Chapter 20 #2
“I love you.” Olivia kissed her cheek. “Don’t beat yourself up. You’re a hero. You did what I couldn’t.” She gripped Eamon’s wrist and then turned to her boss. “Let’s keep the reporters away from her. I don’t want this getting out until I can tell you what happened. Bel saved those girls.”
“She did,” the second mermaid said, a large blanket hiding the nudity that Olivia’s blazer didn’t. “I’ve been trapped here for months. I would’ve died if not for her.”
“Mom?” Ondine’s scream shot through the commotion, and shedding her blanket, she raced across the dirt in only Eamon’s borrowed shirt. “Mom!” the nineteen-year-old barreled into her mother, the entire Bajka Police force frozen in awed relief of the reunion, and Eamon pulled Bel closer.
“You did that,” he whispered in her ear. “No matter what happened down there, no matter how you feel, you gave that family their kid back. You did what you needed to survive. You came back to me, and that’s all that matters.”
Bel burst into tears, shaking against the man she loved because, of course, the Impaler didn’t care about her sins.
“You’re here with me, and that’s all that matters.”
So, Bel sat on the edge of the ambulance wrapped in both a blanket and Eamon’s arms, but she barely felt either.
The EMT was saying something about needing to go to the hospital for stitches, but she barely heard him.
Sheriff Griffin directed the scene like a masterful conductor.
Olivia answered the reporters’ questions, recounting Bel’s heroism for the five o’clock news.
The Mars reunited with their daughter, the primal screams of relief on the mother’s tongue enough to break even the hardest heart, yet Bel heard none of it.
She couldn’t stop shaking. Her job revolved around death.
She’d seen Eamon kill men. She’d seen Griffin kill men.
She’d seen accidents kill men, but she’d never ended a life before.
She always knew that, one day, pulling the trigger would result in a fatality.
She just thought she’d make that sacrifice out of honor, not out of a need for violence that made her no better than the monsters she hunted.
Bel sat on the couch, half watching the news as Eamon made lunch in the kitchen.
Between the stitches in her skull and the investigation required after every officer-involved shooting, Griffin gave her the week off.
Olivia and Agent Barry had graciously taken over closing the case, so Bel had taken to hiding out at Eamon’s mansion because that’s exactly what she’d been doing.
Hiding. She refused to speak to anyone outside of the home, and she barely spoke to Eamon when he was around.
He wouldn’t blame her for her anger. He was a predator who’d spent thousands of years ripping men to pieces.
He wouldn’t care that she’d pulled the trigger in the heat of the moment.
It had saved two young women and returned her to his arms. No, he wouldn’t care.
He’d celebrate that she’d done it. She was becoming him, but as an officer of the law, the Beast of Bajka was the last person she should emulate.
She was supposed to be a good influence on him, yet it seemed his violence had seeped into her soul.
Olivia’s image appeared on the TV as the news replayed the case report.
Her partner sang her praises, explaining how Bel’s perfect aim had saved Ondine Mar from losing her head.
The reporter called Bel a local hero, the cop whose quick response had stopped two teenagers from dying brutally ugly deaths.
She was a savior, a hero, a murderer. Everyone praised her, but they didn’t know what really happened.
Bel had shot for a selfish reason. She didn’t remember hearing Olivia order her to do something to stop the sinking cage.
She hadn’t heard their screams for help…
had she? Had her subconscious internalized her partner’s urgency?
“She saved my life,” Ondine Mar said to the camera, the shot capturing her moments after she’d been emotionally reunited with her parents.
“Detective Emerson brought our baby girl home,” Mrs. Mar said, hugging her daughter so tightly that the tears staining her face were all the proof the public needed of Bel’s heroism. “We’ll never be able to thank her enough. We owe her everything.”
Bel’s stomach cramped. She didn’t deserve this praise and adoration.
Guilt was eating her alive, and the longer she sat with it, the more it consumed her.
If she let its poison fester, she’d disappear inside it, so without a word, she pulled herself off the couch.
Cerberus woke at the loss of her legs as his pillow, staring at her with his tongue half stuck out of his mouth, but she ignored his soulful eyes as she slipped like a ghost through the halls.
“Isobel?” Eamon called from the kitchen, his unnatural hearing picking up her hushed footfalls. “Isobel, are you okay?”
But she didn’t answer him. She simply slid her feet into her shoes and grabbed her car keys.
“Detective?”
She shut the door on his voice and climbed into the SUV, making the quick trip from the Reale Estate to the station.
“Emerson?” Griffin raised his eyebrows when she closed herself in his office.
“What are you doing here? You still haven’t been cleared for duty.
Not that it’ll be much longer. Between Gold and Ondine Mar’s testimony, the shooting will be ruled lawful.
You’ll be back at work in no time, but for now, go home.
Spend time with Stone and your dog. Get some rest. Have you seen your therapist yet? ”
“I’m not right for this job anymore.” She ignored his question.
“What?” Griffin leaned closer as if that might help him understand her statement.
“I let my emotions get involved, and I can no longer be objective.” She stepped forward with resolve. She wouldn’t let herself become the very monsters she swore to protect mankind from.
“It’s hard not to be emotional when you’re about to watch a teenager get decapitated,” Griffin said.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered.
“I know it feels like that after what you went through.” Griffin rose from his chair and rounded his desk to grip her shoulders.
“You took a nasty blow to the head and then had to fight for your life while suffering a minor concussion. I don’t care that it wasn’t severe.
A concussion is still a brain injury, and the fact that you got off the ground and stopped that monster proves that no one fights for the victims as hard as you.
I was in your shoes last year. I got shot, and then I killed our shooter.
It’s a heavy weight to bear, taking another life, but you were the reason I pulled the trigger.
” He cupped her jaw. “It was either Jax Frost or you, and it’ll always be you.
You will always be the one I protect. You’re the same.
It was Triton or those teenage girls. You always defend the innocent. ”
“But I didn’t.” She needed him to stop speaking. He was trying to break her resolve. She knew Ondine had been in danger. She knew those two mermaids were facing death, but that wasn’t why she pulled the trigger… was it?
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m not the hero everyone thinks I am.” She stepped back, breaking their connection.
“Emerson, are you okay?”
“No one is above the law, not even me. I forgot that. It won’t happen again.” She placed her hand on the desk, an overwhelming relief flooding her as she surrendered, and Detective Isobel Emerson pushed her badge across the wood.
“I quit,” she said, and before Sheriff Griffin could stop her, she turned and left the station.
Thank you for reading Postmortem of a Poem.