“That’s unfortunate,” she mutters. “But relevance?”
There it is—the lawyer coming through. Calm. Controlled. I watch her hands beneath the blanket. They aren’t tense, but they aren’t still either. Her fingers move subtly, like she’s thinking rather than reacting.
“The substance that knocked him out,” I continue evenly, “was fast-acting, but it wasn’t lethal.”
Rowan shifts slightly, adjusting the blanket. A small, controlled movement. I take that to mean she’s done lying.
Her lips press together, just briefly. She looks at me like she’s weighing something. Perhaps how much truth she thinks I can handle.
I soften my voice, just a fraction. “What did you want to happen to him, Rowan?”
Her head snaps up. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t reduce this to a sound bite,” she hisses. “You don’t get to ask that question like it exists in a vacuum.”
“I asked.”
“And I heard you.” Her hands move beneath the blanket now, restless, sharp movements she doesn’t bother to hide. “But you’re framing it like I sat there wishing for a specific ending. Like this was a fantasy. It wasn’t.”
“Then tell me what it was.”
She laughs once—short, humourless. “It was years of watching nothing happen. It was reports buried, complaintsignored, people choosing not to see because seeing is too much work.”
Her voice rises despite herself. She stops, reins it in, then fails again.
“You want to know what Iwanted?” she snaps. “I wanted the noise in my head to stop. I wanted him to stop walking around like he was untouchable.”
“That’s still not an answer.”
Her eyes flash. “Because you won’t like the answer.”
“Try me.”
Silence. Taut. Breathing loud in the space between us.
Then, through clenched teeth—“I wanted him to stop.”
“That’s vague.”
She jerks forward slightly, anger breaking loose now. “Because there is no clean version of this. There’s no checkbox where I get to saythis much harm, no further. I didn’t want him dead. I didn’t want him forgiven. I wanted him interrupted.”
The word comes out hard. Deliberate.
Her chest rises and falls once, twice.
“I wanted the pattern to break,” she continues, voice low and shaking now. “I wanted him scared enough to make mistakes. I wanted people to look at him—really look—and not be able to look away again.”
She looks at me, eyes bright, furious, unrepentant.
“So don’t ask me what I wanted like it was that simple,” she bites out. “It wasn’t.”
“You knew it would rattle the dean.”
Her jaw tightens. “He’s been rattled for a long time.”
“You knew he’d push,” I continue. “Dig. Try to contain it.”
