Page 37 of Sullied Saints

"We can blame them for locking up the wrong guy. You could be helping us! Tell us the code, and this can all be over. Then, once you’re out, you deal with Cocooner. Then you can go free. Wherever you want. We’ll give you the means."

What 'over' means for me seems plain. "What have you done with the security, the cleaners who were out there?" I cut in.

"They're alive." I guess that’s the best we can ask for right now. And it’s all we’re getting. Conrad crosses his ankle over his knee, comfortable to wait out whatever comes this way. Glancing at his crowbar-wielding lackey, he says, “Tell the others we’ll be here longer than expected.” The man nods, stepping for the door, but Conrad catches his arm. “Remember what I said, we’re not here to vandalize cases. No evidence room, no destruction.” This time, the man leaves.

Conrad straightens his shirt like a politician, and the wait begins.

It could be an hour that passes, or three. I feel I’m about to chew right through my lip, every sound and shout upping my anxiety. While I sit on the bed, Tristan stays near the glass, leaning on the wall. Sighing, needing to do something with myself other than imagine them breaking through the glass, I step up to him, keeping my voice low. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry you’re in here. And I shouldn’t have hesitated before.”

He glances at me, eyes sparkling. “What did you think I’d do to you?”

I look away. “I don’t know. You can be… unpredictable.”

“You’re scared of me,” Tristan surmises, and I’m shocked to see that fact surprises him. “Think I can’t be trusted?”

I spread my hands. “You are a murderer,” I point out.

Gaze dropping, he keeps his arms crossed, but I see the slight tightening in his shoulders. All this, the cell, the high security, keeping him out of sight of almost everyone… it’s all fear. And maybe he thought that of everyone, I at least wouldn’t be afraid of him. But I am, because I don’t and never have understood him. Is that what he’s looking for? To be understood?

Conrad’s voice breaks my train of thought, and kills whatever lame reassurances I was about to try and give that Tristan surely would have seen straight through. "You saved her, and putting you in here is how she thanks you…" He’s frowning like he simply wants an explanation.

"Exactly, I saved her,” Tristan says, shifting his attention from me. “What makes you think I'd throw her to wolves now?"

Conrad’s mouth closes. To me again. "You could have told us something. Youknewthere would be more. You think we're too stupid to work it out for ourselves, that we need to be fed it by the fucking talking heads."

"We were trying to avoid this exact situation! You think you're harming Cocooner right now by raiding the precinct? You're fighting the wrong side."

Conrad frowns at me, then looks at Tristan. "Have you seen what’s happening out there since you’ve been locked away? Have they told you? No, of course they haven’t." Conrad murmurs to one of his lackeys, and a minute later, they're rolling a TV in from one of the disused rooms, plugging it in to turn to the news channels.

Even to me, who’s been seeing the riots all this time, the first images on the screen are dire. Burning buildings, mobs on the street, and sirens blaring to little effect among it all. A shaky camera follows someone throwing a bottle through a shopfront, and fire blazing out shortly after. Another one watches a woman being beaten with police batons, already on the ground and seemingly motionless. The sharp rapport of a gun sounds in the background, then more, popping like fireworks.

Now, we’re given a helicopter view over the station. I imagine I can hear it in real-time, hovering over the maroon roof of the precinct and the mass of featureless heads outside, crowding the street in a way that reminds me of a zombie flick. It’s two months of violence and vandalism all congealing into now, something Tregam might never crawl back from.

Needler stares at the screen, then looks slowly back at me with a look like,What the fuck happened?

I cringe. He guessed there would be protestors outside the station. I don't think he thought it had been this bad, the support behind him so great.

Abruptly, the imagery cuts away from the aerial views of what, for all intents and purposes, looks like a city in the deep throes of war, back to the neat, blonde newscaster. "An exclusive interview just in, watch Syr Evan live as he interviews the only person to haveintimateknowledge of the infamous Cocooner."

I frown, stepping forward. Who is she talking about? The footage rolls over to a quiet, tasteful room, darkly lit except for where two people sit facing each other on soft blue armchairs. One of the men is Syr, all combed back silver hair, and a perfectly pressed but somehow also casual-looking suit. And the other…

"Dirk!" I gasp.

My stomach lurches while he looks directly at the camera and introduces himself. What the hell is he doing there? Andnow, of all times?

"Detective Dirk Lancaster, you've said you’re ready to talk about your experience?" Syr asks in his calm, honeyed tones.

Dirk doesn't fidget, doesn't show any outward sign of nerves. But he must know everybody is watching, having been practically frothing at the mouth to know what really happened that night. They've made him up for the interview, brushed his hair so that it sweeps back glossy and wavy. Though they must have done it fast. "Yes."

"You are the only victim to have survived a Cocooner attack," Syr is saying. He knows we already know; he just wants to build the anticipation. "That must have been quite the experience. Being at the mercy of the most prolific killer in Tregam's history."

"That’s right."

Everyone here and I suspect, elsewhere with a TV turned on, has fallen to silence, watching.

No. Not like this, Dirk. What is he thinking? There's a riot going on, and he's giving away his privacy, telling a story he’s not ready to share, that still has him waking up at night in a cold sweat. They will only want more, they always do.

"The public has had many questions."

---