Torn

by T. N. King

  She felt like home. It would never cease to amaze him, how one, singular person could inspire the feeling of something he’d been missing his entire life, wrist turning to drag his knuckles down the side of her face as she slowly blinked herself into alertness, lips half lifting in response to his head lowering towards her-

  BRRRIIINNNGGG.

  Interrupting his lips only moments before reaching her own, it would be work- or the station, or Marie and Paul- and any of the three could wait until he’d finished welcoming the morning in with Nicole. At least that was the plan- lowering his face even further and—

  BRRRIIINNNGGG.

  At least until her phone took up the call as well, the both of them freezing and staring at one another for a half moment before she began pulling away. Lifting her thigh off of his hip and pulling her hips back until his newly softened dick fell out of her, scooping up the sheets around her person and grabbing at her phone, a half-apologetic look his way before she rushed out of the room and in the direction of the bathroom across the hall.

  His phone kept going, insistent and annoying, his whole body rotating so he could reach it without having to sit up or remove himself from the bed in order to answer. He only looked at the unfamiliar number for a half second before answering, irritation carefully concealed from his tone. “Hello?”

  “This is Detective Branson speaking, is this Mr. Mason S- Carter?” The voice on the other end of the line was brisk, wasting no time at all.

  “Yes,” Mason answered shortly, his breath held up in his chest waiting for the directive to come. He could be called in to be arrested today he could be told that the case had a new accusation included… there were any number of possibilities, his eyes moving to the closed bathroom door where he could hear Nicole’s voice coming through faintly, even if he couldn’t hear what was being said.

  “We’re going to need you to come in immediately, if you wouldn’t mind.” Again, the vaguest form of politeness still seemed hurried.

  Mason’s eyes narrowing despite Detective Branson not being able to see it. “I’m sorry, why exactly am I coming in?” He couldn’t keep the worry from his voice, his fingers tightening over the receiver.

  “You aren’t being arrested, yet, if that’s your concern. We need you in within the next thirty minutes.”

  “Okay…” Again, the hesitance was there, resolving himself to the fact that he had to go, whether the detective were being honest with him or not… contrary to popular opinion it wasn’t actually fact that police officers had to be honest about their intentions one hundred percent of the time, and entrapment was a hard case to argue.

  “Thirty minutes Mr. Carter,” was the only goodbye that he received.

  The end of the call signal ringing in his ears seconds after Detective Branson spoke, his eyes closing for a half moment before drawing the phone away from his face and ending the call on his end as well, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and searching for a clean pair of boxers. So. He needed to be in the station in under thirty minutes, which left him little to no time to explain to Nicole and get dressed, much less say a proper goodbye, boxers pulled up over his thighs and snapped in place in irritation.

  “Mason?”

  His whole body turned at the sound of Nicole’s voice in the doorway, her worried, already tear soaked eyes meeting his, making him miss for a half second that she had already gotten dressed herself, shoes on her feet and everything. “Detective Manson just called me.” Nothing in her tone conveyed more than fear, her wide eyes blinking too fast to be normal, “and I have to be at the station in less than thirty minutes.” The quaver in her words was just present, residing beneath the brave facade she was attempting to force for what he had to assume was his sake. “I don’t know what for,” she finally admitted, her hands wringing in front of her body.

  His hurry to get dressed increased all the more, jeans dragged onto his frame and left unbuttoned as he grabbed at a shirt as well. He didn’t even know what he was outfitting himself in, shirt left untucked and his jeans finally buttoned even as he walked across that space to where Nicole was still standing. “Detective Branson called me as well.” He took her phone from her, tucking it into that front pocket on her shirt and buttoning the flap afterward. “I’m expected in in thirty minutes as well,” and from the sounds of it made him think the exact opposite of what they had said they weren’t wanting to do currently… but he wasn’t about to voice that concern aloud to her, not with her looking as frazzled and scared as she already did.

  “What if they’re going to arrest us?” Her voice was lifted, chin wobbling despite her obvious best efforts to keep it from doing so. “What if they think we were lying? What if they think it was premeditated attempted murder for the reasons that he’s saying you attacked him? What if-” he had to lift his hand fully, fingers pressing into her lips to stop her from interrupting him when he chose to spoke, even if it wasn’t right away.

