May All Hope Leave You ┆ Panic Attack
@whumpthisway ┆ May Curses Prompt 20
「✦」 OCs: Kay Edwards, Natalie Irvine ⅋ Silas Reyes
「✧」 Content: Abuse of Power ┆ Handcuffs ┆ Law Enforcement ┆ Talk of Murder
「✦」 Word Count: 1,134
「✧」 Relevant Links: Masterlist ┆ .𖥔˚ ♫˚ 𖥔.
⛧ ‿̩͙‿ ༺ ♰ ༻ ‿̩͙‿⛧
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ❝ I let it burn; // You're no longer my concern; // Faces from my past return; // Another lesson yet to learn; // That I'd fallen for a lie; // You were never on my side; // Fool me once, fool me twice; // Are you death or paradise? ❞
⛧ ‿̩͙‿ ༺ ♰ ༻ ‿̩͙‿⛧
⋆ ˚｡⋆୨♡୧⋆ « previous
“We found the bodies, Aeon.” Agent Reyes had both his palms pressed into the metal table. Glaring down at the man in front of him. “Would you like to alter your statement?” He cocked his head.
“Alter it? No – I – why? What did you find?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, kid.”
“I’m not, I swear,” Kay reflexively raised his hands, jerking at the chain around his cuffs. A sharp clatter before he lowered his hands. “I told you what I knew. I – I gave you the place. I gave you –”
“You gave us half a damn story,” Reyes snapped. “Five, you said?”
“Five.”
“Try twenty-five. So far. We’ve got three teams excavating the area.”
The colour drained from Kay’s cheeks as he shook his head.
“No – no. No, it was five. I knew about five. The names – I gave you names.”
“And you think that’s enough?” Reyes spat. “You’re not even scratching the surface with your story.”
Kay kept shaking his head, brows furrowed as he tried to hide the appearance of tears. In his eyes – down his cheeks.
“And now it’s those crocodile tears? You have some serious explaining to do,” he slammed his hands down on the table. Kay flinched. “I want the real story.”
“I gave it to you! The names – I gave you five names.”
“For twenty-five plus bodies? You need to do a damn sight better than that,” Reyes leaned in closer to Kay. “Aeon, if you talk, we can work out a deal.”
“I think I need a lawyer for this conversation,” Kay’s voice was shaky. “Chloe should be here.”
“You think? I would agree with you,” Reyes snapped. “Except, if you’re innocent on the extra bodies that just happened to show up, exactly where you said they’d be, you don’t need one.”
“Okay,” Kay swallowed hard. “I – I gave you the names I knew. I’m giving you signed confessions for those cases,” he looked up at Agent Reyes. “I don’t know what else you want. I – I think I need a lawyer.”
“You want me to drag your lawyer out of bed at one in the morning for this?”
“You dragged me out of bed.”
“Don’t you dare talk back to me. Not happening.”
The door to the interrogation room swung open. A woman stood in the doorway, quickly surveying the scene before she spoke.
“Agent Reyes. You were instructed to wait until I arrived to speak to the suspect,” she looked between the pair in the room. “Wait outside. I’ll speak to you later.”
Reyes muttered something under his breath, gave the table a futile shove and stormed out. Slamming the door behind him. Kay flinched at each action as it unfolded.
“I’m Special Agent Natalie Irvine, I’m from the New York FBI office,” she introduced herself, taking the opportunity to assess how Kay sat in front of her, “You’re Aeon Edwards?”
Kay, breathing uneven as he fought – he didn’t know what he was fighting – nodded. Took a second before he spoke.
“It – It’s Kay – but – but Aeon is fine – I just –” his gaze flickered towards the door. “I swear, I didn’t know.”
“Can you tell me what you did know?”
“It – I gave the names. In the file.”
“Do you mind?” she gestured to the chair opposite Kay, and he shook his head. So Irvine sat down. “I’ve read the file, can you tell me in your own words?”
“I knew he had a place to dump the bodies. I knew about that. I never went out there, but he told me about it.”
“That makes sense,” Irvine was already taking some notes in a notebook. “The names you gave, where did you get them?”
“I was there – for five. But not the murders. I – I wasn’t even sure he killed them. I just thought they might be…” he trailed off. Eyes on Irvine’s scrawled handwriting.
“Can you tell me the names?”
“Emma – Ella Grant. I think? I wasn’t sure. Something Marsden – I didn’t get her full name either. Nolan Mc – something. McGill? I’m sorry – I –” he put his head in his hands.
“That’s fine, Kay, are you okay to keep going?”
“Bridget Hale. I remember that one,” he looked across at Irvine. Tears reappearing in his eyes, voice breaking. “She begged me to call her sister. Shannon Hale. I couldn’t. And Isabella – Isabelle Santos.”
“Good. That’s good, Kay. It’s information we can work with.”
“The – the other agent. He said there were more bodies – I didn’t know about those.”
“Do you understand why that’s difficult for us to believe?”
Kay nodded slowly.
“You mentioned a second person, but I hear that you don’t want to give us a name. Why are you protecting him?”
“No – that’s not right. I – I’m protecting a friend. Someone he’ll go after. He – M – He was threatening him. For years. I’m not protecting a monster.”
“Monster… That’s an interesting choice in words,” Irvine mused. “Why do you say that?”
“Because he is – I watched him do so many awful things. And he turned me into – not something I’m not – people don’t change. But – but he used me to get what he wanted. I got off lightly.”
“I think I can understand that,” Irvine reassured him. “Do you regret what you did?”
“No. It kept the people I care about safe.”
“And how about the other people who got hurt in the process. Did you have any right to use their lives as bargaining chips?”
Kay’s head was in his hands.
“I did what I thought I had to do. And it escalated.”
“Would you do it again?”
“I wouldn’t – it wouldn’t go so far.”
“So you would stop it sooner?”
“I – I don’t know. I don’t know why this matters. We both know I’m getting a pile of life sentences. I’m not getting out.”
“We have been after this guy for years. If you have information about him, I can work with you. Offer a deal.”
Kay slumped back in his seat, gritting his teeth.
“I can’t. I – I gave you the burial site. I’m already as good as dead.”
“We can protect you. The FBI has the resources for that.”
“No – no. I can’t. I’m sorry – I – I think I need a lawyer.”
“I understand. I can call them for you but it’s late. I think it might be best if we spoke again in the morning. If that’s acceptable with you?”
“Yeah – yeah… That’s fine. I can talk tomorrow.”
Kay exhaled as Irvine stood. As she told him that someone would return him to the holding cell. And for the first time that day, he felt a solid kind of relief. If he hadn’t come here, those bodies would have laid buried for decades longer.
In all the bad, there was at least a glint of good.
