—you won’t be going to prison.
They now understand that you were at the wrong place, in the wrong time.
In fact, there’s not even going to be a record of your detainment.
The policeman who tackled you and hurt you is going to find that his life will become very difficult, very quickly. That is, if I let him keep it.”
His words shock me to silence. I stare at him wide-eyed, unable to conjure words. His insinuation that he’ll kill a man for me should be completely repulsive, but instead, it’s… almost flattering. Again, I question what man will go to this lengths for a woman he’s claimed.
Killian King. That’s who. And even though I’m sitting in a police interrogation room, immobile, afraid, and powerless, the realization of just how far he’ll go to avenge me makes me feel phenomenally powerful.
“Killian,” I say slowly, “I’m pretty sure this room is bugged. Maybe talking about your intent to…”
“The cameras and audio recordings were turned off before I came in,” he says, waving a hand. His eyes are still on my ankle, and still filled with the sort of rage that makes me very, very nervous for the officer that arrested me.
Doesn’t that prick deserve it, though? He called me a liar when I said I couldn’t walk, and dragged me to the police car regardless, shoving me in.
He made me endure an embarrassing strip-search before coming into this room, with him leering at me instead of a female officer.
I could barely dress myself afterwards, and he kept rolling his eyes and telling me faking pain wouldn’t make things any better.
He's a shitty cop. Who am I to prevent Killian from doing what he will with a shitty cop?
I drop my head into my hands. God, a short time back with Killian, and my morals are already bending and twisting. I have to get away from him… except how?
I tried. I failed, miserably, and only got myself hurt in the process. How am I meant to successfully escape him when I have a screwed up ankle, a screwed up head, and no real idea how I’m going to stay gone this time around? He’s proven that he’ll go to every extreme to keep me.
How often can a woman say that about a man?
“This looks bad.” Killian gestures at my foot. “Let’s go home. I’ll call a doctor.”
Home. A gilded prison with a pair of golden handcuffs. A place I have contemplated setting on fire more than once.
“Do you even understand why I left?” I ask quietly. “Can you comprehend what pushed me to that extreme?”
It takes a long time for Killian to answer. “I might be starting to, yes.”
A doctor is waiting for us when we arrive back to Killian’s penthouse.
Is it our penthouse, now? He examines me in the living room, then diagnoses me with a bad sprain.
He furnishes me with a pair of crutches and advises me to stay off my foot for two weeks.
Killian says they probably won’t be necessary since he intends to carry me everywhere, but allows it nonetheless.
Allows. As if I have no say in my own health.
After the doctor’s wrapped up my ankle and given me with explicit instructions to rest, sleep, take medication, and give my body time to recover, he leaves. Then, it’s just me and Killian, and the oppressive walls of the penthouse.
“I have a place in Connecticut,” he says mildly, tapping around on his phone. “It’s a nice house. You’ll like it. I think we should stay there for the time being.”
And be even more isolated from society? “No, thank you.”
“It wasn’t an actual question.” Killian looks up from his phone.
“I’ll make the arrangements tomorrow.” He carries me to the bathroom, seats me on the counter, and draws me a bath.
My mind flashes back to a different time when I was in this position.
The night I was mugged, after Locke saved me and brought me here.
Killian was almost gentle and good to me that night, until he did a 180 and called me filth.
I wonder if there’s any part of him that still believes that.
“I’ll need to cancel our social calendar for the next few weeks,” he sighs.
“I’m sorry for presenting such an inconvenience,” I say sarcasticallly.
“You’re lucky I’m taking it easy on you, or you’d be facing consequences for your brave words.”
I sigh, head lowering. “We can’t keep going in circles like this,” I murmur.
“The isolation, our incompatibility… it’s destroying pieces of me.
” I let out a short, sharp laugh. “I know what I did tonight was impulsive and ridiculous; two words I wouldn’t use to describe myself.
But this… our dynamic is driving me to insanity.
” The raw truth spills out of me, completely unfiltered.