Page 38 of Sullied Saints

"Well, I'm here to answer them."

Syr folds his hands in his lap, looking closely at his subject with that discerning gaze he’s so known for emulating. "Shall we start from the beginning? We now know the Cocooner was formerly known as Olivia. What was your relationship with her?"

That question makes me feel sick. "There was none. She was the roommate of my partner. I'd seen her in passing only."

"I see. And now that we know the attacker to be a woman and not one who—by appearances—appears overly strong. There is the question ofhowshe got you tied up in that warehouse?"

Dirk lifts his chin, taking a breath before beginning. "She came to my apartment, having tracked my partner’s movements, and figured out where I lived sometime before that night."

"And then what?" Syr presses, gently, as is his manner, but there's something more in this interview. He wants to know, as much as he wants the drama, the ratings. I've walked up to the glass, staring at the TV.

"She was behaving distraught, saying things that made no sense to me, that my partner was kicking her out, that she'd attacked her in a drunken rage. I got her some water and told her to go to my spare room and sleep while I found my partner and figured it out." Here, Dirk shifts, the first sign that he might be uncomfortable. "Instead, she tried to seduce me." There's a pause, and the image cuts to Syr, a subtly raised eyebrow, the most shock or abhorrence he ever shows. "Insistently. I told her no, and when she persisted, I told her to get the fuck out." The bleep doesn't quite cover his curse.

I breathe for what feels like the first time in a full minute, the corner of my mouth lifting. I wonder how much media training they managed to jam into the minutes before this interview.

Syr clears his throat. "But she didn't."

"No." Here, Dirk’s gaze drops for the first time. "That was when she came up behind me. I'd turned my back."

"Chloroform, is that right? That’s the only part of your ordeal that’s been made known to the public."

"That’s right. I thought it could be pertinent to finding her or warning people about that method."

"Did you know then what was happening?" Syr asks, empathy rich in his voice.

"No," says Dirk. "I didn't know until… I woke up."

"Tell me about that," Syr says. The man used to be a psychiatrist, and it shows at moments like this, the unflappability combined with questions that are just prying enough.

"It wore off earlier than she expected. In the warehouse, my hands were tied, but my feet were still free. That’s when I knew."

"Why were your feet free?"

"She likes her victims naked. She was trying to get my jeans off," Dirk says flatly, belying the slight drawing back of Syr. My vision blurs, and I realise I’m crying.

"I tried to attack her, but I was woozy, confused. Chloroform doesn't just wear off all at once. I didn't get her well enough. She was able to restrain me, fully this time."

"Then what happened?"

"Then…" Dirk shifts slightly. And here, his voice comes the closest to breaking it will this whole interview. "She tortured me."

The silence around me seems to expand. Not just this room, this building, but the whole city. If I've stopped breathing again, I don't notice.

Even Syr seems not to have an immediate next question lined up. Dirk's wounds were never publicised, privately his to bear. And those wounds, the dozens of tiny cuts, were never found on any other bodies. People thought they knew the extent of how screwed up Cocooner was. "Tortured you?"

Dirk takes a long, even breath. "Yes."

"Why?" Syr asks, and I have to respect that he doesn't jump immediately tohow.

Shrugging, Dirk's gaze drops. "Because I'd made her bleed, or because I scared her just that little bit. Maybe she didn't take rejection well." He doesn't say the other possibility—that it was because of me, because of his connection to me and my life. I sway a little. "She's a psychopath. I can't know her reasoning. But she made me bleed."

"Made you bleed?"

And here, I know what he's going to do, even though I don't want him to do it, to give that part of himself away. But I see why now, why he's there. We've all forgotten the real enemy, and this is bringing her back out of the shadows, out of dark web forums and shadowy buildings the media tries to stick their cameras into. Away from landing on my head.

Standing now, Dirk is shrugging out of his jacket, revealing a long-sleeved sweater underneath. The camera pulls back as he takes the sweater off too, brushing his hair off his face before straightening up.

Then, the camera is close again, and he's shirtless, the scars still recent enough to be red. More than a dozen of them stand out, up his arms, all the way to the front of his shoulder, edging onto the side of his chest. The longest one cuts across his armpit, jagged for the way such stretchy skin heals. As he turns the inner side of his arms forward, more are revealed, worse, clustering around his wrists and the pale crook of his elbow.

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