9. Chapter 9
This time, I’m not allowed to leave. The mid-range hotel they stick me in after my hospital stay has 24-7 guards posted outside the door. I spend days just lying on the bed staring at the ceiling as the honk and screech of Downtown traffic five storeys below punctuates the revolving replay of that night in my mind.
Cassandra is at large, my apartment is a crime scene while they scrape every inch of anything she may have touched.
And I’m certainly not allowed back to work. Every case file, badge, or anything that looks like it might be from a case is taken away.
There’s been enough information to piece together the things I did. With him. The bridge I took too far.
I might never be allowed back. I try to ask about Dirk and only get the information that he’s been released from hospital, with no major injuries, blood loss mainly. I came out worse for it; a cracked femur, a dislocated shoulder, and bruises that even a week and a half later are only starting to take on a green healing tinge.
But I want to know more than his injuries. I want to know how he is. After everything. If he’s having nightmares, if I’m in them. Whether I’m toxic to him as well. He is the one person who’s been capable of forgiving me so much until now, the one person who was willing to die for me.
They didn’t take my alcohol when they scraped the apartment and let me back home. I’m here alone with memories of Olivia, and not allowed to leave to escape them. Weeks on, I’m out of the moonboot and the sling, my injuries healing quickly, but the future looks grim. Only the thoughts of what he did for me, what he was willing to do, stop me from reaching for the bottle. But what else is there to reach for? Dirk is alive, but no one is talking to me after learning the things I did, the lies I told.
Cocooner is at large, now with a name and a face, but having slipped from our grasp again. And Needler is caught, but as far as I can tell, uncommunicative. That’s the one supposed victory among all this.
My TV had been taken away, the line bugged, so I can only guess what turmoil must be going on outside. I can only imagine the field day the media are having, more than likely at the expense of us all. I’m more alone than I’ve ever been, with not even a direction to aim for. Because what now do I want?
The phone ringing is so shrill and sudden it makes me jump in my seat.
I approach it with a limp, slow and cautious, like I think the receiver is watching as well as listening.
Bringing it to my ear, I listen, silent, expecting I don’t know what. Caleb? Cassandra? Both laughing down the line? But it’s Tawill. Which given the circumstances, is almost more surprising.
“Needler is refusing to speak to anyone but you.” She tells me, forgoing any attempt at small talk or even pretending that I’m anywhere near her good books. “You’re back in.”
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The End
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