They started inside, Nathan swinging the door open before taking a hand of Hazel's and guiding her gently inside.
Vic Gates sat at the table, head in hands, leg bobbing under the desk, eyes glued to the metal surface that had been graciously set before him. Yet, despite them drawing deeper into the room, he refused to look up until the door had slammed closed, leaving him to whip up and stare at the two already seated. Nathan sat in his seat, holding Hazel's hand and soothingly massaging it in his, a kind smile directed towards her. Only when she gave a small smile in return did he dare turn to the witness before him.
Nathan cleared his throat, gently setting the girl's hand back on her lap before speaking.
"Well Gates, tell us what you know."
He sighed, scratching his hair in clear annoyance. Or panic. Maybe both. "Apparently my doctor's note was a fake."
"How did that happen?"
Vic looked away towards the bare, brick wall. "I went in for a checkup a few weeks prior to," He paused, internally groaning. It could be seen by the two. "All this." He shook his head. "My doctor told me that he was going to mail me the prescription if anything seemed out of place. It's a new system my wife and I signed up for."
"They mail it to you?" Nathan asked, leaning forwards, letting his elbows rest against his knees.
Vic nodded. "Saves time in the clinic. If someone just needs to come in for a new prescription, instead of making an appointment and taking up time in the office, a doctor will just mail them what they need."
"Isn't that a security issue? I mean,"
Vic nodded, a frown etching into his cheeks. "It wasn't supposed to be, but it was. My wife and I installed a lock onto our mailbox. The day I got the prescription in the mail, the thing was so new I didn't remember we had it. So I didn't notice our lock was gone."
"So someone had access to your mail?"
"Someone got access to it." He groaned. "Probably broke in, placed in a forged prescription and took the one I was supposed to have."
Nathan shook his head, eyes closing as his body leaned back deeper into his chair. "Continue."
"Well, you know a portion. Sinclair set me up. He told me I was going to get a promotion if I went through with all that crime scene crap. So I did it. Then got fired."
"Is there anything more to the story?"
He scoffed. "I can assure you I didn't write that stupid hostage note that was found in his office. I didn't kidnap the guy." He shook his head, a bitter laugh rippling through his scruffy throat. "I guarantee he did it to take suspicion off himself. Then it looks like I did everything and kidnapped him to keep it a secret." He grew serious. Quiet. Staring into the eyes of the two and scanning them for all signs of purity. "It wasn't me."
Nathan turned, watching the female at his side, but she wasn't fixated on him. She was staring into the eyes of their interrogate before her.
"He set you up?"
Vic was still for a moment, her words processing in his mind. He was scanning her, searching for the honesty and truth in her voice. Searching for a sign that she believed him.
Finally, he nodded. "He set me up."
The brunette turned, finally allowing her brimming eyes to attach to Nathan's. Her eyes soared with information, with learnings, with ideas. Nothing could have convinced her more than the look in his eyes that he was innocent. Absolutely nothing.
"Thank you, Mr. Gates."
He gave a small shrug as the two stood, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck and hair. "Just call me Vic."
Nathan smiled and gave him a nod, placing a hand to Hazel's back and helping her out of the room.
The door clicked shut behind them, leaving Vic alone once more to bow his head.
But, just as they hit the hallway, just as the air behind them had whisked itself away, Hazel stopped. Her feet flipped to weights in the spot. It wasn't until she saw a door at the end of the hallway click shut that she knew. That Nathan's breaths of concern ceased.
He had just gone inside.
He was so close that Hazel could still smell his cologne linger around them. Suffocating her. Strangling the last of her sanity out of her body.
She hadn't intended to stiffen so much, to feel her arms coil themselves into her sides, to feel her lungs and heart squeeze to keep her calm and steady. She hadn't noticed the lack of air entering her lungs until his hand brushed her wrist. Suddenly, her lungs were brand new. He seemed to have a tendency to do that.
She could feel his gaze against the side of her face before she turned, allowing their eyes to meet despite her internal plea to not. He would see right through any lie she told. Any face she forced. He would know.
She was terrified.
"Are you sure you want to go in there?"
No. She wasn't sure. In fact, she knew she didn't want to. Hell, she knew she didn't have to. But something inside of her was whispering ever-so-softly 'Finish this'.
Whatever was behind that door, whatever other vile things he needed to spit at her, would end her questions. Would end the longing. Would end the 'what if's and 'how's. Everything she had questioned in the past few months had led to this moment. She couldn't back down. She refused to let herself do that.
"Yes." She said softly, allowing her determination to poke through. Just enough for him to understand where she stood. How she felt. Truthfully and honestly. Though he would have been able to figure it out either way.
So, he led the way, his hand brushed her fingers and wrist, gently bringing her closer behind him as he drew towards the door.
Her fingers reached out, brushing against the cool wood, ready to push the door open and expose Sinclair in his vile to her partner. But instead her hand was swept away, a palm sliding under her firm plantation and turning her.
