Eighteen

I wrap my hands around the cup of coffee that I'm offered, smiling in thanks. It's warm beneath my trembling fingers, the heat a distraction from the cold room I've been sitting in for the last hour. I was allowed to get washed up; a very drab tan uniform given to me to replace my ruined clothing. I haven't been officially questioned yet, haven't done anything but sit and resist the urge to chew my fingernails.

Please let Rhys be okay.

The seconds tick away on the clock to my right, the noise scratching along my eardrums as I wait for the ball to drop. Wait for everything to come crashing down. It's only a matter of time now.

The same detective from before enters the room, her back stiff as she smiles at me, smoothing out her crisp white button-up. Her kindness feels forced as she sits across from me, her fingers gently setting a manilla folder onto the metal table between us. "I'm Detective Porter. I don't believe I mentioned that before."

Sipping my coffee, I shake my head in agreement with her statement, the bitter aftertaste making my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth.

Detective Porter's nails lightly drum along the folder as she watches me. "Your name is Hadley, isn't it?"

My back stiffens at the mention of my name, knowing I haven't said it once since being brought in, but I nod, my fingers gripping my paper cup tighter.

"Do you know what happened to Kyler? Why was he at your house?" It's asked casually as she leans back in her seat, her eyes flicking to the two-way mirror on the wall to our left.

I shrug and the cup in my hands shifts, a tiny bit of coffee splashing up and over the rim. "He came to visit and then…" I shudder a breath in my chest and cast a long gaze at the mirror. "It all just went black. I don't know." I look back at her face, feeling a tear work its way from my eye. "I don't know what happened."

She watches me for a moment, her emerald eyes glinting in the bright, buzzing overhead lights. After a moment, she opens her file, and my lungs catch on the flattened origami butterfly she pulls out with delicate fingers. It's a dusty pink, the folds of its wings crisp and pointed. My heart thuds as she holds it up, admiring it for a second before placing it on the tabletop between us. My fingertips burn to touch it, to feel the texture of the paper, but I resist, keeping my hands wrapped around my cup.

"Have you heard of the Butterfly Killer?"

I feel her eyes on me as I stare at the little butterfly, but I don't look up. "A little here and there on the news."

"Only heard of him? You haven't seen him?" My eyes flick up to her face at her tone. "Not even tonight?"

I study her a moment, moving my cup to the side so that I can rest my hands in my lap. "No."

My hand is reaching toward the butterfly, my eyes back on the pretty piece of paper when her voice cuts in, pausing my movements. "I don't think you're telling me the truth." My eyes cut to her, my fingers curling into my palm. "We found this butterfly in your house. And we know you had a hand in killing Kyler." My mouth opens in a rebuttal, but she continues, "Now we have no reason to believe that the Butterfly Killer is more than one person, especially since you made the ph—"

"I didn't make the phone call," I interrupt her, watching her head tilt ever so slightly with confusion.

"What do you mean you didn't call in?"

I don't answer her, not right away, making her sit in the silence as I link my fingers over the table. "I didn't call it in." After a pause, I look at the two-way mirror. "You're not going to get the answers you're looking for."

She lets out a loud breath and ducks her head down for just a moment after I look back at her. "We don't have to be enemies here, Hadley. I just want to understand the situation. Why can't you talk to me?"

I turn my face to look at my reflection once more. "Even if I wanted to tell you, Detective Porter, I can't."

"This is a safe space, Hadley. It's just you and me here." She must see the disdain written on my face because she sighs. "Look, I know that you know who the Butterfly Killer is and maybe even where he is right now. Help me and I'll help you."

My eyes leave the two-way mirror, falling over the detective sitting across from me. She's staring at me expectantly, wishing for an answer I'm not going to give her anytime soon. Or ever. Her eyes drift toward the window, slowly coming back to land on me like she's unsure how to proceed.

She wants me to out Rhys, and that's just not something I'm willing to do.

"Do you know anything about rabbits, Detective?" She shakes her head, but I'm already talking before she's finished. "If a mother rabbit is stressed, hungry, bored, scared, or really many other frivolous things..." I pause, swiping my tongue over my bottom lip to relieve some of the dryness. "She'll eat her babies."

"If you're going to continue to waste my time, I don't see a reason for this talk." She starts to scoot her chair back and I lift my hands from the table, pausing her movements by crooking my finger at her in a come-hither motion.

She tilts her brows in confusion and casts a quick glance at the other officers through the paned mirror. She slowly rises from her chair, her palms flat along the steel surface of the table as she leans toward me. I stand and watch the rise and fall of her chest quickening with the action. Her body instinctively knows it should be wary as I lean forward, my cheek just skimming hers as my lips brush along her ear. "Some people are just born unsettled."

"Wha—"

Her voice is cut off as my hand clamps around her throat, my fingers digging into her soft pale flesh with such force my nails draw blood. I feed off her panic, squeezing harder as her hands grab at mine, her fingernails scratching my skin as she yanks on my arms. They always do that. Panic. There's probably a hundred different ways she could get out of my hold, but when that dark inky fear sinks in, they always lose all rational thoughts in their pathetic little heads.

I hear the shoes squeaking outside of the door, the shouts before they come bursting in, and I tighten my grip on the detective's throat, soaking up her terror for just a few seconds longer. The door bangs against the wall and I'm quickly ripped from the table and thrown backward, my head smacking roughly against the brick at my back. But I don't feel it. All my attention is on the detective and the bloom of pretty little bruises marring her creamy skin.

