“I’d like her out of here,” I add, staring him in the eyes, “since we both know she didn’t do anything wrong.”
“She’s being charged with murder.”
“Is that what you told them?” I can’t keep the anger down. “You’re really going to hurt her to get to me?”
His eyes are piercing, his expression merciless. “I don’t want either of you in here,” he barely speaks. It’s nearly impossible for me to hear and his lips don’t move. I almost think I imagined it.
The next time he speaks, it’s clear and spoken with intention. “You want to see her?”
The lack of trust separates us. It’ll never be there. Ever.
“You should really see her,” Cody adds when I don’t answer. The air in the room changes. It’s colder, deadlier.
“Then take me to her,” I demand, but my power is limited on this side of the interrogation room.
“I have people to talk to,” he says and rises from his seat as I curse under my breath, hating him and hating all of this. The scratch of metal is searing. A beep precedes the door opening and with his back to me once again he tells me, “This isn’t how I thought things were going to happen.”
Laura
Walters shut up real quick the second Bernard came back to the cell. I don’t know anything more than I wasn’t supposed to kill Jean. He didn’t give me that shiv to kill her and that knowledge makes me sick. But what other option did I have?
With no one here and my imagination running away with itself, I feel like I’m drowning.
If Marcus put out a hit on me, I’m dead. Maybe I got Jean first, but she gave me the upper hand by telling me. Sitting here all alone and not knowing a damn thing… I’m nothing but haunted and scared.
This room is larger. Bigger and without a mirror. It still seems like an interrogation room though even if I don’t see any cameras at all. Wrapping my arms around myself, I sit back down in the lone chair, glancing at the small bed on the other side. It’s not like a holding cell, because there’s a solid door with a small window at eye height.
I don’t know what this room is, but the bed, the lack of cameras, the unknown… it’s fucking terrifying. All I can do is glance from the bed, back to the door, praying whoever comes through it will tell me something, anything, about what’s going on.
I just want to get out of here. I can’t take it. I don’t like who I’ve become in here.
How long did it take for me to lose it? To lose the morality Nurse Roth has every day at work.
I search the walls for an answer to my rhetorical question and then belatedly remember there’s not even a clock in here. Nothing at all to indicate the time. A humorless huff leaves me, and I close my eyes with it. Sleep is so tempting, and the bed is so close.
I can’t sleep without knowing. There’s a vent on the other side of the room that clicks on and off, keeping the room temperate. It’s gone off six times now. That’s the only way I’ve managed to keep track of time.
With my arms wrapped around my shoulders, I rock gently, trying to calm myself down. I haven’t gotten my medicine yet. The set of four pills I have to take daily. I have faith, albeit a small bit of faith, that they’ll provide them once another twenty-four hours have gone by. I can track time that way. I haven’t slept, so I don’t know how close I am to that time frame. Four pills once in the morning. I should be getting them soon, shouldn’t I?
A shudder runs through my body, followed by a wave of nervous heat. With my eyes closed but my head leaning back, I keep rocking and pray that this will end. Please let this be the worst of it.
My eyes are too itchy, too worn out to cry anymore. I’m at the lowest low I could possibly be. Please make it stop. When I lick my dry lips, tasting the residue of salt from former tears, a loud beep warns me that God may have heard my prayers.
Does he find me worthy though? I don’t dare to truly consider the question, because I’m certain the answer is quite firmly no.
A deep inhale doesn’t settle my racing pulse as the heavy door, this one metal and most likely once a shiny silver, but now worn to a dull gray, opens with a heave and a groan.
“I’ll tell you when,” a voice says softly. The door stays open and a mumbled conversation is blocked by it, as is my view of the person belonging to that voice.
Seth. Please, God, I think and my lip quivers with a raw mix of hope and fear. I know it’s his voice.
I’m not in control of my body when the door finally shuts with a resounding click and he becomes my sole focus. My heart cracks and splinters at the sight of him. The space between us vanishes and it’s all my doing. He’s frozen where he is, not moving, not reacting, simply watching me.
“Oh my God,” I say and I can’t help how both my expression and voice crumple. With a shaky hand over my mouth and the other on his jaw, I ask, “What happened?”
My gaze roams over his face. His stubble is so long it’s scratchy and I’ve never seen such dark circles resting beneath his eyes before. “Have you even slept?” I ask before he can answer. My thumb brushes along a bruise as I murmur, “What did you do?” I can’t stop touching him or asking him questions without even granting him a moment to answer.
There’s a cut on his lip and I touch that too, gently, but I imagine it still stings. I have to hold my own hand, snatching it in my other and taking a step back. He looks like he’s been thrown over the edge of a rocky cliff and managed to survive but hasn’t slept in weeks.
I don’t bother asking about the gunshot. Gripping the edge of his shirt, I pull it up, taking in the stitches and feeling a slight sense of respite at the sight.
He’s alive. He’s been taken care of, but… “What happened?”
I’m stricken, taking in every inch of him and not knowing a damn thing.
His warmth envelops me first. It’s everywhere at once. Every inch of my skin is affected by his embrace. I don’t move, afraid he’ll move in response. It feels so good to be held. It feels like heaven to be safe in his arms. I bury my head in his chest when he shushes me. Shushes me! But still, his voice is the most comforting thing I’ve had in what feels like years.
My mind rewinds the days, stopping at the moment I saw him drunk and disgraced in his house. I have to close my eyes tight, ignoring the reminder of where that led. I can’t. I can’t not be held by him right now.
I know somewhere inside of me I hate him. I hate what he’s done. The fact that he helped me mourn… At the thought I have to wipe my eyes and as I raise my arm, Seth creeps backward, but I’m quick to fist his shirt in my hand and shove my body against his. It’s not a conscious move, it’s like everything else that I’ve done since I’ve set foot in this place: it’s an act to survive.
I know I hate him or at least what he did, but I need him. I selfishly need him right now. Is it possible to love someone, or at least crave to be loved by them while also hating them?
Simultaneously? I don’t know that it is because it’s only one way for me. Like the teeter-totter of a child’s seesaw, I go from one to the other. Back and forth. But never both at once.