Adrien #2
He could have given that to me sooner, maybe sometime before I spent the entire night working out just to avoid freezing to death in this refrigerator of a cell.
Two more cops stand by the barred door, while another two position themselves on either side of me, hands resting on their guns as if I’m about to jump up and rip their heads off the moment I get the chance. As if I had the energy for that.
I pull the shirt over my head. It smells like old detergent and something stale, like it’s been sitting in a storage box for months.
Every muscle in my body strains and aches from the restless night, my mouth dry as sandpaper, my limbs heavy and slow. Somehow my brain managed to salvage something from the short sleep I slipped into earlier this morning, but the rest of me still feels like it’s been run over by a truck.
“Hands out,” he mutters, his coffee breath hitting me instantly.
I extend my wrists and he cuffs them with a quick, practiced motion, the metal biting into my skin in a way that’s already becoming unpleasantly familiar.
Then he loops another chain around my waist and threads it through the handcuffs, locking the whole thing together so my hands are pinned low in front of me.
Jesus Christ.
Is that really necessary?
Every click of steel makes me feel a few percent less like a human and a few percent more like a rabid dog they’re trying to transport to the pound.
And just when I start thinking this whole arrangement can’t possibly get any worse, he gestures to the other cop and another metallic shackles snap around my ankles.
Oh my.
This is so bad.
Ankle chains? Really?
This means extremely violent status. Which means heavily guarded. Which unfortunately means absolutely zero chance of getting out.
“Let’s go,” he mutters, and all of them close in around me, forming a walking cage of uniforms and holsters as they lead me through the station.
And even though I’m fairly certain I’m utterly fucked, I can’t stop searching for solutions. I glance around inconspicuously, scanning the room, searching, not sure for what.
Number of officers around me, number of cameras, number of guns on every cop in this station, number of exits.
Besides the human cage walking with me, there are seven more cops scattered across the station.
Some sit behind desks, some lean against counters, others stand by the coffee machine, but all of them lift their gaze when we pass, watching me with that silent, measuring stare cops use when they’re trying to decide how dangerous the person really is.
The moment ends when the cop behind me suddenly shoves my head down so roughly I nearly trip over the iron grip on my ankles.
“Head down,” he snaps.
My hair falls into my eyes, but I peek up through it anyway, still trying to count my surroundings. As soon as we step outside the station, my attention splits everywhere.
Number of cars. Daylight. What time is it?
The sky is too gray to judge the sun’s position.
There’s no heavy traffic roaring past the street, so it must be very early in the morning.
The air carries that soaked late-autumn smell of cold pavement and wet leaves, and maybe it’s just the relief of being outside for a moment, but it somehow feels warmer than the cell.
I’m led toward a transport van. I count the cops again.
Five.
Five armed cops and one unarmed and completely restrained me.
Zero chance.
“Step up, head down,” he instructs before pushing me toward the open back of the van.
The inside is a narrow claustrophobic box with two benches bolted to the walls. Cold and too small. A hand grabs my arm and shoves me down onto the bench.
Then another click of metal ricochets through the cube. I look down just in time to see the cop threading another short chain through the one already wrapped around my waist before locking it to a steel ring welded to the bench beside me.
Great.
Now I’m not just chained—I’m chained to the fucking furniture. At this point I feel less like a prisoner and more like some jingling Christmas tree they decided to bolt to the floor for decoration.
I shift slightly, testing how much slack the tether to the bench gives me.
Not much.
So I slouch down on the bench and fall into a brief moment of surprise when the van doors slam shut, leaving me in the back entirely alone.
For a few seconds there’s nothing but muffled chatter outside, voices moving somewhere around the vehicle, which means I’m technically alone in here but also heavily surrounded on the other side of a few thin walls. Fantastic.
I grab the chains anyway and give them an experimental pull, all muscles straining as I’m idiotically attempting to summon some kind of Hulk strength.
Zero chance.
I lean back against the wall of the van and fall into another spiral of thoughts.
The short sleep I managed earlier was apparently enough to fill my stupid brain with so much optimism it borders somewhere between pathetic and dangerously naive.
But that wouldn’t really be me if I wasn’t both over-optimistic and arrogant at the same time.
