Page 199 of Dream On, Liar

The sound escaped before I could stop it.

Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”

I sank onto the sofa beside her, the cushions dipping beneath my weight as the exhaustion of the day finally caught up with me. “That.”

I picked up the key automatically, turning it between my fingers. The metal was cold and indifferent, ordinary in a way that did not match the story attached to it.

“Very helpful,” she muttered.

“I know he didn’t break in, but I still needed to make sure the locks were updated in case he decided to come back.”

Her expression changed at once. The teasing disappeared, replaced by confusion and then concern.

“Maeve.”

I sighed.

It was not because I did not want to tell her. I did. That was almost the problem. I knew exactly what it would sound like once I said it aloud. So I told her everything.

I told her about the door and the way it had not felt like a break-in at first, only a wrongness in the air that my body had recognised before my mind had caught up. I told her about Roland, and what he’d done. About how Rihaan had arrived, helped me, given me a space to wind down…before I packed up a bag and left him like a scared cat.

When I finally stopped speaking, the silence between us felt dense.

She stared at me for a long moment before she spoke.

“You need to press charges.”

“I did.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“I went to the station once I came back from Ediburugh.”

“And?”

I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve, suddenly unable to look at her directly. “He was already there.”

She blinked. “What?”

“He had turned himself in.”

The words hung between us, strange even as I said them.

“Roland?” she asked more slowly. “The guy who’d mocked you for not being able to touch him?”

I nodded.

“He had been arrested for fraud, theft, and selling drugs. They added my statement to everything.”

Samyra leaned back slightly, as though she physically needed a little more space to process it.

“That’s…”

“Strange?” I supplied.

“Very.”

I nodded once. “The police said he came in on his own. Apparently, he confessed.”