Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Nyx
would’ve been you– sombr
"You think I killed him, don't you?"
Something in this small interrogation room is whistling. I don't know if it's the broken AC, the small radio attached to the detective's trousers, or the anxiety in my ears.
"Miss Mayer. What I'm asking is where you were this morning between the hours of four a.m and six a.m."
He taps his pen on the manila folder in front of him. It's closed, proof that he's not planning to take any notes, that my words don’t matter. I'm already guilty.
I look at the used tissues on the table. All me. My nose is stuffy. I can't breathe through it, and I still feel like I’m underwater.
"How long have I been here?" The yellow light isn't helping my swollen eyes.
For someone who's always been terrified of being arrested, and who’s worked so hard against the odds, I can't believe I'm here again in the span of a few months. Just like the first time, I catch myself thinking this is nothing like the interrogation rooms I imagined when I was a kid and my dad would get arrested for petty crimes. In films, they’re dark, with a two-way mirror and a large table. There's a good and a bad cop.
This room is suffocatingly small. No windows or mirror, but I've been told I'm being recorded. I hate the intimacy of the place. Two chairs, with the table separating us so narrow that I can smell what he had for lunch.
"Am I… Am I not allowed a lawyer or something?" I rasp, my throat still burning from the pain ripping through it earlier.
"You're not under arrest. We're just having a discussion."
That faint whistling is still here, and it's driving me insane, but not more than the detective's pompous voice. The girl from the bad side of town did it. Case closed in his mind.
"I heard cops are allowed to lie in an interrogation room. Maybe… Maybe you're lying."
"All I've done so far is ask questions."
"Maybe you're lying and he's not dead," I say with so much hope in my voice he's taken aback for a second.
"Miss Mayer. Achilles Duval was found dead at his family lake house this morning. We received the call from Mr. Hunter at six a.m. That is very much the truth."
A sob explodes from my chest, just like the hundred others since Achilles died. It feels like it's been hours. I think it has. And still, I can't breathe.
He pushes the box of tissues toward me again. Any closer and it'll fall on my lap.
"Now, I'll ask again. Where were you this morning between the hours of four a.m. and six am, and do you have someone who can vouch for it?"
An anger like no other comes over me.
"Why am I the one being questioned? Do you have any idea of the number of people who hate him?
And can't you see what this is? It's…It's…
" I can't even get myself to say the word, so I go for something else.
"I wouldn’t even have the strength to. It's so obvious that I shouldn't be here.
No one should! I'm the opposite of someone who hates Achilles.
I—" I inhale a burning breath. "I love him. "
"You're obsessed with him, Miss Mayer. And obsession is dangerous. Obsession can lead to murder."
I pause.
I could say many things that show that Achilles was just as obsessed with me as I was with him.
That he would’ve never let me go if I’d tried.
I could talk about the times he stalked me, followed me, held me against my will.
But all of this can count as reasons for murder too.
And this cop is somehow convinced Achilles was murdered.
After all, he's right.
Some people might call my obsession with Achilles Duval a sickness. But it's worse.
It's venom.
Because I laid eyes upon the most beautiful, deadly being.
And as much as I thought the toxins would stay localized, and that I had a chance of surviving him, Achilles took satisfaction in keeping on injecting his venom into my veins.
How is one meant to survive a sadistic predator who wants nothing but to keep watching you suffer for him?
So, I drank the chalice full of painful lies. I buzzed with the thrill of deadly love. I threw my head back and danced to the addictive song of pleasure.
Last night, I laid next to him, the man who put me through hell and back, and whom I'll never stop loving.
The man who taught me betrayal can come from both ways, and that I was just as fucked up as he is.
I felt my poisoned blood bubble from his control, and I stared into the storm of his eyes while he promised my heart would always belong to him.
Not the other way around. He declared that something supposed to be mine was in his complete possession.
Because that's what Achilles thrives on.
The knowledge that he can do whatever he wants with me and that I'll come back for more.
Like a drug addict whose heart always sings at the sound of his voice.
Now the man with a million enemies is dead, and I'm the one who’s going to go down for his murder.
This is his one last fuck you after months of torture.
The door opens and a detective comes in. She looks at the cop, and he stands right away.
"We'll be back," she tells me without even the slightest clue of what's to come.
The minute I spend on my own creates a black hole in my heart. This is it. This is what my life is going to be. Emptiness, loneliness, and a fluctuation between agony and anger when it comes to the man who left me behind.
I wish he'd never forgiven me. That way, he wouldn't have felt at peace. He wouldn't have felt like everything between us was straightened out, and he would’ve stayed to hate me and make me suffer.
The door opens a second before I'm about to explode in another crying fit. I manage to swallow my tears even though the pain isn't going anywhere.
"Miss Mayer, hello." The detective shakes my hand but doesn't sit down. "I'm Detective Turner. I wanted to personally offer you my condolences for your loss. I apologize for keeping you here for so long, and thank you for your patience."
There's a sternness in her voice of a woman who’s worked in a misogynist field for a long time, and who's had to prove herself time and time again.
"What's happening?" I croak, realizing I'm scared to leave this room and go back to reality.
