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Mendez’s gaze flicked toward the one-way glass on the side wall. “Are you saying you believe his actions were justified?”
“I’m saying he’s a hero,” I said, louder than I meant to. “Not a criminal.”
The room went quiet.
I felt my father shift behind me.
“Hallie Mae,” he said slowly, the way he did when he was trying to bring the conversation back to somethingsafer. “We don’t always know what’s in a man’s heart, just ‘cause of one action. This was still a killing. That’s not something we ought to celebrate.”
I turned in my seat to look up at him. “I’m not celebrating it, Daddy. I’m saying I’m alive because of it.”
His jaw tightened.
“I know it’s hard to understand,” I said more softly now. “Believe me, I’ve wrestled with it, too. Still am. But I saw that angry man. I saw what he was going to do. And I saw the one who stopped it. Maybe he’s not who we expected. Maybe he doesn’t fit in a pew. But he did what needed to be done.”
From somewhere behind the glass, I thought I heard the soft scrape of a chair moving. Or maybe I just imagined it.
But I hoped he’d heard me.
Dane.
Whoever he was.
Whatever he was.
He wasn’t the villain in this story. He was the reason it didn’t end in a funeral. Or many.
Daddy didn’t speak again. He just placed a firm hand on my shoulder and squeezed once—tight, conflicted, but there. And I knew that meant he wouldn’t argue with me anymore. Not tonight.
I turned back toward the officers. “If you’re looking to charge him with something, I’ll testify. I’ll say exactly what I just told you. On the record. In front of a judge, if I have to.”
Deputy Mendez gave me a long, unreadable look. Then she nodded. “Understood.”
But the truth was already out. And part of me—maybe the reckless, burning part that still rememberedthe heat of his mouth and the weight of his stare—hoped he knew.
I wasn’t just grateful.
I was on his side.
Even if I didn’t understand why.
Even if I wasn’t sure where it would lead.
I just knew one thing—that man had saved my life. And heaven help me, I didn’t want him to disappear.
6
NOAH
They’d thrown me in a solo cell after I turned the holding pen into a goddamn triage unit. Swastika and Busted Nose hadn’t stood a chance. I’d watched with a lazy grin as the guards carted them off to the hospital, one clutching his shattered wrist, the other wheezing through a throat I’d half-crushed.
Blood still stained the concrete where I’d smashed Swastika’s face into the bars, a dark smear glinting under the flickering lights. The third guy, the junkie, hadn’t even twitched—just sat there, muttering to himself like I was a ghost he didn’t want to piss off. Smart move.
The cops figured I was better off alone after that. Fine by me. I didn’t need company—just a slab of steel to crash on and the hum of my own thoughts to drown out the world.
The cell was a shithole: rusted bunk, cracked walls, a toilet that smelled like it’d been fermenting since the ‘70s. Didn’t matter. I’d slept in worse—sandpits with scorpions, jungle floors with snakes, rooftops where thewind howled like it wanted to rip your skin off. This was nothing.
I stretched out on the bunk, boots still on, and let the exhaustion hit me hard. Sleep came fast, deep, and black, like I’d been shot up with morphine.