The man takes another step. “And now you’re here. In cuffs. Looking like hell. And the man who killed her? Found dead. Wounds identical to hers.”
He pauses.
“Tell me that's just a coincidence.”
Cassian’s eyes lift slowly. “What would you do if it wasn’t?”
The man doesn’t answer.
“What would you do, Grayson,” Cassian repeats, low, deadly calm, “if some sick bastard did all that in front of you and you had the power to make it hurt back?”
“I don’t know,” the man says. His voice has gone hollow. “That’s the problem.”
They stand there, the space between them thick with things unsaid. Grief. Fury. Family.
Finally, the man, Grayson, inhales like it hurts.
“I should arrest you,” he says. “Drag you in right now.”
Cassian’s reply is quiet, steady. “Do it.”
“No protest?”
“You think I’ve been running from prison?”
Grayson stares at him, jaw tight. “Then what have you been running from?”
Cassian’s silence is long. When he finally speaks, it’s barely audible.
“Not everything that dies stays buried.”
Grayson looks like he wants to say something, but whatever it is gets swallowed. His face flickers with something too complex to name. Regret? Betrayal? Love? Shame?
Then, all at once, he turns away. He scrubs a hand down his face. Breathes out.
“I’ll buy you a few minutes,” he mutters. “But I can’t hold them forever.”
He doesn’t look back.
Cassian closes his eyes.
And for the first time since I met him, he looks like a man who has nothing left to fight.
“Give me your phone number,” Grayson says. “At least do this much for me.”
Cassian doesn’t move.
For a heartbeat, I think he’s going to reject it. I think he'll stand there like stone, shackled, impassive, swallowing his ghosts whole like he always does. But then he lets out a slow exhale through his nose, opens his eyes, and nods once. It’s the smallest motion, but from him? It feels seismic.
“Back pocket,” he says. His voice is hoarse now. Not weak—never that—but… spent.
Grayson doesn’t reach for it right away. His eyes flick down to Cassian’s handcuffed wrists. Then, with a sigh that sounds morelike surrender than decision, he steps forward and fishes the phone from Cassian’s back pocket himself.
He taps something in.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he mutters, handing the phone back.
Cassian doesn’t reply. Just takes the phone, cradling it in his cuffed hands like it weighs too much.