Nathan smiled down at her, resting her hands in his palms, allowing them to sit like mini tables had been laid out for her comfort.
"I got you. Just relax." His hand moved to the door, cranking the door knob and stepping in, a hand against his partner's back leading her in.
It didn't matter. Her legs transformed to lead as soon as she put one foot in the doorframe.
There he sat, poison lacing each of his features, gazing up at her with vain. He smirked and, as if swatting the stare away, Nathan stepped between the two, extending a hand behind him for Hazel to take.
With shaky palms, she did.
Her hand trembled in his, allowing her fear to send tremors through her body; terror punching down at her earth and sending quakes under her skin and through her muscles. But Nathan's soft hand wrapped around hers lovingly, rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand to hush her. Of course, without wanting to give away to Sinclair the fear that was uncoiling in her stomach.
He sat still, his wrists chained to small bars against the table before him, strictly attached to the wall and floor. Unable to move. Unable to escape.
Nathan allowed Hazel to sit first, guiding her to a seat and placing a hand against the back of her chair, shooting a visual dagger at Sinclair before taking a seat and sliding it closer to the table then he allowed Hazel's to be.
"You're aware you're going to jail regardless of what happens here, correct?"
Thomas smirked, glancing over Hazel quickly. Nathan swallowed the fire burning in his stomach, refusing to lash out against him. But, regardless of his actions, Sinclair remained silent.
"Tell us everything."
More silence.
Nathan furrowed his brow. "You have nothing to lose, Sinclair."
Finally, after a century of Hazel's ears ringing in screaming silence, her heart slamming her chest wishing to rip itself from her body, he spoke.
"What did Gates tell you?"
Nathan was still and silent. Hazel, too terrified to look away from the figure before her. She refused to let her eyes leave his sight.
"You set him up and framed him for kidnapping."
Thomas rubbed the back of his head, eyes wandering aimlessly to the ceiling. Hazel's stomach clenched. What rattled around in the brain of someone who craved bloodlust? What was their thought process? How was it different from her own?
Thomas cleared his throat. "When I asked Vic to do me a favour, I told him he would get a promotion. Ideally when I got mine."
"Why did he believe you? Did he not ask any questions?" Nathan shook his head, baffled at the state of the case. At the screwed system. "You were asking him to tamper with a crime scene, he didn't question that?"
"He did." Thomas responded calmly. Too calmly. "I told him it was a test of loyalty."
"And he believed that? He was okay with that?"
"He didn't know what I was planning or doing. I'm pretty sure he thought I made a mistake by moving something and I was asking him to go fix it." Thomas shrugged, care lacking in any gesture he made. His muscles lacked all emotion.
"Why ask him to do it? Why do it at all?" Hazel could feel the confusion in every word Nathan spoke, his words coated and served with a sense of misunderstanding. Of being utterly, completely baffled.
Thomas twiddled his thumbs against the table, his chains clanking against the metal as he did so. "Draw away suspicion."
"How did that work for you?" Nathan spat back, quickly and swiftly. Bitterness dripped off of his lips. Hazel could visibly see Thomas's eyes squint, zeroing in on the male who dared to slander his attempted take over.
"Well," Thomas began, throwing the bitterness back as a curveball. "After it was done I sent in a few photographs of him shifting objects to the police. When they came to get him he tried to turn them on me." A smirk danced on the edges of his lips . "It didn't work."
"How?"
Thomas titled his head, eyes staring up at the corner in wonder, allowing himself to flash back to the day he slandered with pride in his work. "He tried to pin the blame on me and said I set him up. Really, I just countered with the fact that I had nothing to do with the scene. Therefor, I had nothing to gain from it."
Nathan leaned back in his seat in raging astonishment. "And they believed you? That was that?"
Thomas made a 'tsk' noise and shook his head, eyes tracing themselves down the wall and landing on the detective with his arms crossed, with his ankle on knee. "No, however, they believed the entire office." He grinned proudly. "Vic tried to explain my quote-unquote "plan" to them, but it didn't work. The promotion I would get was voted on by staff. It wasn't going to be handed down to me. So, again, gaining the promotion wasn't a motive. There was no guarantee I was to get it."
"But you did."
"But I did." He gave a content, internal sigh, but the movement of shoulders made it known. "I was on good terms with everyone in the office. Well, anyone influential. I treated them. So much so that they all vowed to plug my name." He gave an abrupt chuckle, causing Hazel to jump. She tried to play it off like she was adjusting herself in her seat, but Thomas could see. Nathan placed a hand against her knee. "I guess it just worked." Thomas concluded, squeezing his fingers together, face sudden serious and bland. Like a switch had been flicked in his brain.
"How did you get Vic sent to the mental institute? And why?"
