Chapter 35 The Scapegoat Never Makes Bail #2
The room becomes smaller, the fluorescent light too bright. My hands clench in my lap. They don’t believe what happened. Not even with all the evidence and eyewitness accounts. The cops need someone to pin it on, someone to be the villain, the scapegoat.
Who better than the loner nobody with ties to strange and unusual deaths?
"I didn't drug anyone," I state, but the look in Larson's eyes tells me he's not convinced.
A beat, and then two, drags out between us. He’s giving me ample room to let the pressure from my conscience break me. The only thing I’m guilty of is trying to have a normal life.
Well, until two days ago, anyway. I’m new, different, and I’ve no doubt life is going to shift around me to support this.
The silent stalemate ends with his huff.
"We're charging you with public endangerment, disorderly conduct, and possession with intent to distribute narcotics," Larson finally says, the words falling like a gavel.
"On what evidence?"
An eyebrow lifts. "Circumstantial evidence. I doubt a jury would miss the uncanny similarity to a situation that ended up with your foster mother locked up in a psych ward, raving about monsters."
Acid coats my tongue. The charges are weak, but enough to hold me.
"You are the common denominator, Ms. Smith. And I intend to find out what it is you are doing to the people around them. You may come off the quiet, pretty girl, but I see you. I don’t for one moment believe you are as helpless as you seem."
Flashes of my body clenching on Shadow’s cock as I come, sentencing my neighbors to death with my release come to mind.
I’m careful to keep my face blank.
"Did you know she refuses to sleep in a bed?" he asks.
My brows knit.
"Jean McGrath. Your foster mother claims the monster from under your bed killed her husband. She sleeps on a mattress on the floor and can’t so much as look at another patient’s bedroom without losing her shit, insisting he’ll come back and kill her. Kill everyone."
My turns leaden, each beat heavier than the last.
Detective Larson studies my face for any reaction. He won’t get one.
I’m sorry Jean ended up like that, but I’m done feeling guilty. Not when her husband abused me daily. She married the real monster and paid a price for it. We both came out damaged, but she was too weak to recover. I wasn't. I keep going, no matter what hell is underfoot.
Larson only shakes his head at me.
The clink of the handcuffs is deafening in my ears as they secure my wrists.
As numbness washes over me, I have to ask myself, would prison be so bad? I wouldn’t have to worry about getting another job or making rent. I wouldn’t have to deal with bare cupboards in my kitchen. I'd be sequestered away from innocent people.
A terrifying thought stomps down on the perceived luxury.
If I'm in prison, sharing quarters, Shadow won't come visit. He keeps his presence a secret. Whenever I was placed in a home with shared bedrooms, Shadow's visits became few and far between.
Panic rises in my throat as incarnation instantly loses its appeal.
No. I'd rather sleep on a bench in a park, where Shadow could come out and be with me more openly than trapped in a place where he can’t freely come and go.
But I have no one who will help me get out of this. I’ve lost my job, I am about to lose my apartment, and all my friends believe I am somehow responsible for hurting Miguel.
I get one phone call. I use it to call Dana.
"Hello?" she answers in a familiar thready, high-pitched voice.
Fuck.
I recognize that tone. It’s pitched up toward a hysterical note that can only be caused by Mark.
"Hi, Dana. It’s me, Evie," I say, trying to ignore the fact a cop is standing mere feet away, bearing down over me.
"Oh Evie, hi! I’m so glad you called, I just found out that Mark has been in town for a week and he didn’t call. And funnily enough, he’s been staying with my sister. She hasn’t spoken to me for years, as you know, and now it turns out that they’ve been fucking on and off for quite some time…"
She’s on the verge of losing it, but I can't play the kind ear right now.
"Dana, I’m so sorry, but I don’t have a lot of time. I’ve been arrested."
Dana doesn’t stop going on about Mark and I have to repeat myself twice more before she dials in to what I’m saying.
"Oh dear, oh no, oh Evie," she starts to fret, and I can almost see her plucking at her fingers.
"I was hoping you might be able to help me with bail," I continue, "so I don’t have to spend the night here.
" I suck in a breath and hold it. After all these years of loaning—or really just giving her money—I'm hoping against hope she can help me out in return. Just this once. The one time I’ve ever asked.
Dana makes sounds like that of a balking chicken. "Oh Evie, I’m so sorry, I don’t have any money. The microwave broke and my roommate said it was my fault and if I didn’t pay for it that she would kick me out... "
As she continues to make excuses, my vision blurs and my thoughts turn numb and stagnant, as if enveloped in a thick fog. My heart plummets into the depths of my stomach cavity. I barely break through her diatribe to tell her that my time is up before I end the call.
A fuzzy detachment starts in my toes before creeping up my ankles, legs, and hips, until I'm fully engulfed. It’s a mode I’ve taught myself to fall back into so many times between moving houses and suffering abuse from shitty adults that it’s as easy as breathing.
Except this time, there is something else. The monstrous part of me simmers under the surface. It’s dark, hot, and angry. I don’t give into its power—I only observe it warily.
Rage. It’s a hot fathomless chasm that’s cracked open in me after all the injustice and I don’t think it will seal itself back up this time.
After hours of waiting in a cramped holding area, I'm finally escorted down a series of dimly lit, narrow corridors to a holding cell. The process is disorienting. The clink of keys, the stern commands of the officers, and the hushed conversations of detainees create an eerie backdrop.
The clang of the cell door reverberates through the cramped space. The ringing sound of captivity.
I’m spending the night in jail, and I might not ever make my way out of here.