I walked into the holding area before shift change. Most of the precinct was still running on coffee and second-hand gossip. Reid gave me a nod from his desk but didn’t speak.
I found her in the back, sitting in one of the hard chairs with her wrists cuffed to a metal bar bolted into the wall. Her hair was down, that too-tight elastic finally gone. But... there was a bruise blooming on her chin, another on her arm. One's that hadn't been there before, one's that shouldn't be there now.
She looked up when she heard the door.
And when our eyes met?
She didn’t say anything.
Didn’t need to.
Because that look, blank, furious, disappointed as hell... said everything.
You did this.
Your people.
Your precinct.
You.
I opened my mouth. Tried to speak. “Remi, I need to...”
“Don’t,” she said. Quiet. Tired.
“I didn’t know,” I said. “Not all of it. I swear. This wasn’t...”
The door opened behind me, and I knew who it would be before I smelled her cheap perfume.
Erin.
“Well,” she said, clapping her hands once like she was at a fucking pep rally, “looks like someone’s ready for her big sendoff. The press is here. It’ll be like your own little parade.”
I looked at Remi. She didn’t react. But her eyes flicked to me for one more second.
And then she looked away for good.
Reid appeared in the hallway, his jaw tight. “You might want to reroute the transfer. There’s… a crowd.”
“How big?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Big enough.”
Erin smirked. “Perfect. Let them see. That’s the point, isn’t it?”
I felt bile rise in my throat.
She wanted this spectacle.
She thought it made her look like the hero in this small town, but she had no idea what that actually looked like. The weight that the real heroes carried.
We walked the hallway in silence, Remi in front, flanked by two uniformed officers. Her cuffs were too tight. I could see the red marks on her wrists from here. The hallway felt longer than usual. Every step was echoed with judgment.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling that we weren’t walking her to a transport van, we were walking her to a stage.
She didn’t stumble. Didn’t falter. Chin high. Shoulders back. Every inch of her radiated that strength she carried when no one else had the guts to speak up.
But the front doors opened and she stepped out first, she stopped short.