Thomas scoffed. "It's obvious, is it not? It tied all loose ends closed." He shook his head in disappointment at the apparent lack of coherent thought. "At the scene, after the readjustments, some officers were questioning his motives. I casually mentioned the doctor's diagnosis - which was conveniently slipped into his mailbox that day - and the police took that matter into their own hands. They did their own digging. That was enough to lock him up." The male folded his hands together, pride shining through each feature on his body. "Then, just like that, my promotion was on lock."
"Why?"
The voice, quiet and innocent, almost startled the two out of their bitter positions. But, the sound of Hazel's voice brought all eyes on her, stillness and process swelling in the room.
"Why did you kill them? Why would you go through all of that to take them away?"
Nathan could have seen it a mile away. She was breaking.
She wasn't holding anything back. The calmness at which he explained his plan, the brutal acts clearly displayed before her eyes days before. Now, she had to sit and listen to a man pridefully explain why and how he did what he did to reach the top. She was forced to dwell in the room and offer her time to one who did nothing more than shatter the time her parents had left.
Nathan's lips began to part, in awe at her courage to speak out, but also to release air from his collapsing chest, writhing itself in agony at seeing her swelling tears.
"Why?" Thomas's voice was dangerously low. Even though Nathan wished for nothing more than to gather the girl in his arms and whisk her away, a part of him knew that wasn't an option.
Thomas chuckled, horror crackling over the dwindling silence. The building terror. "Because nothing your family stood for was correct. Your father horribly ran a cooperation that was swiftly digging itself into a pit in the ground and I was the only one willing to act." His voice quickened and raised, gaining volume the more he spoke. The more words that tumbled from the waterfall of information. Of desire. Of terrors. "I needed to act. I was saving our company because your family thought they could do it. But they couldn't. They were incompetent leaders and bitter humans that stomped on whoever they could to get where they wanted to go. I was tired of being a stepping stool and beat them with their pathway." He stopped. His expression growing grim and falling from the angry and bitter stage he had progressed into. "But then you came along."
Nathan glared, daring him to progress any farther. Fire raging behind his glassy seas.
"You somehow thought you could stop me, Hazel Daniels." He laughed, rage building behind it. "The worst part? Was that it worked."
Swiftly, almost as quickly as he had leapt before, Sinclair threw himself forwards over the table; arms outstretched in a desperate manner to snag the innocent before she could vanish.
The moment his body shifted, even the slightest, Nathan's arm had thrown itself forwards, shielding just in front of Hazel's stomach, gingerly pushing her farther back.
The shock had sent her building tears leaping from the sides of her eyes, her hands clinging desperately onto the arm thrown before her.
Nathan stood, his body on guard in front of her. He used his arm to tug himself in front of her, getting a better look at the scum who had attempted to further the harm. And who, even further, had failed.
Security flooded the room, yet Nathan refused to move his hand until they had him firmly pinned to the table. Then, and only then, did he curl the brunette into his chest and dart her out of the room, throwing a final shady glare at the man who once again tried to harm her. Scar her. Destroy her all over.
He refused to release his firm hold on her until they were outside of the room, the door firmly closed beside them, Nathan urging her to rest against a nearby wall to gather her thoughts. To gather herself.
His hands placed themselves on the sides of her face, brushing at the edges of her scalp trying to better see the emotion hidden by their curtain. She couldn't speak. He knew this, and desperately pleaded to converse with her eyes to see her sanity.
It was dwindling.
Her face crumpled inwards, her hands fleeing to the skin lacing her features, that built upon them, and allowed herself to collapse into them. Hazel could feel him tug her, his arms wrapping around her and rushing her away. She could hardly feel her feet hitting the ground, but she could sense the world around her growing dim. The loud voices vanishing behind her. The ringing, the buzzing, the chirping, the yelling, the crying, the groaning, the wails, the panting. They all began to fade, waning into one loud buzz that droned behind her but was rapidly being replaced by the gentle patter of her partner's heartbeat and the soothing breaths that escaped his lips to lull her into security.
"You're okay, I'll get you out of here. He's gone. You're okay."
Finally, they hit a still patch. A narrow, dimly lit hallway, only illuminated enough for the faint outlines of their eyes, lips and hair to be seen glistening against their skin. But the gentle glow and the beating of hearts was all that they needed to truly, really, see each other.
"Hazel?" His voice was pleading. Desperate. As if he was afraid to lose her. If her eyes remained lost from his he would cease to see them ever again. But she lifted. And she looked. And she saw him in his purest form. The best version of himself.
The version where he was with her.
"Let me see you, Haz."
That nickname. The one he used to keep her calm. To give her a sense of tenderness and care.
"Come to me."
He held her and tugged her into his chest, her head falling perfectly into the crevice underneath his chin. A hand worked its way from massaging the sides of her head to cradling and brushing the back of her hair. Another arm lacing her back, urging her to fall deeper into his shirt, leading her to rest against him. Urging her to once, let him take the fall.
"You're okay. I got you."