"Achilles Duval's death has been ruled a suicide. You're free to go, and again, I'm sorry for your loss."
That's it? They keep me here for hours, only to end up telling me something I already knew. This isn’t what I wanted to hear. I wanted to be told that the man I love isn't truly dead and that this was all a misunderstanding.
It was a misunderstanding, yes, but Achilles is dead.
"Miss Mayer," she says. "We found this in the garage. We had to take it to the lab to check if there were any other prints on there, but we’re done now, and I believe he wanted you to have it."
She hands me a plastic evidence bag. It's small, and it contains an even smaller piece of paper. It's been ripped from a notebook.
"Oh my God," I choke on a sob as I read it.
Short and simple, exactly his style.
I'm a dreamer, mon trésor.
You should try it sometimes.
My lower lip trembles, and I feel the dam opening again.
"Thank you," I say to the people who held me in an interrogation room for a whole day, and I get up in a rush. I have nothing with me. Not even my phone.
The police grabbed me from the house when Achilles had barely been taken by EMTs in a body bag.
I'm holding the evidence bag in a painful grip as I walk out of the interrogation room. I don't even know how I'm going to get home. Fuck, I have no idea how to take my next breath right now.
How am I supposed to live in a world where he doesn't?
Where all I have to hold on to is a piece of paper he wrote me.
I look up, desperately trying not to break down as I cross into the public reception of the station. When I look down, I see the people waiting there on chairs.
"Nyx," Wren calls out.
Bloodshot eyes, some with tears running down their faces, his friends are here for me.
I don't think. I run to them and crash into Wren's arms. In a split second, they're all huddling around me. Everyone’s here. Alex and Xi. Peach and Wren. Chris and Ella.
The second we split up, Peach takes my head between her hands.
"I know no one will ever replace Achilles," she says in a broken voice, her cheeks wet from tears, "but you're not alone. You'll never be alone."
It rips another breakdown from my chest. It’s the silent kind where you can’t breathe but can’t cry either. This pain will never end.
Despite the storm I'm in, and the blackness surrounding me, the fate that Achilles hated so much sends hope my way.
We're all still standing at the reception when a hoard of police officers walks in, each group of two bringing in people in handcuffs. Not any people. Men in suits, men you wouldn't imagine walking in handcuffs, men I've seen.
My mouth drops open, my tears paused by the shock.
Eugene Duval.
His eyes cross with mine, and his upper lip curls. "Convenient, isn't it? That he had it all ready before he killed himself."
The words killed himself still short-circuit my brain. I’ll never get used to the fact that it's what Achilles did, even though it's not a shock that it was within him to do it.
"Sir, move forward," the officer behind him calls out.
That attorney who offered me a favor from the Circle is there too. I recognize some men from that party. Some women. There are so many people.
"Holy shit," the young cop at the front says as he grabs a remote and turns up the volume of the TV in a corner of the room. The news is on, and a red breaking news banner appears at the bottom of the screen as the anchor's mouth drops open for a few seconds. She collects herself and carries on.
"We're stopping our evening coverage with breaking news. A major development in the race for the White House. David Falcon, a leading contender for his party's presidential nomination, has been arrested just over an hour ago at his home in Stoneview, Maryland."
My ears perk up, and the entire group I'm with is focused on the TV too. In fact, I think the whole precinct is focused on the TV as the group of Shadows is led away.
"This comes just months before the first primaries are set to begin and only a few weeks after one of his campaign assistants was also arrested.
We'll continue to follow this breaking story and bring you the latest updates as they come in.
For now, let's turn to our reporter, Cindy Goodman, live in Stoneview. "
The reporter doesn't know anything, and they just talk about the upcoming primaries until the anchor's voice cuts through.
"I'm sorry, Cindy, we have some updates…some other breaking news. The United States Attorney General, Vanessa Godwin, has been taken into custody in what seems to be a huge FBI operation..."
The news carries on, but we're all looking at each other now.
"Wren?" Peach asks, clueless and lost, which sounds nothing like her.
"It's him," he confirms.
My eyes blink away tears. I chuckle. "Even from beyond, that man manages to cause chaos."
"How?" Ella asks.
"He had it all ready. It was in a message he sent me this morning." He turns to me, emotions in his voice. "That's why I drove to your house. I thought something must have been wrong if he told me. That's when I found him."
"What did he have, exactly?" Xi asks.
"A protected hard drive. Lists, evidence, files on files on files that he had ready, exposing every big player in the Circle."
He looks at all his friends. "We weren't on it."
I nod, swallowing more pain.
"It was years in the making," he concludes. "But I think he used Hermes as bait to cause chaos within the Circle, to weaken them, not to accuse anyone per se. The hard drive, though... Yeah, that has everyone going down on it. With proof. I gave it to the cops this morning."
I take a deep, trembling breath. "Erm, does anyone know how to contact his mom?" God, this hurts. "She needs to know. And…and Sophie will have to know someday too, or however it works. I'm not sure."
Sophie lost a brother, and a dad she never knew she had. My heart breaks for her.
"They can come back," I tell Wren. "Finally."
"Yeah," he whispers. "But at what cost?"
The cost of my happiness, my life, my everything.