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“You want to spare her life… Care to guess what she’d do with yours?”

Needler frowns at me. I rarely come in twice in one day.

“She’s demanding you be handed over,” I say, and watch him process this slowly. Irritated by the lack of reaction when the station has been in a tizzy about this revelation for the last two hours, I press, “Care to venture a guess why ?”

“What’s the point? You aren’t going to hand me over.”

“She’d kill you,” I say flatly.

Tristan only shrugs. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps?” I breathe. “What else could she do? You’re a threat to her and the little army of basement dwellers she’s racking up! Plus, you killed Caleb, her tutor, and just about everything else to her! If she doesn’t want you in here, locked away from her, that’s the only alternative.”

Lips tightening briefly, Tristan tilts his head. “Aren’t I marked for death, anyway?”

I stiffen, some of my bravado dissipating. “No…”

“Eleanor. You have my confession. Multiple murders, premeditation, torture. Of course I am.”

I blink, stepping back. To hear it from him makes it feel real, like it could actually happen. Sooner than later. “Tawill has agreed to delay your transfer again. We can give you leniency, we can get you just a life sentence…”

He scoffs. I step up, slamming my hand on the glass, leaving it there. “You need to save your own life!”

“Why? What’s it worth?” The flatness, the acceptance in his voice, scares me. “Maybe more if you hand me over to her. But that’s not how you do things.”

My hand slides down. “What about her? She could as easily be sentenced the same way.”

Tristan dismisses this, half-turning away. “She’ll choose life. Most murderers will claim not guilty to save themselves, and most lawyers can argue their way out of a death sentence.”

“Then you can choose life too! Tell us how to catch her!”

He stares at me. “Do you remember Sharna Wells?”

I shift. The woman who tried to shove cyanide down my throat in an old office building, the one who Needler saved me from right before we… I clear my throat. “What’s she got to do with this?”

“If she had lived,” he begins, diplomatically skirting the reality that he threw her out a window, “Would you have been more likely to kill her yourself, just because she’d intended you harm?”

“I would have had her arrested and justice served that way.”

He spreads his hands. “Exactly. Your stance didn’t change.”

I feel like pulling my own hair out. “For God’s sake Tristan! Why the loyalty to this madwoman? Don’t you have any respect for your own life? The sister you remember is not who she is now. Who she is now is Cocooner.”

“As much as I’m a different person to the boy she grew up with,” he says. “And she’s not so different.”

“So, she did show signs young?”

Needler’s eyes narrow on me. “How exactly did she ask for me to be handed over?”

My lips close. I don’t even know if I should have told him this much. “A poem,” I say tightly.

“ Which poem?”

I huff. I’m annoyed at him for not saving himself, for directing the conversation away from his own fate. “Would that have some significance? Even if it tells you exactly where she is, you’ve made your conditions clear.”

“Well,” he smirks. “We all need clear conditions, don’t we?”

Abruptly reminded of conditions I’d once set in our… relationship, my jaw clenches. He knows how to throw me, and it’s working. “We can do this with or without your help,” I declare, moving for the door.

“Better late than never,” he calls after me.

***

"Are you sure we shouldn’t postpone? With everything this week…” It’s been over a week since Cassandra's demand/request for Needler now, and all has been quiet. Tawill has relented, seeing the sense in keeping Tristan for now, and I can relax just slightly, knowing any sentencing will be a while off being carried out.

The protests and the vandalism that are disordered for now, with Conrad’s connections keeping him out of prison but under house arrest for what will likely be long enough for the rest of the city to settle. Either way, he can’t pull everyone together where he is, and given his state the last time I saw him, I doubt he’s in any condition to. I know as well as anyone that grief needs to be faced, or else it will rear its head in any way it can, anytime it can.

After my last talk with Tristan, I felt that call of drowning my sorrows for the first time in a long time. I fought it, and something tells me that’s it. If I do get any relapsed urges again, they’ll be milder.

I’ve come out the other side.

“No,” Dirk groans, for what is probably the fifth time, standing outside the bedroom door while I change. “Just don’t talk about today if it was that bad.”

