Chen opens the back door of the police cruiser with a practiced motion, the hinges creaking slightly in the humid air.
I slide into the cramped backseat, my body moving on autopilot while my mind remains fractured, scattered across the parking garage like broken glass. The seat beneath me is unforgiving hard designed for utility rather than comfort. The interior reeks of industrial-strength disinfectant that can't quite mask the underlying odors of stale coffee and something else—sweat, maybe, or fear from whoever sat here before me. A thick metal grate separates the back from the front seats, a cage-like barrier that makes my stomach lurch with the sudden, suffocating realization that I'm being transported like a criminal, like someone who's lost their freedom.
Through the reinforced window—scratched and clouded from years of desperate hands pressing against it—I watch them load Daniel onto a stretcher and into the back of the waiting ambulance.
The paramedics move with efficient, practiced urgency, securing straps across his chest and legs, their faces professionally neutral despite whatever damage they've witnessed. Even from this distance, even through the distorted glass, I can see the blood, the swelling, the unnatural angles. My stomach turns violently, bile rising in my throat, but I can't look away. Some part of me—some broken, traumatized part—needsto witness this, needs to confirm that he's really being taken away, that this nightmare is somehow, impossibly, coming to an end.
Then my gaze shifts, tracking movement across the garage's oil-stained concrete floor. I watch Julian disappear into another cruiser, his tall frame folding awkwardly into the backseat of a vehicle identical to the one I'm trapped in. His head hangs low, his beautiful wavy hair falling forward to hide his face, those broad shoulders—shoulders that have held me, comforted me, made me feel safe—now hunched in defeat.
The officer guiding him isn't rough, but there's an unmistakable firmness to the hand on Julian's back, a reminder that he's not free to go, that he's being detained, questioned, possibly arrested. My heart splinters watching him, this gentle man who plays piano with such tenderness, now being treated like a criminal because of me, because he tried to protect me.
The door slams. The engine starts.
We pull out of the garage into darkness.
The station is fluorescent-bright and smells like stale coffee and floor cleaner. Chen walks me past a sea of desks, phones ringing, keyboards clicking. Everyone looks up. Studies me. My ripped jacket, my wild hair, the bruises blooming on my wrists.
"In here."
Chen opens a door to a small grey room—windowless, claustrophobic, the kind of space designed to make you feel trapped. A scratched metal table sits in the center, three plastic chairs arranged around it like they're expecting company. There's a camera mounted high in the corner, its red light blinking steadily, watching, recording. The walls are thatinstitutional grey that seems to exist nowhere else but police stations and hospitals. The air is stale and still.
The door clicks shut behind me with a sound that feels far too final.
Julian's somewhere in this building. Same walls, different cage.
"Have a seat."
I sit. The chair scrapes against linoleum.
Chen joins a male officer—older, balding, ANDERSON on his badge. He sets down a file folder and a styrofoam cup of water I don't touch.
"We need you to walk us through everything that happened tonight," Anderson says, his pen poised over a notepad. "Every single detail you can remember, no matter how small it might seem."
"Can I see Julian?"
"Not at this time."
"Is he okay?"
Anderson leans forward, his elbows pressing against the scratched metal surface of the table. His eyes are steady, professional, but not unkind. "Right now, we need you to focus on the immediate situation at hand. I understand this is difficult, but I need you to start from the very beginning. Walk us through the entire sequence of events, step by step. Why were you in that parking garage tonight? What brought you there?"
"I live there. With Julian." My voice sounds strange, disconnected. "I work at the pool hall in town. I was coming home from my shift."
"What time?"
"Around twelve-thirty."
"And then?"
"Daniel grabbed me." The words tumble out. "I always carry mace in my bag for situations exactly like this," I explain, myvoice shaking slightly as I recall the terror. "But when I tried to use it, I realized it was empty. I must have—I don't know, maybe it discharged accidentally at some point, or maybe it was just old. It didn't matter. Before I could even process that, Daniel was on me. He clamped his hand over my mouth—hard, so hard I couldn't breathe properly or scream. Then he started dragging me backward across the concrete floor of the garage, toward where his car was parked in the shadows. I tried to fight him, tried to kick, but he's so much stronger than me." I swallow hard, my hands trembling in my lap. "And then he—he pulled out handcuffs. Real handcuffs. He snapped them onto my wrists behind my back."
Chen writes everything down.
"Had Mr. Ross threatened you before?"
"Yes. Multiple times. We used to date. I have a restraining order against him."
Anderson flips through the folder. "Filed October second."
