The picture I must paint as I am now.
A neck tattoo that is all predator, eyes I've heard described as a scorching, fiery amber, almost certainly muddled with deep shadows beneath them now, my too-sharp canines reminiscent of a violent beast, the harsh, chaotic regrowth of a recently shaved head.
And above all else, something I've been both blessed and cursed with my entire life, a smile that screams of arrogance, of a dare waiting to be taken.
After he disappears into the hall, slamming the door behind him, my attention falls back onto the man who is responsible for doing his damnedest to prove my innocence.
He sinks into the doctor's chair, flipping through a manila envelope stuffed full of papers of varying sizes and shapes.
"Mr. Fomori," he begins, his face draining of color as he continues to traverse the file of my supposed sins. "What have they been asking you since you awoke?"
I try to shrug against my confinement. "Nothing I know anything about. Questions that make no sense."
"For example?" he clicks a pen, preparing to write down anything I might have to say of value.
"One of them asked me if I knew some guy named Skyler Beltran. Another asked about a Chance Michelson. Two came in and asked about some weapons manufacturer robbery gone wrong that happened back in September. Morris or something.”
With a quiet hum, he whips the pen across the page, jotting something down as he presses. "And what did you tell them?"
I close my eyes against the headache pounding a steady rhythm against my fucking eye sockets, "None of it sounds even remotely familiar."
"That's a good strategy," he concedes. "Don't give them the rope to hang you with. If they don't have the evidence, don't give them any."
"I don't— it's not a fuckingstrategy, Clyde. I don't have any clear memories more recent than 2019!” My temper rises with the fear of what I might not be remembering. The person I've become in the years I can't recall.
Both his brows raise in disbelief, "Mr. Fomori, anything you tell me in confidence is just between us. This charade, while believable, is unnecessary. Save it for them."
I swear to fucking god I can feel my blood boiling. My cheeks heat with fury at the insinuation that I'd fucking fake this shit.
I bite through my teeth at him, "I'm tied to a fucking hospital bed with nothing but a sheet covering me. I woke up with a glorified strawinsideof my body and I haven't worn any fucking underwear inweeks. Tell me in what fucking world you think I'd be doing all of that by choice."
He looks at me sideways, "In a world where the alternative is the state calling for your death by lethal injection."
All the heat building in my face leaves as quickly as it came, leaving me cold all over, with my heart pounding in an unsteady rhythm, echoing in my ears.
"Death penalty?" I mutter. "What could I have possibly done to warrant that?"
"Between you and I, I don't think it's a matter ofwhatyou've done but towhom," he assures me. "You don't know anything about the Morrison robbery? What about Chance Michelson?”
"Never heard of either of them."
“Back in September, there was an attempted robbery at a weapons warehouse. Authorities managed to stop it, but they believe you to be involved. And Chance is—wasa very influential talking head in the community. A pillar of philanthropy, a beloved son," hedrones on about this person's contribution to society until my ears nearly bleed.
"I get it, he was a fucking angel," I struggle against the straps, pins and needles breaking out across my forearm from the tight fit. "What does he have to do with me?"
"Someone fitting your M.O. killed him about a month before you were found beaten nearly to death at your house,” he explains, holding up a picture of my own bruised and bloodied face, swollen and disfigured. Not that I needed the reminder, the scar along the back of my head still throbs.Blunt force trauma. Likely a baseball bat, the doctor said.
But what really sticks out to me, more than my horrendous photograph, is the wording he used. "My MO?"
"Your modus operandi. Excuse me, your alleged MO. The method of murder they believe you to be responsible for," he grabs another photograph, holding it far closer to me than I ever hoped to see this kind of graphic horror. "See there? On the under side of both arms, cut deep enough to hit the brachial artery, but at such an angle that the flesh of the arm falls, creating the illusion of-"
"Wings," I finish for him, staring at the crime I supposedly committed. There's no denying that a monster did this to this man. A methodical, calculated monster. The slices are nothing short of pristine, cutting away a slab of underarm until it lies flat against the concrete beneath him, leaving bone and sinew exposed, turning both arms into bloodied wings.
There's no other sign of struggle on the body where it's been laid on the ground. Not even a bruise on the face to signify a fight. There's no way to have done this without some form of sedation.
"Were there drugs in his system?" I ask.
"So you do remember?" my lawyer raises a brow, tucking the evidence away.