“I can’t find something right to wear.”

“Wear that.”

“There’s bags under my eyes.”

“There isn’t. My mother isn’t the damn Queen, you know.” Dirk raises an eyebrow as I stand in front of him, wearing the most neutral thing I could find, which ends up being pale blue jeans and an olive-green top.

“I know I just… isn’t it too soon?”

Dirk is distracted from answering or even hearing my question, his hands coming to the small strip of skin visible on my waist, leaning his nose into my hair. “Hm, your ass looks great in these jeans. We could be a little late?”

“Absolutely not!” I declare, pushing past him and away from the danger zone of the bed. “I am not meeting your mother smelling like sex. Now, how long do you usually wait until you introduce a girl to her?”

Dirk sighs as though commonly rejected—which he is not—and takes my hand to pull me towards the front door, grabbing my jacket on the way. “Don’t know, haven’t taken anyone home before.”

I pull up so fast that he swings back around to face me. “Excuse me?”

“Well, unless you count my high school girlfriend. Which I don’t really…”

“None since then? But why?” I was hoping at least to be able to not be the worst, but when the pool is me and some teenager from fifteen years ago, I could very easily be the worst.

“You know why. I didn’t care about any of them that much.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Look, the feeling was—most of the time—mutual.” I pull a face, recalling one or two breakups where it apparently was very much not mutual. “I just never wanted to take them to meet my mother.”

“What’s different this time?”

“Fishing for a compliment?” He raises a cheeky eyebrow.

I click my tongue. “No. I’m asking. Why didn't it work out with your other relationships?"

"Come on, El..."

"Really! You're doing a good job, considerate, sweet… aside from all the terribly kinky and degrading sex…"

"…you love it…"

"Shut up. Aside from that, I can't see why you haven't worked this out before."

"They weren't you." I open my mouth and close it again. "I always knew who I really wanted. Trying to make something else work was a waste of time, in the end."

“Oh…”

Pulling me close by the hips, Dirk kisses me. “Relax, El. She’ll love you, okay?”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, there is one thing she just hates …”

“What?” I ask, eyes widening.

“People who show up late to meet her,” Dirk quips.

I groan. “Uh, you can’t tease me at a time like this!”

Laughing, he follows me out, pulling the door closed behind him.

***

May is, as it turns out, nothing like Caleb’s mother. She’s nothing like most people’s mothers, in fact. Appearing older than her years, she’s a tiny figure waiting on the porch for us when we arrive, one and a half hours drive out from the city in a small village pulled back from the freeway.

Dirk dwarfs her in a hug, even standing on the step below the landing, and I wring my hands behind him, waiting my turn to make some kind of good first impression as her teary eyes turn to me. “Eleanor!” she smiles, eye uncannily similar to Dirk’s locking on me as she holds her arms open. “Beautiful! I’ve heard so much about you.”

Her arms are skinny but strong as I lean into her embrace, finding even myself over a head taller. “Have you?” I ask awkwardly.

“Oh yes. Dirk’s been talking about you for years!”

“Ohhh-kay, time for tea,” Dirk interrupts quickly, before I can press on that, ushering us all into the rowhouse.

After some bustling around with a teapot, what ensues is a warm afternoon in a cozy living room, May in a rocking chair within reach of the couch, where she reaches occasionally to squeeze Dirk’s hand. Watching him, so gentle, so easy with her, I can’t help but smile through the whole thing.

Looking at me, May says, “You may have noticed that I’m a little more of a silver gal than most.” I had, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to comment on her age. “I had Dirk, my one and only child… quite late. You’d think I would have been a responsible parent.” She sips her tea while I have no idea what to say.

“It’s in the past, mum,” Dirk says by way of consolation.

“Well, I should have left your father the minute he did the only thing he was useful for.” I suppress a laugh as she winks at me. “And dropped the drugs, too. I wasn’t there for him very much as a boy, or a teen,” she confesses, then reaches, squeezing Dirk’s hand in her own pale, bony one. “Oh, the things you got yourself into…” Her eyes are teary again in that way of old ladies who’ve become in touch with emotions they spent their lives bottling up. “I’m just glad to be part of his life, despite all the things I didn’t do. And now I get to meet you too!”

