38
WOLFE
The engine cutbut I didn’t move. Blood soaked the waistband of my jeans. Sticky. Hot. Slowing now, but not gone.
I pulled open the glovebox. No gauze. No bandage. Just a roll of duct tape and a black cotton T-shirt she used to sleep in. I grabbed both. Pressed the fabric hard to my side. The cotton turned dark in seconds.
I wrapped the tape tight. Around my ribs. Around the shirt. A tourniquet made of memory and spite. My hands shook. Not from pain. From focus. This wasn't about surviving. It was about arriving. Alive enough to make him scream. And I still had the knife.
I reached into the trunk. Pulled the blades from their place beneath the mat. Strapped them one by one. Thigh. Ribs. Spine. Every sheath a breath. Every buckle a vow.
The city didn’t slow. Cars passed. Headlights washed across my face. No one stopped. Just a man bleeding through his shirt, gripping steel, walking like death had given him a deadline.
I crossed the street. Down the alley. Past the graffiti that never faded. Toward the place they thought they could hide him.
He was waiting in the room at the end. Tied to a chair. Not scared. Not shaking. Just still. Like he thought being calm wouldmake it better. Like he didn’t know I was already walking toward him with Camille’s name in my throat and a blade in my hand.
The door creaked as I opened it. Loud enough for him to flinch. Not enough to make me stop. The hallway smelled like bleach and piss. The light was yellow and low. Buzzing.
There was no mirror here. No observation glass. Just a man, a chair, a pipe bolted into the wall. And the kind of quiet that waited for someone to scream.
He looked up when I entered. Met my eyes like a man trying to measure risk. He saw it too late. There was no risk left. Only consequence.
I stepped forward. My boots left prints in the bleach-stained floor. My knife hung loose at my side. He didn’t speak. Not yet.
He let me circle him once. Twice. Tracked me with his eyes like he could still talk his way out of it.
He couldn’t. I stopped behind him.
“You were there,” I said.
My voice didn’t rise. Didn’t crack. It just filled the room like breath.
“You were in the room when they brought Camille in.”
He exhaled. Slow.
“I didn’t touch her,” he said. “I wasn’t involved.”
I stepped closer. The blade kissed the back of his neck. He froze.
“You didn’t need to be involved. You watched.”
He swallowed. I heard it.
“I signed a clearance order. I didn’t know what it meant.”
I pressed the tip harder.
He hissed.
“She died screaming,” I said.
He flinched.
“No,” he whispered.
I moved around to face him.
