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It sounded really dumb, considering I was only in custody for a few days, but I felt weird just being allowed to move around of my own free will again.
My feet felt leaded as I walked down the hall toward the front doors, the October sky dreary and overcast.
I usually loved that.
The crisp air, the grumpy weather, the way it just begged you to curl up with a cup of hot chocolate and settle in.
Now, though, all I could think was how my mood seemed to match. Gloomy. Moody. Stuck between.
I moved out the doors.
And stood on the steps.
I would like to claim the shiver that moved through me was from the chill in the air. But I knew it was something else, something more internal than that.
What did I do now?
Where did I go?
What was going on?
“Everleigh!” a voice called, making me turn to find the source of it.
And there he was.
Tall, broad, with his dark, flawless skin, his warm brown eyes, his small, unsure smile.
He looked different, though, wearing a suit that seemed to be built for him.
I managed to have a thought about how much fabric it must have taken to make it before it all finally seemed to click together in my mind.
It was Detroit.
Detroit who’d called Simon Evertz to defend me. Who was paying his bill. Who had likely paid for my bail.
I didn’t stop to think.
I just… flew at him.
The second I collided with his solid frame, the first sob escaped me. Loud. Unrestrained.
I couldn’t have quieted myself down right then if I tried.
“Hey,” he murmured, voice soft, as his arms went around me, squeezing me tight, and some part of me wanted to tell him to hold me tighter, because I felt like I was falling apart.
Words failed me, so I just wrapped my arms more tightly around him, then felt him do the same, just shy of too tight as the last few days of confusion and fear and bone-deep humiliation burst out of me, leaving me sobbing into his wide chest as his hands moved up and down my back, trying to soothe me.
There was no stopping this, though. Once the dam was opened, the water seemed to just keep flowing.
People were probably staring, mumbling to each other, even laughing at me behind my back.
I didn’t see, hear, or care.
I just needed to purge all of this.
“Hey, it’s all going to be okay now,” Detroit said as I was trying to take some deep breaths to bring some sort of order back to my mind and body.
“I… you… I owe…”
