Then Jack turned to me fully, face unreadable. “But you know what, Chief? Don’t take it from me.”
He nodded toward holding. “Ask her yourself.”
The room stilled, like the calm before a life-altering moment. I just didn't know it yet.
I nodded to Reid, and he went to collect Remi Carter from the holding area.
I didn’t know what I expected to find when she walked out with the rookie, maybe defiance. Maybe exhaustion. But when the officer led Remi Carter out, what I saw was something else entirely.
Calm.
She was composed in that eerie, bone-deep way that made your skin crawl, not because she was threatening, but because you knewyou were standing in front of someone who had survived things... who knew things that would break most men.
“Ms. Carter,” I said slowly. “I have a question.”
She tilted her head, cautious.
Jack gave her a small, almost sad smile. A nod.
I swallowed., fuck this was awkward. I didn't even know why I was letting this play out... but something deep within pushed me to ask, “Why don’t you go out? Why don’t you drink?”
She met my eyes, not sharp like Ava’s, not full of fire. No, Remi’s gaze was calm, steady. Like the still before a storm that youknowis coming.
She didn’t raise her voice.
She didn’t need to; the weight of what she said was enough.
“You ever been a woman at night, Chief?” she asked. “Alone?”
I didn’t answer.
“You ever had one too many drinks and suddenly every bad decision made by a man in the room becomesyourfault?”
Her voice didn’t shake. Her words were the wind against glass, relentless and quiet. The kind of storm that doesn’t scream but erodes.
“You ever wear a skirt too short? Smile at the wrong person? Walk past the wrong alley? Have you ever been told it was your fault because of how you walked? Or talked? Or breathed?”
Erin huffed from the corner. I didn’t dare look at her.
Remi didn’t even flinch.
“That’s the average woman’s experience... their daily fear,” she said. "Why women pee together, travel in groups, hold a key between their fingers on the way through a dark parking lot, hold their thumb over the top of their beer bottle..."
She studied me for a moment, making sure she was being heard, and then she continued. “Now imagine living that... and knowing what actually waits in those alleyways. What happens when someone forgets to cover their drink? What it means when a girl dares to run alone and doesn’t come back?”
She stepped closer. Just one step. Not threatening. Just... present, commanding the room.
“That’s my every day. My work. My history. My fucking reality.”
She studied the room, took in her audience, and then turned her eyes on me entirely. “So no, I don’t drink in public. I don’t go out partying. I don’t take the risk. Because I’ve seen what’s on the other side.”
Silence fell like a curtain.
Even Erin didn’t speak.
No one did.
I was left standing in the center of the bullpen, stripped of every assumption I’d ever made.
