where: red ridge pd precinct, profiler’s office — 7:21 am. status: closed, @mutilatd.
perhaps this had to be expected. funny, how she hadn’t been able to spot the clues ‘til now; a life deducing patterns, but this one had eluded her ‘til the very end. seemed red ridge had the taste of a reckoning, now: each step was tripping over the tense thread of a memory, each breath carrying revelations somehow she couldn’t translate. she’d woken up that morning feeling the pressure of gloomy, pregnant clouds against her head — not an indistinct feeling, more the echo of an awareness, a word stuck on the tip of her tongue. it all made sense, eventually, at the front desk. they sent another one, and no name was required to be attached to the news. somehow, she knew. it just made sense that it would be him.
not for anything like fate, a twisted game by an unruly god. it was simply the haunted house-like mechanism she’d found herself walking through. she’d first experienced horror in the shape of a blood splatter on a newspaper headline. then it had been loss, coming back home to find a ghost on the chair where her mother used to be. the logical next chapter would be guilt — and as she sat at her desk, camille pictured the second kaz would enter the very same office, wondering what words would flash over his features, unsaid, yet as sharp as they ever were. perhaps he’d run away in disgust. perhaps he’d have the courage she currently lacked, to turn around and kindly refuse this losing hand they’d both been dealt.
he still caught her off guard. minutes had passed, long enough for her to slide back in her files, eyebrows furrowed and the look of someone who’s drowning gently, no interest in lifelines of any sort. her head snapped back up once a silhouette could be spotted, darkening the only door — her mind rushing to draw a summary of his sight (he looked older, that was a given. he looked more tired than she’d ever seen him. he looked spent, like parts of him had been scattered somewhere. he looked the way she remembered him), but the words, those were stuck in her throat. she tried to smile. tried to do anything that could hint at life still flowing through her veins. a useless, weak attempt: camille swallowed, and all that came after was the middle ground between a grimace and a sorrowful smile. and all the greetings she should’ve been pouring, the words that would’ve surely met anyone else’s arrival, all of those fell apart. all that remained was a half breath — a sucking noise, and what tried to sound like a single word: “ —— hey. ”
