Fuck that.
Remi had called hysterical, and Lia... Sweet Lia, who was sixteen, shaking, already branded as “combative,” was somewhere in here. Arrested while trying to run from the same fucked-up shit we’d clawed our way out of.
I didn’t stop at the front desk. Didn’t ask for permission. Didn’t acknowledge the pointed look from the clerk. I didn’t look at Erin Voss, though I felt her presence like a searing brand between my shoulder blades.
Predatory. Amused.
Like she’d been waiting for this.
I found Harlan in the hallway.
He was halfway to his office, folder in hand, when he spotted me. For a heartbeat, he froze. His eyes flicked left, right, calculating who was watching. His jaw tightened before he even opened his mouth.
What the fuck?
“Ava...”
“Don’t,” I snapped.
My voice cut through the hallway, sharp enough to earn heads turning, conversations halting.
His posture shifted, all calm command, but I saw the tension in his shoulders, the way his hand flexed against the folder. “Come into my office,” he said, calculated... to stiff.
“You can’t keep doing this,” I said, louder now, enough that the rookies at the corner desks leaned back, wide-eyed.
He extended a hand as if I were a bomb and he was picking the wire to cut. “Please. Inside.”
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to rip the goddamn walls down.
But more than anything, I wanted someone, anyone, to care that a sixteen-year-old had been thrown into a cell for panicking.
So, I let him guide me into his office, mostly because I refused to give Voss the satisfaction of watching me unravel in the middle of the bullpen.
Her eyes followed us. Amused. Taking notes.
Harlan closed the door behind us, shutting out the buzz of the bullpen, and turned. His office smelled faintly of cedar and paper. His sanctuary. His fortress.
“What happened?” I demanded.
“We’re handling it,” he said stiffly, like the old Harlan.
“Handling it?” My laugh was sharp, dangerous. “You mean re-traumatizing a girl who already thinks the world only listens to men.”
“She resisted, Ava.” He cleared his throat and lowered his tone, looked to the window that showcased the bullpen and back to me. “I thought she was Remi’s patient.”
The words hit me like a slap, like Remi’s involvement made it more legitimate. More palatable. Like it mattered more if the girl was officially on her caseload, my blood surged hot. Tears wanted to spring free, but I refused to let them. Refused to acknowledge the literal hit Harlan had just delivered.
“She was terrified. She told the officer she knew Remi. She asked for the shelter. And she got cuffed.”
“We’re reviewing it…”
“No,” I said, voice breaking now, my chest tightening. “No more reviews. No more incident reports and reassignment bullshit. I want to know why the same officers keep showing up in these files, and I want to know why she wasn’t treated like a victim.”
He didn’t answer right away. That pause, God, that pause, felt like betrayal.
And all I could hear, all I could feel, was the echo of every man who had ever told me to calm down, to wait, to trust the system. Every man who’d let me bleed while they shuffled papers.
