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“Mrs Shelby?”
My eyes snapped open, and I glanced over my shoulder towards the man. He studied our little group for a moment before stepping up to me and offering me his hand.
“I’m Officer Newport. Nice to meet you.”
If he noticed the tremble in my hands or the fact that they were cold and clammy, he didn’t mention it. He gestured behind him with a smile.
“Why don’t you come with me? We can speak somewhere more private.”
He led us past the front desk, down the long beige hallways. Everything in the station was beige. It felt really sterile and did nothing to settle my nerves. We passed through a room with a few rows of desks. It was busy, with some officers speaking to people in handcuffs. Others were on the phone, and a few speaking to regular people, maybe with concerns or about their own cases. That’s where I saw Carson and I froze automatically. He was sitting beside a desk closer to the back, talking to another officer. The look on his face was familiar. He was fighting back a scowl, not happy about something. Given the look he gave me when he noticed me, I was the cause of his displeasure, and a wave of terror washed over me.
“Mrs Shelby? We’re going to go in here.” Officer Newport was frowning, gesturing towards a closed off room off to one side. I’d stopped following them, frozen in Carson’s furious gaze, and I couldn’t move an inch to continue. Not until Viktor stepped between us, blocking Carson’s view of me. He tipped my chin up with his knuckle, raising his eyebrows.
“Do not look at him. You are safe. I am here with you.”
Nodding helplessly, I let him lead me away from the monster I married and into the little room with the officer. When I sat down, I could still see Carson glaring at me through the glass window and I dropped my gaze automatically.
“Can you close the blinds? He’s scaring her,” Gabi asked.
Officer Newport turned around, finally noticing what was making me so uneasy. “I’m sorry about that. He insisted on being here. Since he was the one who filed the missing persons report, he said he had the right to be here and see you were okay.”
Viktor made an irritated noise. “She was hiding from him. He does not get to see her.”
Officer Newport closed the little blinds, blocking my view of Carson. I was sweating, the fear making me nauseous. The papers I was holding trembled in my hand and I couldn’t lift my gaze for the life of me.
“Mrs Shelby… Rosalie. Can I call you Rosalie?”
I could only manage a shaky nod, and I couldn’t look up, no matter how soothing he made his voice.
“You’re not in any trouble, Rosalie. We’ve just got some conflicting reports we need to set straight. Your husband has given us some paperwork on your condition and–”
“It’s not true!”
My outburst surprised him, and he fell silent. I shook my head again, the words coming out in a rush.
“It’s not true. I’m not a schizophrenic. He– He likes to hurt me. He wanted me sedated so he could hurt me. I’m not crazy.”
I was starting to sound like I was, but I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Carson was so good at manipulating people. He probably already had all the officers here believing I was crazy and needed to be hospitalized. I was terrified they’d drag me away, and I’d lose everything.
I shoved the paperwork at the officer, tears burning my eyes. “He’s not a good man. I ran away to escape him. I’m not going back.”
Viktor and Gabi shifted closer. Gabi rubbed my back gently while Viktor took my hands and squeezed them. They were the only reason I wasn’t running from this place. I wrapped my feet around the legs of the chair to keep myself rooted to my seat. I had to see this through.
Slowly, the officer slid the file so that it was in front of him. He flipped quietly through the pictures before he started asking questions.
“What’s this?”
I glanced at him and back down at the table. “Th-There are some recordings. And videos. I-I wanted to get out. I g-got what I could.”
He stood for a moment, disappearing from the room long enough to grab his laptop. He only played the first few recordings before going quiet again.
“When this meeting was requested, I thought…” He sighed. “I’m sorry to say I thought I’d be dealing with a mental health case. I fully believed him when he said you were having an episode and ran away again. But this…” He gestured to the papers. “I’m so sorry you’ve been going through this, Rosalie. If you’d let me, I’d like to start fresh. I came in biased, and that was wrong of me. It might take a while, but I’d like to go through everything here and anything else you can remember.”
He leaned, waiting until I looked up at him to give me a reassuring smile. “I promise, I’m here to help. How about we start at the beginning?”
* * *
It took hours. A lot longer than I expected. But not once did he or any officer that joined him accuse me of being crazy. They even had an officer revisit the documents that Carson had provided about my diagnosis. The doctor who signed them was the same doctor who threatened me with electroshock therapy. They called the hospital, requesting the evidence of testing done and how many times I’d visited before that diagnosis was made. But the person on the phone said the computers were down and they couldn’t give them anything. It only proved my point.