The conclusion I came to is simple—I can still get her back. I’ve decided we can work it out.
Whatever she saw, I can explain it. I can go to therapy. I can work on it.
Whatever happened before, can also be worked out. That was just a fight.
That’s right. Just a small fight.
Okay, big fight. But still salvageable.
So what...so I cut up his face a little. It’s nothing unsurvivable. She can’t be mad about that forever.
Now to the logistics. That’s quite an obstacle.
If I somehow manage to break out on the way to prison and miraculously avoid getting shot in the process, I’ll be wanted forever—which significantly lowers the chances that she’ll want to stay anywhere near me.
If I stay put, there’s absolutely zero chance of breaking out once I’m actually inside the prison. On the other hand, there’s always the possibility of some legal shenanigans that Kas could totally come up with and somehow get me out the official way.
That version would give me a much better chance that she’ll still be with me.
And that’s the version I’m going for so far. But that version means me actually being put in a real prison.
Cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck with that thought.
I’m too pretty for prison. They will fucking devour me.
Absolutely not.
I refuse to spend the rest of my life as someone’s extremely unwilling girlfriend.
My leg starts bouncing nervously against the hard floor and all the chains rattle together like loose cutlery in a drawer.
If I’m going to prison, I need to get rid of this golden retriever look. I need to shave my head. I could cut up my face as well and give myself a couple of ugly scars to assert dominance.
I could probably wear less of a grin on my face. Yeah. That alone might double my chances of survival.
The whole tattooed aesthetic would maybe help, but only as long as nobody looks too closely. Because then they’d realize it’s all just cute little scribbles done by a teenage girl.
This is a disaster.
Maybe I should start biting people immediately when I arrive. Like a feral raccoon. Yes. If I bite the first guy who approaches me, word will spread. Don’t touch the curly psycho who bites. That’s a reputation I can work with.
There’s a metal grid between me and the front of the van where two cops just climbed into the cabin. A moment later the engine starts.
No cops are sitting back here with me. That’s weird. That doesn’t fit. Which means either they’re incredibly confident, or—
That brings me to one more option.
My big bad antihero.
Kasien would definitely do everything he can to get me out. But it’s different now. He has both of them back. He won’t risk anything. I wouldn’t want him to. He knows I wouldn’t want him to. I got myself into this willingly and I’m more than ready to deal with the consequences.
Devereaux is dead. The other one is loose. There’s not really much to do.
And yet the fact that they left me alone back here somehow makes the hair on my arms stand up with anticipation.
I can’t see much through the grid. Only a piece of moving sky through the windshield, turning into a blur, and the tops of the officers’ heads. They are silent.
I tilt my head, trying to listen through the steady crackle of the dispatch radio, officers exchanging short coded updates, locations and unit numbers over the static. Not that it would mean anything for my current predicament.
Then they mumble something between themselves but the chains rattle so I can’t hear anything.
I take a deep breath to push away the intrusive thoughts.
I won’t do anything. I just won’t. I’ll stay calm for once. I’ll accept my destiny, whatever it brings.
However, I can’t stop analyzing every second of this situation.
A phone ringtone suddenly breaks the static silence and traffic hum, then it stops—either silenced or picked up call.
I concentrate, then I hear one of the officers just hum with an approving tone.
Silence again. Then another “uh-huh,” and then I can’t hear anything anymore because the dispatch radio interrupts it again.
Time goes by, every minute stretches and I’m not sure if I want more to be at the final destination or rather stay in this private little prison forever.
Then the van slows down, takes turns, slows down even more, takes another turn.
Oh fuck.
Are we there already?
I’ve decided I’d much rather die in this metal cube.
Then we stop entirely.
All I can see through the small grid is a piece of sky that is now covered with a few tree branches. Both front doors fly open almost at the same time and a blade of cold air cuts into the van.
“Don’t touch the radio,” a muffled female voice snaps.
Female.
What the actual fuck.
I freeze instantly and listen. All I hear is the low rumble of the engine, the static crackle of the dispatch radio, and the quiet rustle of movement outside.
“Is this really necessary?” one of the officers mutters, annoyed.
“Precaution,” the same female voice replies calmly.