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“Be my good girl and get down from there,” I tell her, my voice is even and calm. Our gazes are locked even with the chaos erupting around us. The police scream. In my periphery, they dare to raise their guns at her. Rage and fear like I’ve never known consume me as she stares back at me.
Her wide eyes are glassy and her admission only minutes ago still rings clear in my mind. She was prepared to die before I opened that door. Death was her escape and the same resolution peers back at me. Drowning in sorrow, remorse, and in a pain I knew existed but refused to acknowledge.
“Now, my naïve girl. Get down from there,” my voice lowers as I swallow thickly. My heart races and the pounding in my ears won’t stop. She merely stares back at me, her dark eyes swallowed in sadness as she shivers with the incoming chill.
“I will never forgive you if you hurt yourself. Get down now.”
A gust of wind blows through and I swear she sways just slightly. Her grip tightens on the windowsill, white knuckled, and yet it slips.
“Get down.” I’m firmer as her gaze attempts to drift back to the open window.
She’s only halfway there, a single step away from safety when they grab her. They pounce on her. Their hands on her small body is infuriating and yet, she’s safe.
It takes everything in me not to fucking lose it. My breathing comes in shudders as I watch her being cuffed. She doesn’t struggle, doesn’t say a word, only looks up at me. While on her knees on the dingy carpet, her hair wild from the chilled wind, her face flushed, and doubt written in her expression, she waits for me.
My poor naive girl. What have I done?
“I’ll fix this.” I promise her softly, but I don’t know if she’s heard it over their demanding screams. Chaos surrounds us and I only wish I had the power to end it now. To be somewhere else in some other time where I can be the man she needs right now.
The cuffs around my wrists tighten and whoever the fuck is behind me attempts to pull me toward the door, but my feet are firmly planted.
It didn’t have to be like this. None of it had to get this far.
“You're under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, aiding, and abetting.” They rattle off charges as she struggles to stand. Reality hasn’t dawned on her. Not in the least.
She’s still staring back at me, needing assurance. Needing help.
Why the fuck did I let it get this far?She’s too good for this world.
Words tear up my throat, but as the two men behind me tug and shove me toward the door, their firm grasp on my shoulders, their attempts are too violent for me to resist any longer, I do what needs to be done. I protect her from them, but also from herself.
“You do not consent to a search and your lawyer is Michael McHale. Don’t say a word beyond his name, Braelynn. Say nothing.” My voice is firm as they pull her up, still in her nightgown and so small surrounded by three men in suits.
“Say it Braelynn; repeat what I just said.” I call out to her as I’m pulled away. As they lead me down the narrow staircase of the shitty motel, I swallow down the words but then I call them out, hoping she can hear them.
“I love you! I’m going to fix this!”
BRAELYNN
Declan’s words repeat in the forefront of my mind, over and over, as I’m taken to the police station in the back of a cruiser. The smells of fresh coffee and stale fast food can’t distract me from what he just said.
I love you. I’m going to fix this.
Emotions suffocate me to the point where even if I wanted to respond to the officers, I couldn’t physically do it. I’ve spiraled, I’ve hit the hardest low I’ve ever felt, and yet…all I can think is that he loves me. Does he really love me? It wouldn’t make sense for him to say it for any other reason…would it?
With my hands trembling in my lap, I hold them tighter and my body sways in the back of the car as we roll over a speed bump. My mind fills with memories of Declan. I can’t stop thinking of his mouth on mine, his eyes, or his voice. I don’t know how I’ll survive with the thoughts that swim my head, much less how we’ll get through this.
My gaze shifts to the front seat. To eyes that stare back at me. One of the cops is short and stocky, the other a thin woman with tired lines around her eyes. As time drones on, they talk shortly to each other. Neither of them says anything to me.
My thoughts are still racing by the time they park in the back of the station. The female cop pulls me out of the back.
With my arms pulled back and the metal biting into my wrists, it’s far less than comfortable. She mutters something to her partner as he opens the large metal door and holds it so we can enter the station. Immediately, I’m assaulted with bright lights and stale white painted brick walls.
My heart races as I realize no one else is there.Thump, thump. It just doesn’t feel right.
“Why aren’t we going in through the front?” I dare to ask, speaking for the first time.
The female cop doesn’t answer my question. It doesn’t make sense, though. Why wouldn’t they bring me through the front to the desk.