“He’s a very good man,” I tell her, because that seems to be what she wants to hear.

A shaky smile, and she nods. “I’m so happy.” Shaking her head towards him, she adds, “I wish you would get a different job though, God! It sounds dangerous!” I wonder how much she knows about the Cocooner encounter. “You ought to get him out of it.”

“I’m in it too, unfortunately,” I say.

“Both of you! God, go somewhere hot. Get a dog, do the nice drugs. But not too much…”

Dirk pats her hand, diverting her, “Thanks, mum. Now, what’s for dinner?”

***

We stay up late, retreating in the early hours to a guest room that smells of lavender and geranium, the bed made up tighter than most hospital cots. Dirk and I squeeze under the sheets together, late, having stayed up long talking to May. She’s had one hell of a life, having known Tregam back in its glory days before Crennick was Crennick and the killers started their trade.

But there was a dark side even then, one she found, as evidenced by the scars she doesn’t hide on her elbows, her premature ageing, and the poor mothering she admits to doing.

“So, you’ve really forgiven her?” I ask softly, the dim glow from the streetlight casting his face in intersecting shadows.

Hand resting on my hip, Dirk asks, much too loudly in my opinion, “What? For being a drug ho?”

“Dirk!” I gasp. “You can’t say that about that sweet old lady…”

“For one, she’s not that old,” he reminds me. “And for another, she admits it. Yes, I’ve forgiven her.”

I settle a little. “I’m glad you made me meet her.”

“Different to Caleb’s, huh?”

Laughing, I roll onto my back, looking up at the blueish ceiling. “You could say that.”

“Must have convinced you I’m not him by now, right?”

Tilting my chin back towards him, I search the shadows of his eyes. He’s still on his side, facing me. I bite my lip. “I know you’re not him.” Both were cops, detectives—men I met at work. But really, that’s where the similarities end.

“But you still expect the same things sometimes. I can see it.”

“I know, I…”

“I’m not looking for an apology,” he cuts in, voice gentle. “If I have to spend every day for the rest of my life convincing you I’m not him, I will.”

My throat dries up. The rest of his… “I… thank you.” Feeling out of my depth, I snuggle my head up against his chest. “See? You can be sweet.”

“Mm, I’m truly a man of many skills,” he muses, though his voice is distracted now, hand finding my waist under these starched blankets. “Also, what the hell is this? Pyjamas ?”

“We’re in your mother’s house!” I hiss. “Of course I brought pyjamas!”

His fingers are already sliding up the buttons, flicking them open with impressive speed. “Uh-uh, this won’t do at all…”

I suppress my giggle as he somehow works the top open and off one shoulder under the blanket, his bare body leaning over mine, into mine. “Your mother is downstairs. If you think I’m letting you…”

He hums against my earlobe. “It’s alright. She takes her hearing aid out at night. You can make all the noise you want.”

“You’re actually the worst.”

His body is warm and hard in a very different way to this bed as he weighs against my chest, struggling to manoeuvre his wide shoulders under the tight spread. “Jesus, this bed is almost a bondage device all on its own.”

When he pulls the tie on the front of my bottoms, I clamp my hand around his wrist. “ No , Mr.”

“Shh,” he breathes against my cheek, the noise settling low in my belly before he finds my mouth in the dark, silencing any other recriminations as his tongue slides against mine.

I’m really just putting up token resistance at this stage, and he quells even that by catching both my hands with one of his and pinning them above my head, working my pants over my ass with his free hand. As his fingers slide over the curve, he lingers on the apex, brushing over me from the back. My breath hitches in my throat, and my hips jolt first away, then soften back down against his touch.

In a dark voice, Dirk murmurs, “Mm, you’re getting wet awfully fast for someone who says they don’t want to be fucked.” His teeth graze my jaw, sending shivers down through my chest. The sleeves of my top pull around my shoulders as he weighs on my hands.

