Run

Interrogate • 1

"DO YOU KNOW why you're here?" The man asked, inching his face closer and searching the prime suspect's eyes for some underlying hint that could confirm his suspicion. The hanging bulb above them was slowly giving away, and he could barely make out Kiera Cohen's features.

Her eyes remained lifeless. He could tell the gray, blank on the walls, the dying plant in the corner, and the old and tarnished one way mirror had reflected into the person he saw. She seemed like if the desolate room was going to cave in on her, she wouldn't care.

She had nearly given up.

There were no dark bruises on her face or evidence of dry tears. Since the last time he had seen her, a lethargic shadow replaced the way she would raise her head high and look at the person in front of her directly in the eye.

It seemed like years, but it was only weeks ago when he had come to her house for an informal investigation he was doing around the neighborhood regarding a missing woman.

Now that same woman laid in the morgue two halls down.

She met his stare and for some reason, he couldn't stand the sight of how soulless this young woman had become. He took a couple of steps back to pace slowly around her so he could avoid looking at her haunted features and collect his thoughts.

He had been in the field of criminology for about fifteen years and worked in a town with a little over two-hundred and fifty people. And he was sure more than half of East Vienna had come to this police station at least once.

It wasn't that the devil's children somehow were all raised here. It's because, as he believed, the devil itself lurked the alleys of this small town and showed its face once or twice every couple of years.

Detective Knowles' job was to make its visits as minimum as possible.

His best tactic was wielding the power of psychology. A criminal's mind was a maze of conflicting ideas and emotions with the potential to be untangled by a psychiatrist and weaved through to the finish line by a detective.

"Well, if you don't know that, did you know that people only commit crimes for five reasons?" He held up five fingers and she looked right through them as if she were a skull wearing a mask. "Love, money, revenge, power," he answered. There was no sign of acknowledgement. A loud slam on the table barely raised her eyelids.

"You said five," she spoke after a few moments of silence with a voice so detached, it made him feel antagonistic for a split second.

"I did," he put his fingers down, and leaned across the table, placing his palms on the cold metal. "Want to know what the fifth one is?" She said nothing, staying in a place somewhere far away from a stuffy interrogation room. He brought his finger up to his temple and made a circling motion, looking straight into her eyes again. "It's because they're crazy." He gave a lighthearted chuckle to mock her, but paused when he saw her intense gaze switch from a thick darkness to a roaring fire.

"Are you sure I'm crazy?" she said in a voice clipped with sudden rage, "Because you and I both know you're the one who'd go to insane lengths to bring her back."

She struck a chord, slamming right onto his heart strings and ruining the intonation with screeching. He couldn't pretend to not be prejudiced with that awful reminder she had somehow given him.

He was a professional, but everyone knew he had a grudge against the Cohen family.

"You don't get to talk to me like that, young lady. You may look like a damn mess, but I know what you did." He was the one filled with rage and suddenly they were both competing to see who could snap first. They knew each others vulnerabilities and where to put the pressure on them. Knowles needed to stop twisting the bullet. He had to shoot the liability dead. "I won't leave this station and neither will you until I get a goddamn confession. Unless you plan on joining your father in prison for the next ten years, you better start cooperating," Knowles bellowed.

"What proof do you have? A little gut feeling about me? A nag in the back of your head begging you to avenge her?" She seethed, somehow keeping her voice quiet while emitting as much resentment as possible.

"Then tell me, why is that woman's blood on your car? Why is your blood on her?"

He felt like he could see how much hate she was conjuring in her soul. Everytime she inhaled, he had a feeling that she'd start kicking and screaming as soon as she let go of her breath— kicking and screaming like that little kid fourteen years ago who just had her father taken away.

"I don't know." The rise and fall of her chest eventually became even and he almost took note of how her tone was laced with uncertainty.

The detective sighed. "I'm going to ask you again, Kiera. Do you know why you're here?" He tried to minimize his tone to act more stern rather than let his uncontrollable temper get the better of him. Her cuffs clinked against the copper chair as she tried to wriggle in them. Kiera's pursed lips, creases on her forehead, and flared nostrils portrayed her obvious detestation.

"To take you with me to hell," she spat out. It seemed despair had not yet cemented itself into her veins completely like he thought.

He wasn't ready to give up either. The ambition to become a detective rooted from curiosity and a passion for law. The survival in continuing to serve as a detective found its origins in doing what needed to be done. But, he was afraid to admit to himself that he wanted a confession from her for the sake of his personal sanity rather than justice. The devilish voice in the back of his head could continue to whisper, but he would be stubborn.

"No. You're here because you decided to murder someone and run."

———

and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the first chapter of Run! Thoughts?

~ hestia