So fucking beautiful it makes me smile.

She would have made such a pretty, pretty butterfly.

The detective's eyes catch mine for just a moment, a brilliant shade of emerald green brimming with tears. She's coughing, her hand clutching her throat as she tries to regain her composure. I told her she wouldn't get the answers she was looking for. She should have listened.

I'm yanked to my feet by an officer, a pair of cuffs slapped onto my wrists. I have to know if they found Rhys or if he got away. "Did you find the man who made the phone call?"

I watch the rough swallow the detective pushes down, as she nods to the officer checking on her. He backs up and I'm shoved into my chair once more, this time, with an officer at my back. "If you mean the victim, Kyler—"

"I'm not talking about fucking Kyler." The metal of my cuffs ting against the tabletop as my hands tremble, growing angry with her answers.

"There wasn't another person there, a woma—"

"A man called you!" I scream, cutting off her sentence as my fists bang against the table. My heart is beating so quickly I'm starting to feel faint.

The detective holds her hands up, while the other officers step forward at my aggression. She slowly grabs the back of her chair, pulling it back to take her seat again. "I can see we're having a misunderstanding here, and I'm just trying to figure out the facts. You say there was another man there?" I grit my teeth as she looks at the officer next to me then back.

My eyes flit around the room, my chest rising and falling at a pace that can't be healthy for someone at rest. Realizing I've said too much, I keep my mouth shut, silently berating my stupidity. I blink at her, my fingers squeezing tightly inside of my fists.

The detective gets up and opens the door to speak to someone in the hall. Moments after returning to her seat, there is a knock on the door, and an officer brings in what looks like a tape recorder. He sets it on the table in front of the detective and she nods to him with thanks before turning her attention back on me. "This is the recording of the call we got at the department earlier this evening." She presses play and before I can even think, the recording starts.

"77843 E Redburrow St., the Butter..."

I don't know what makes me do it, but something makes me launch forward to knock the recorder off the table, smashing it into the wall so it breaks apart into pieces. I reach out for the detective, screaming a war cry as I'm ripped back by my ankles. I can't hear that recording. I don't want to know who called. I don't need to hear it. I already know it was my Rhys.

It was Rhys, no one else.

My arms are pinned to my sides as I continue to scream, kicking the officer at my back in the shins. Jerking about, I break his hold, sprinting forward to grab at the detective once more. I'm knocked to the ground by an officer, my face smashed into the cold tile as I glare up at Detective Porter. Her eyes are wide as she watches me scrambling about and I can't stop the ugly, barking laugh that leaves my chest. This woman wants to stand there and tear apart my reality, pick at the core of my very existence but she is scared?

I'm fucking terrified.

I don't know who I am. I don't have certainty in my future. I am a broken, sad girl whose puppet strings have finally become so tangled, the only choice I have at untangling them is hacking at the frail strings with a cleaver. The one constant I have, the only person I have is on the brink of being ripped from me and I refuse to let it happen.

I refuse to let it happen.

"Do you know what it's like, Detective Porter?" I yell it from the floor, my words slightly muffled from the pressure the officer's forearm on my head is applying. "Do you know what it's like to be alone? To exist on this fucking floating rock and not have a single soul that gives a shit whether you live or die? From the moment I was conceived, I was branded insufficient. My oldest childhood memory is of my parents crying. Crying because they didn't know where they went wrong to get me for a child. I've had pills and antidepressants shoved down my throat ever since I could swallow a fucking pill because I was born broken. I needed to be fixed." The officer's forearm leaves my head and I'm yanked up to my knees. "And do you know what, Detective Porter?"

I'm allowed to stand, and she wipes a tear from her cheek, staring at me as I'm shuffled toward the doorway. "What?"

"They were right, Detective. I am broken. I do need to be fixed. I am unsettled." Spinning, I catch the officer at my back off guard, slamming the shard of metal that I'd picked up from the broken voice recorder into the side of the officer's neck. Blood sprays along the mint green of the wall as he scrambles to dislodge it, his mouth gurgling.

I vaguely hear the detective screaming in the background as a gunshot rings out, my shoulder searing with agony. "Don't kill her! Don't shoot! We need her!"

My face is slammed against the wall as I'm grabbed once more, my shoulder screaming in pain as they press their weight into me. I'm slapped with another set of cuffs on my legs as medics scramble toward the bleeding officer in the room. Being pulled up from the wall, I grimace, my eyes latching on to the detective as I'm pushed past her. I'm stomped through the hall in a blur of ugly mint green walls and metal gates, my arm and chest starting to go numb with white hot pain. I barely manage to read the label on the last entrance, Psychiatric Unit. People are howling through their doors as we pass, banging and bashing against the walls in a ravenous roar that makes my head pound.

I'm unceremoniously shoved into a room near the end of one of the hallways, my cuffed feet stumbling over themselves as I turn around to watch the officers at my back. One of them grabs my shoulder, digging the cuffs into the skin on my wrists, as I look down at the blood smeared across my hand.

"The staff doctor will come look at your gunshot wound in a bit. Try not to die before then," an officer says at the door, drawing my attention up as he slams it shut and glares at me through the small metal-lined screening window.

In answer, I spit at his face and raise my bloody hand to flip him off.