Detained

00.

❝Now, It's the Beginning❞
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"This is the easiest and safest choice we can make."

Tears gathered in Moira's eyes and blurred her vision before the salty drops finally broke free, sliding down her cheeks and leaving its trace on her skin before they stopped at the duct tape covering her lips.

The choice was easier and safer, but it wasn't the choice she wanted to choose. Moira squeezed her eyes shut and let more hot tears fall. She was being selfish by thinking only of her feelings and how this whole ordeal would affect her, and here they were, thinking of her safety and freedom instead of their own.

The braided and twisted rope that irritated her skin and looped tightly around her torso and arms, was nothing compared to the pain of them leaving her. Moira looked between the two of them as her russet brown eyes searched their faces for any sign of reluctance or second thoughts, but all she was met with was firm conviction.

"It has to be another way," she croaked, her words muffled from the duct tape and her voice coming out as muddled hums, "we can think of something else; anything but this."

He winced at her somber tone before shaking his head. His eyebrows furrowed and his lips formed into a grim, straight line. "No," he simply spoke as he stared down at her, "Don't make this harder than it has to be. The body speaks for this whole situation," he broached, pointing in the exact spot Moira tried to evade looking at.

Reluctantly, Moira moved her gaze to the pale figure that lay still in the entrance of her living room. The body didn't move and the sight of its glazed and empty eyes sent chills down her arms. The silence in the room made the gory scene more surreal as the crimson pool and splatters of blood beside the corpse slowly began to darken.

Moira looked away as bile began to bubble in her stomach before she gasped it back down. She looked back at the man and boy, and her eyes teared up once again before all three of them heard it; sharp, slow and clear.

Police sirens.

The man and boy looked at one another, a silent confirmation passing between them before the boy grabbed their belongings and slowly moved over to Moira's restricted state.

His arms wrapped around her shoulders and he settled his head in the crook of her neck, an unexpected warmth gracing her. "I wish it could've been different," he said, a small sniffle following after, "but shit never goes the way you want it...", the words trailed off and Moira found herself smiling despite feeling that familiar sting behind her eyes.

The boy pulled away, clutching tighter to the bags in his hands before he brushed past the man and exited out of the back door of her home. Then, it was just the two of them, hazel eyes staring back into hers, and for a second, the woman and man wished time could stop.

"I'm not a fuckin' mush," he suddenly spat, breaking the silence and startling her, "being romantic is at the very bottom of my list, okay? But I need you to know—", the sirens cried out louder as they grew nearer, and Moira could see the panic begin to appear in his features.

"Go," she mumbled, finally accepting the change of events. They couldn't stay, and she couldn't go with them—it was the deal breaker that she dreaded but had to accept.

He smacked his teeth as he heard screeching tires and the loud sirens from the police cars finally outside. Glancing outside, he watched the boy throw their belongings over the backyard's fence before hoisting himself up and jumping over with their things. Swiftly, the man bent down to Moira's level and cupped the back of her neck. His lips began to move as he spoke, but she couldn't hear what he was saying from the loud banging on her front door and the sirens wailing away.

Though it was quick, Moira's heart fluttered as he pressed a rough kiss to her forehead, quickly pulling away afterwards and rushing past her to the back door before he fled out of her home. Out of her life.

Even as the police officers came barreling in, taking in her restricted state and the dead body in the entrance of her house, Moira could still feel his thick, chapped lips pressing against her forehead. She closed her eyes and breathed.

I love you too.

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