Chapter Thirty-One
Rheda
The time ticks by slowly. Every second lands with a thud.
The word everywhere pounds around my mind, looping faster and faster until it feels scorched into the back of my skull. Blood everywhere.
I don’t want to think about it. I force myself not to. But my mind goes there anyway, traitorous, vivid, uncontrollable.
The cavity Mike described.
The hole.
The violation.
I try not to focus on the way my own heart aches now as it skips a beat.
I should be writing. It’s been over an hour.
That thought comes too late.
My notebook is still closed beside me, untouched. My pen lies across it at an angle, exactly where I left it. The sight of it makes something hot twist through me.
I move quickly, snapping the book open and dragging it closer. The paper looks too bright under the overhead light. Blank. Accusing.
I write the first thing that comes to mind.
Subject remains seated.
I add another line.
Minimal movement.
The words are too sharp. I stop and stare at them. They don’t look like mine. The words look like they’re trying to stab through the paper.
Focus.
I press the tip of my pen harder into the page until the pressure hurts, but it doesn’t help.
I move to the mousepad instead. The monitor flicks to life; first a loading screen, then my files. My fingers work quickly, almost automatically, and before I’ve fully decided to do it, I’ve selected my camera roll. The last image I’ve taken pops up on screen.
My face pales.
The screenshot.
Him.
Restrained.
Dripping with ice water...erect.
The realisation lands with a thud.
Fuck.
I move to close it, to erase it from history before anyone finds it, but my hand lingers. I don’t delete it. I look at it, really look at him.
Water streaks down the orange fabric. His skin is bruised, marked, ruined in a way that should make him easier to file under victim or threat or evidence.
His hands are cuffed together, resting on the table in front of him.
I don’t know why it’s always the hands. I tell myself it’s habit, years of training and profiling.
Hands tell stories. They reveal impulse and control.
But this feels different, more like compulsion, as though there’s a thread tied behind my eyes, pulling my focus downward whether I want it to or not.
Long fingers.
Clean nails.
Ordinary.
I imagine blood beneath them.
I picture red seeping into the creases of his skin, collecting beneath the nails, slick and dark. I imagine those fingers curling as he positions himself at the hole in someone’s chest. I imagine warmth, thick and suffocating, and my stomach twists in betrayal.
For one split second, it feels like my hand instead, like I’m the one holding him there.
My wrist burns just as fast, a dull ache and then sharpness.
My teeth sink into the inside of my cheek before the thought can settle any further.
The sting pulls me back just enough to breathe again. I taste copper.
My hands unclench in my lap. Re-clench. Unclench again.
I drag my attention back to the notebook. It’s a sharp reminder that I should be recording something useful. Time has passed and I haven’t done any of the work that would make this look normal if anyone glanced over.
I write another line.
No visible distress.
The words make my stomach turn.
I glance back at the screenshot.
Jesus.
I hate how aware I am of the way the light hits him. The shadows along his cheekbones. The line of his jaw. I hate that my brain still registers symmetry. Still notes beauty. Still responds.
Blood everywhere.
The phrase returns, louder now, and my jaw locks around it.
Mike shifts in his chair beside me. The metal legs scrape softly against the floor. He turns another page. The sound seems to echo a beat too loudly.
I close the image.
The screen goes dark for a second before returning to the monitor feeds. My pulse doesn’t settle; it only turns, because now my attention drifts to the console beside me.
The microphone switch sits there innocently, a small plastic lever surrounded by lights and labels. It’s off. Silent. Dormant.
Harmless.
I study it longer than I should. My fingers twitch once against my thigh, then again. They move without permission and before my mind can catch up, they’re hovering over the switch.
I imagine his husky voice.
Do it.
The thought slams into me, uninvited and intimate, and my pulse stutters violently in response. I stop halfway, close enough to see the faint scuff marks around the switch. Close enough to imagine the click.
My breath turns shallow.
No. Stop it.
I jerk my hand back as if the plastic has burned me. My fingers curl tightly into my palm until it’s too painful.
My gaze snaps down.
But the thought doesn’t leave. It sits there, low and constant, threading through everything else, quietly, patiently. It waits for me to slip. Waits for me to look.
And God help me, I want to.