Finally, sirens wail in the distance, growing louder.
"Look at me,” I plead.
He doesn't.
He can’t.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The garage explodes with sound—radios crackling, footsteps echoing off concrete.
"Ma'am, are you injured?"
A female officer crouches in front of me. Young, dark ponytail, name tag reading CHEN.
"I—no. Just the cuffs."
She produces a gadget. "Turn around."
The metal clicks open, releases. I pull my wrists forward, rubbing at the raw skin. Purple indents circle both wrists like bracelets.
The paramedics descend on Daniel like a well-choreographed swarm, their movements precise and urgent. One drops to her knees beside him, two fingers pressed against his neck, counting silently while her eyes fix on her watch. Another moves to cradle his head, hands gentle but firm as they work to keep his cervical spine aligned, protected. Their voices overlap in sharp bursts of medical jargon I don't fully understand.
"Need a backboard over here! Now!"
The pool of blood beneath Daniel's head continues to spread outward in slow, creeping tendrils across the concrete floor. The dark liquid seems to pulse and shimmer with an eerie, almost sentient quality—expanding, rippling. It catches the light in ways that make my stomach turn, transforming something static and terrible into something that appears to breathe and move, alive.”
“Sir, step back."
Two officers flank Julian. He hasn't moved from where he collapsed. Just stares at his bloodied hands.
"I need you to stand up, sir."
"He saved my life." My voice comes out too loud.
Chen turns.
"He was protecting me. Daniel was trying to—he had me in handcuffs, he was kidnapping me—"
"Ma'am, we'll need you to come with us." Chen's hand hovers near my elbow, not quite touching. "You'll give your statement at the station."
"Is Julian under arrest?"
She doesn't answer.
They load Daniel onto a stretcher. His face is pale, almost grey. An oxygen mask covers his nose and mouth. The paramedics move fast, efficient. One of them radios ahead—"Male, late thirties, blunt force trauma to the head, GCS of eight—"
The words blur together.
"Let's go." Chen guides me toward a cruiser. I twist back, searching for Julian.
He's being led to a different car, flanked by two uniformed officers who guide him with firm but not rough hands. Our eyes meet for half a second—just the briefest flash of connection across the chaotic scene of cruisers and ambulances and crime scene tape.
His face is blank, completely blank, shock having wiped it clean of everything except a raw, primal fear that makes my chest constrict painfully. The Julian I know—confident, quiet, always seeming so in control—has vanished entirely, replaced by this hollow-eyed stranger with dried blood still visible on his knuckles.
"Jules—" I start to call out to him, leaning forward against Chen's restraining hand.
"Ma'am."
