Ten minutes ago?
That doesn’t even make sense. “It wasn’t him! He was helping. No,it wasn’t him,” I sob, falling to my knees, any lingering strength completely gone. “Don’t! Why are you doing this?”
My vision tunnels as they drag Kade to his feet and guide him to a patrol car. The night fills up with bodies and commands, all of them moving around me as if I’m a piece of evidence instead of a person.
The only thing I can see is Kade, though. I struggle against the cop and dart toward the car, screaming at them to listen to me. It doesn’t help that he’s now covered in flour. That’s my fault.
“He didn’t do it,” I say, taking a step forward.
My shoe slides in wet flour. An officer catches my arm, and I jerk away so hard I nearly fall. “Don’t touch me!”
She lets go, palms up. “Okay. Easy. I’m trying to help.”
“You’re not listening! That man,” I hiccup, pointing toward the corner with a hand that shakes so badly I don’t know if anyone can tell where I mean. “There was a man by the bins. He grabbed me. He said my name. Kade came out and stopped him.”
The officer glances past me at Kade, then at my face. Her expression doesn’t give away much but she clearly just thinks I’m confused.
“He said my name,” I repeat. “He knew my name.”
“Can you sit down for me?” she asks.
“No,listen to me.”
The officer reaches for me again, but this time I go because there’s no use fighting it. I have too many questions and no answers, the one person I’ve been pining after now being driven to the station after helping.
“He was protecting me,” I say one more time.
Skylar
The coffee machine at Ansdale’s main station is making a sound that suggests it’s either preparing one last cup before death or trying to communicate with something inside the walls. I stand in front of it with a paper cup waiting beneath the spout, one hand braced on the counter and the other on my hip, watching the little red light blink like it’s mocking me personally.
After six weeks back in this city, I know better than to expect kindness from the machinery, but there’s something uniquely offensive about begging an appliance for caffeine at the end ofan unremarkable shift and being answered with a wet grinding noise that belongs in a medical malpractice deposition.
Reyes pauses in the breakroom doorway with a file tucked against her chest, her face set in the expression she reserves for me when she’s decided I’m being ridiculous but doesn’t have the energy to rescue me from myself. “There’s a fresh pot in booking,” she says, already sounding like she regrets participating in whatever this is.
“There’s a brown liquid in booking,” I tell her, still watching the machine. “Until a lab confirms it contains at least one coffee-adjacent molecule, I won’t be repeating department propaganda.”
She comes in anyway, moving around me to rinse out her mug. “You know, if you stopped drinking it, you wouldn’t have to keep acting betrayed.”
“That’s exactly what it wants. Once we normalize giving in to hostile equipment, society falls apart. Today it’s the coffee machine. Tomorrow, the printer unionizes.” I tap the side of the machine with two fingers, and the sound inside shifts to something lower and more threatening. “See? It heard me.”
Reyes’s mouth twitches for half a second before she gets herself under control. “You need to go home after this.”
I glance back at her, offended by the accuracy of her concern. “Iamgoing home after this.”
“You’re going to say that, then you’re going to finish one supplemental, recheck the Wilkes file, and stare at your phone like Caldwell is going to text you the meaning of life from the task force room.”
“That’s unfair. I’d settle for the meaning of the Hex thread and a usable coffee recommendation.” The machine finally spits a thin stream into my cup, smelling burnt enough to count as a crime scene, but I lift it anyway because standards are the firstcasualty of overtime. “Besides, Hunter Caldwell is a treasured colleague and former partner, not a mystical oracle.”
Reyes leans against the counter and gives me a long look. “The Hex case is still going to be there in the morning, Skylar. Your desk will also still be a disaster, but that part is between you and whatever god you angered.”
I take a careful sip, immediately regret having a tongue, and decide dignity is overrated. “My desk is not a disaster. It’s a living archive with trust issues.”
She takes that as the natural end of the conversation, which is rude but probably wise, and leaves me alone with my hostile beverage and the hum of the breakroom lights. The station has settled into its late-night rhythm.
Ansdale’s main station always smells like old files, disinfectant, damp coats, and coffee no sane person should willingly consume, but there’s comfort in that kind of ugliness. It’s easier to trust a place that doesn’t pretend to be polished.
When I left, I told myself it was timing, opportunity, and work. Coming back should’ve felt like choosing something. Most days, it feels more like returning to a room where everyone else kept talking after I walked out.
