Chapter 35 #2
The blood continues its steady, relentless spread across the oil-stained concrete, creeping outward in dark tendrils that seem to reach toward my feet.
It pools wider with each passing second, the crimson turning almost black under the harsh overhead lighting.
Daniel's hand jerks once—a single, violent twitch that makes my stomach lurch—and then it goes completely, utterly still.
"Oh God." Julian's voice breaks. "Oh God, oh God—"
I can't move—I'm frozen to the spot, my entire body locked in place by shock and horror. The handcuffs bite mercilessly into my wrists, the metal edges cutting into my skin with each shallow breath I manage to take. The sharp pain barely registers through the numbness spreading through my limbs.
My torn jacket hangs off one shoulder at an awkward angle, the fabric ripped during the struggle, exposing my collarbone to the cold, stale air of the underground garage.
Goosebumps rise across my bare skin, but I can't tell if it's from the temperature or from the pure terror coursing through my veins.
"Julian." My lips are numb. "Julian, look at me."
He tears his gaze away from Daniel's motionless body sprawled across the concrete floor. His eyes are wild, completely unfocused, pupils blown wide with shock and disbelief.
Fresh blood smears across his knuckles in dark streaks, and more of it has splattered across the front of his white button-down shirt in a pattern of crimson droplets that looks almost artistic in its horror.
A deep purple bruise is already blooming along the sharp line of his jaw where Daniel had landed that vicious first punch.
"I didn't mean—I couldn't stop—"
"We need to call the police." The words come out steadier than I feel. "Right now."
"The police." He repeats the word slowly, mechanically, as if he's encountering it for the very first time in his life—as if it's a foreign concept in a language he's never learned to speak.
"Julian, please."
His hand trembles as he pulls out his phone. He stares at the screen for three full seconds before his thumb finally moves. Brings it to his ear.
"There's been an assault,” he says, his words alarmingly steady. “Underground parking. 1247 Westbrook Avenue." His voice is mechanical, hollow. "Someone's hurt. Badly."
A pause. His eyes drift back to Daniel.
"Yes. He's breathing. I think." Another pause. "I—I was the one who—yes, I'll stay here."
He ends the call. The phone slips from his fingers, clatters on the concrete.
Then his knees buckle.
He doesn't fall—just sinks down, folding into himself. His shoulders shake. A sound tears from his throat, raw and broken.
"Jules—"
I take a step toward him, instinct overriding everything else.
I want desperately to wrap my arms around him, to pull him close and tight against me, to hold him together when he's clearly falling apart, to stroke his hair and whisper in his ear that everything is going to be okay, that we'll get through this somehow.
The guilt crashes over me in waves so powerful I can barely breathe beneath their weight.
This is all my fault—every single terrible, horrible thing that's happened here.
If I had just been stronger, if I had seen through Daniel's mask sooner, if I hadn't been so naive and trusting and desperate for someone to care about me.
If I had pushed Julian away instead of letting him into my mess of a life.
If I had handled things differently, made better choices, been smarter about everything.
This beautiful, gentle man is breaking apart right in front of me because of decisions I made, because I couldn't protect myself, because I let a monster into my life and then dragged Julian down with me into the darkness.
But the handcuffs snap me short. The metal digs deeper into my skin.
"It'll be okay." My voice cracks. "Julian, it'll be okay."
He buries his face in his hands. Blood from his knuckles streaks across his cheeks.
"It was self-defence," I continue, desperate to reach him through whatever darkness is swallowing him whole.
"He was kidnapping me, Julian. You saw what he was doing to me—what he was about to do.
You saw him dragging me, forcing me into that car against my will.
Any jury in the world will understand that.
They'll see it was self-defence. You were protecting me. You saved my life."
"I couldn't stop hitting him." The words are muffled, choked. "Even after he collapsed to the ground, after his body went limp and still beneath my fists, I wanted to keep going. I wanted to—" His voice breaks completely, dissolving into something raw and anguished that tears at my heart.
We kneel together on the cold, unforgiving concrete, our bodies pressed close in this awkward desperate embrace.
The ground is hard and unrelenting beneath us, rough against my knees, but I barely feel it.
Time stretches and warps around us, seconds bleeding into minutes, minutes feeling like hours.
Nothing exists beyond this moment—not the harsh fluorescent lighting casting their harsh yellow glow over the scene, not the blood staining the pavement, not even the reality of what just happened.
Our minds are clouded with shock and terror and the overwhelming weight of everything that's just shattered us. I press myself against Julian as tightly as the handcuffs will allow, feeling his body shake against mine, feeling his ragged breathing against my shoulder.
Finally, sirens wail in the distance, growing louder.
"Look at me,” I plead.
He doesn't.
He can’t.