“Well, I don’t,” I return, contrary to my voice, which is breathy, and my body, which arches into his hand as he cups me.

“Oh? How about… now?” And he slides a finger inside me, then two, slowly.

I can’t form words, but I make some noise to the contrary. I want him to force me, to take and leave me a heaving mess. And he knows it.

His hand leaves me, ripping my bottoms all the way off my feet and leaving me bare before his knee shoves between mine. Gasping, I try to bump my hips away, denying him the superior position, and a low noise in his throat precedes him leveraging his body on top of me, parting my legs roughly with his thick thighs. I feel his cock rest on my stomach, the head leaving a smear of precum. “Keep fighting me, I like it,” he growls in warning, hands tightening almost painfully on my wrists.

His words send a sharp bolt of electricity down to my thighs, centering where I’m tingling and aching at once. Capturing both of my hands once again, Dirk flicks his thumb over my nipple, the nub pulled taught and oversensitive to the stimulation from how he pins my arms. I swallow the noise that threatens to gasp from the back of my throat. “I liked that noise. Make it again,” he orders, low and dangerous.

I try not to, but when he pinches my nipple, rolling it between his finger and thumb, my mouth falls open. Fast enough to elicit a squeak from me, Dirk’s hand snaps up, catching my chin instead, thumb sliding between my lips and teeth. He’s salty against my tongue, and I bite down until he uses the hold to tilt my head up. “Now, not too hard. Be good.”

I feel so utterly open, exposed to him, at the mercy of his body and his desires, and I want more. My breath hisses out fast around his thumb, into his palm, my hips arching, finding the hard rod of him against my pubic bone. I suck his thumb and am rewarded by the sound of his breath faltering.

By his hips alone, he guides his cock against my opening, lingering there, almost tickling against my wetness as his head brushes me.

“Still don’t want it?” He tilts his lips against my ear.

My heel slides on the bed as I lift my hips towards him, inviting. And I shake my head.

“Mmm, good.”

Dirk thrusts into me, filling me so completely and so suddenly that I’m glad for his thumb in my mouth, as I’m sure the noise I make could wake up even the neighbours otherwise. My knee hitches over his hip, arms tense where he holds them still, and he presses deep inside me, sliding his thumb from my mouth. Lips brushing mine as he whispers, “Shh now,” again, against my mouth.

I think my eyes roll back in my head as he starts moving, grating against me, slowly at first, his soft curse sifting through my hair as he buries his face in the side of my neck. “Fuck, you’re so hot around me. That’s good, good girl, taking me so well…”

Whimpering, head tipped back, my lip is caught between my teeth as I suppress all the noises he knows I want to make.

I’m left deprived when he pulls out for long enough to put a condom on one-handed, never relieving his hold on my hands. He wants me pinned, helpless, almost as much as I want to be pinned and helpless. I could get my ire up that he’d planned to have sex tonight all along, evidenced by the presence of the condom, but I’m not even mad. And besides, right now, all I want is him back inside me.

The angle of him hits me again as he slides back deep, his thrusting immediately rubbing me on the inside and the out. It’s going to drive me mad. “Dirk, God, fuck…” I’m not sure what I wanted to say, but that’s what comes out.

“You want it now, huh?” there’s a sharpness to his voice, cruel, on his own edge, which makes me tighten around him.

“Yes, yes, yes,” I’m gasping, forgetting it all, the noises I can’t make, the game we were playing, as the promise of orgasm looms.

His movements roughen, more needy as my legs widen, hips jolting up to meet him, forcing the climax to hit me. That’s his cue, at last, to release as well, breathing out a curse, thrusting harder and rougher into me, his free hand gripping my ass hard enough to bruise.

Pouring through me, his pleasure heightens my own, as his groans mingle with my cries of release. Everything falls away, and for these blissful moments, we’re conscious of nothing but each other’s body, the point where we’re connected.

We climax together, heightened by each other’s ecstasy, and come back down together in the afterburn of pleasure, still wrapped around each other, to fall asleep.

***