“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said.“We’re going to have a conversation.I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer them.If I don’t like what you say, I’m going to break one of your fingers.”
I slammed the cabinet door again to demonstrate.The bang shot through the room.Jordan flinched, and another of those desperate little noises slithered out of him.
“You can’t,” he whispered.
“I can.And I will.And when we’re done, you’re going to tell the nice people at the hospital that you slammed your hand in your car door.It happens all the time, Jordan.They won’t even blink.”
“But you’re a police officer.”It had a strangely childlike quality to it.
I smiled and nodded.“I am.But not a very good one.Now come over here.If you make me chase you, I’m going to hurt you, and that’s going to be harder for you to explain.”
It was like a lot of things with people.Like how if you’re at their front door and start to let yourself inside, most of the time, they won’t stop you.Like how they’ll get in the back of a cruiser even if they’re not under arrest.The good citizen gene.The pack animal mentality.Go along to get along.If I’m nice and play by the rules, everything will be okay, until some psycho blows you up with a bomb.When people don’t know what to do, they revert to default and do what they’re told.
But ten seconds passed.And then twenty.
“All right,” I said.
I took a step.
Jordan flinched backward, but he recovered quickly.Before I could process what was happening, he grabbed a bottle from the table and chucked it at me.I brought my arms up reflexively to block it, and the bottle hit my arm and fell to the floor.
“Big fucking mistake—” I began.
But Jordan threw another bottle while I was still speaking.I shielded myself again, and this one hit my hand.The impact was sharp and buzzing, and then my hand went numb.
“Stay away from me!”Jordan screamed.
He threw a mug this time, and it hit my shoulder.
Those first few seconds of surprise had kept me motionless.Now, I charged forward.Jordan retreated, throwing whatever came to hand—the TV remote, a phone charger, a fucking Yankee candle.A bottle of brown glass whizzed past me and shattered against the wall.
The crash of breaking glass.
The darkness.The smell of that tiny, shitty little storeroom.The way my body had felt, loose and warm and hungover, my hand sweaty on the grip of my gun.
Light blooming.
It was a trick of memory.They told me I couldn’t have possibly seen the light.They said there was no way I’d seen the shards of glass spinning through the air, edges glinting.
And then I was back in Jordan’s apartment, breathing raggedly—gulping air, shaking, burning up like I was on fire because my body was craving oxygen and unable to get enough.Jordan was staring at me, confusion and fear battling on his face, another empty hanging from one hand as he tried to decide whether to throw it.How long, I wanted to ask.A few seconds.Maybe even less.Long enough for him to see, though.
“You stupid piece of shit,” I said and charged.
The bottle caught me on the side of the head.It was like gasoline thrownon my panic—my eye, a part of me screamed—but I kept moving.The bottle didn’t break.It hit the floor behind me with the muffled clink of solid glass.
By the time I reached Jordan, he’d found a shoe.He swung it at melike a club.
I batted it out of his hand.When he swung bare fisted at me, I slapped him.He staggered, and I grabbed his hair and yanked him off-balance in the other direction.I kicked his feet out from under him, and when he landed on his knees, I slapped him again.My hand came away with a red streak, and more blood was smeared across his cheek.His lip had split, and now blood ran toward his chin.
“You stupid, cowardly piece of shit,” I said.“I’m not your candy-ass boyfriend.”I twisted my hand in those stupid fucking blond curtains until he screamed.“You can’t hide!You can’t run away and hide!”For a moment, I was in that other place again: the warmth of the light rising, the spin of glass.I heard myself, heard the words that didn’t make sense, tried to think, It’s not her.He’s not her.But it was like catching the tail of a kite, and I could barely hold on.“I’m not a dumb kid you can stab in the back.You want to fuck around?Let’s fuck around.”
Blood from his split lip dripping from his chin onto that fucking Freddy’s T-shirt.Jordan stared up at me, dazed.
I took out my phone and turned on the voice recorder.Then I said, “Detective Gray Dulac of the Wahredua PD.It’s June thirtieth, twenty-twenty-one, uh—” I found the clock on the microwave.“—eleven fifty-one A.M.,talking to Jordan, uh—” It came back to me through the red haze.“—Hodge.Jordan Hodge.”I released Jordan.My hand was aching, my fingers stiff.I’d pulled out a few strands of hair, and they clung to me.I wiped my hand on my pants to get them off.“Now tell everybody why you killed Tip, and how you did it, and why you put him in my fucking bed.Tell them everything.”
Jordan’s head wobbled.His eyes filled slowly with tears.He shook his head.
“Tell them,” I said.
