Page 19 of Little Author

I didn’t remember running out of the bar.

Just the sound of glass shattering behind me, the sharp burn of gin and whiskey in the air, and the moment Roux’s eyes caught mine as the bottles fell from the shelf and everything came crashing down.

He didn’t scream.

Didn’t yell.

Just watched me.

Even as the wall of alcohol collapsed onto him, even as I turned and bolted into the night with blood on my thighs and the taste of him still clinging to my tongue.

I didn’t go home.

Home didn’t feel safe anymore. Home had his smell in the floorboards.

I opened my phone and scrolled through my saved contacts with shaking fingers. They slipped off the screen twice before I found it. The cop from that night. He had given me his business card, and I had put it in my phone for emergencies. Never dreaming I’d be calling him, the ‘Asshole Rozzer.’

I hadn’t spoken to him since that night I saw the crime scene, stole Roux’s button, and got caught.

He wasn’t nice. He was grumpy and suspicious of me from the jump.

He was a good cop. Maybe not the city’s standards, but I knew deep down he had to care.

He had asked questions. He genuinely seemed upset that they missed the drain.

Without talking myself out of it. I hit call.

He answered on the second ring.

“Canton speaking. Who’s this?”

My voice cracked before it even came out. “I-I need help. I don’t—God, I think I’ve done something horrible.”

A pause. “Where are you?”

“I can’t go to the station. Please. Can I just…Can I come to you?”

Another pause. Longer this time.

“Text me the cross street,” he said. “I’ll come get you.”

I didn’t want to tell him where I was. I needed to run, to get farther from Roux. Farther from my damning thoughts of turning back around to help him.

But instead, I told him.

And I ran with tears in my eyes.

Because I knew Roux would catch me. I just didn’t know if I wanted him to this time.