  The words choked in his throat because he was just as scared as she was, even if it was displayed in a different way. He was just as terrified, just as scared of what they were about to walk into…

  “Nicole,” he said instead, taking his time to figure out the phrasing he wanted to use. “They have nothing on her to warrant arresting you. Even if you had lied about lying originally, ah-ah…” he had to shush her again, fingers pressing more firmly back into her lips when she immediately tried to defend herself, “I know you didn’t, but even if you had… that isn’t anything more than an upped fine from what you have already agreed to pay. The only other thing they could use to arrest you would require a lot more time, and that would be lack of payment or lack of appearance, but again seeing that you aren’t the one on trial and that enough time hasn’t passed for the former to be true, they have… nothing on you.” He was being as clear as he could, over enunciating nothing every time he used the word, because they didn’t. They had nothing on her, absolutely nothing.

  “I’m not just worried about me!” She finally broke around his fingers, screaming hysterically from him having shushed her for so long as he had. “What about you! They can’t arrest you! They have nothing on you either! You beat his ass, but it was in defense of me- Mason he would have killed me!” Her voice broke around the end, like only just realizing that it was something she truly believed, her whole body shaking as she threw herself at him, arms wrapping around him and her voice cutting off suddenly.

  He didn’t have anything to assuage her fears with there. He was just as convinced that, reason or not, they were going to try imprisoning him, overnight or otherwise. There were too many things being levied against him, and he wasn’t like Aaron, he wasn’t sociable, he didn’t even attempt to ingratiate himself into other people’s good graces. Which left a large gap between their perceived natures, even if it wasn’t quite as factual as those looking from the outside would like to believe.

  Aaron was better at manipulating people. Both, Mason was sure, naturally and through practice. Aaron was more interested in people’s opinion of him so it only made sense that he worked as hard as he did to ensure that he knew how to coerce such in a manner that best benefited him. Whereas Mason… avoided interaction unless necessary for the most part, and spent more time to himself. What was emotion for him also tended to come across, as disinterested arrogance to others, all factors that he was sure would be counted against his favor and in Aaron’s instead.

  “Nicole…” He said instead, unable to find an argument to fit her fears, arms tightening around her as much as was possible and pulling her body back more firmly against him. They didn’t have time… but he had a good number of things he wanted to say to her, and a good number more he would have liked to do, if only in order to better cement it in his memory.

  “This isn’t goodbye Mason!” She cut him off, slapping her hand hard enough against his chest to actually reverberate through his torso. “Don’t tell me goodbye! They aren’t going to arrest you,” but even through her tears it didn
’t sound believable, her hiccups starting to interfere with her ability to speak, dying off in the back of her throat and her head burying into his chest.

  He took another few moments, unsure of how he was supposed to answer her, or even if she wanted him to, his head lowering to rest atop hers gently. “Okay.” It nearly took too long for him to answer, fingers rolling down the curves of her back and his own chest feeling too constricted. “I won’t.” It wouldn’t do him any good anyways, no matter if they tried to do their goodbyes here or not… if he was going to be arrested at the station she would throw herself at him like she had any time they were parted for more than a few seconds since this had all begun. “I’ll just get my shoes on, and you’ll grab the keys…and then we’ll go.” To the station, where he may or may not be arrested.

  “Mason…” She seemed unsure. Like she was on the precipice of actually trying to say goodbye, shaking herself and pushing back from him all of a sudden, moving off with jerky, uncoordinated movements towards where she assumed his keys would be.

  Something he neither corrected nor encouraged, watching her disappear around the corner before he finally moved himself- desolately moving to his shoes and sitting down on the edge of the bed to fit his feet in his socks. His movements were robotic, without much thought at all, muscle memory playing a larger role in his ability to actually get them on over his toes and up his feet than actual effort.

  He’d never had to do this before, certainly not when he was threatened with losing so much. He couldn’t ask her to wait, he didn’t even know if he would want her to wait provided he was arrested. He was facing at least ten years if he were convicted, and ten years. Was a long time for her to wait for him, people changed over ten years, life happened… and if he was away for that long there was no way in hell that he would be coming back the same man, or even half of the same man. He knew what imprisonment could do to him, he knew how the isolation and the feeling like a caged animal got to him, and he’d never served more than a few months at a time… serving ten years would so drastically alter him that he didn’t know if it was something he would even be able to come back from…

  “Mason?” Nicole’s head popped around the corner.

  With his foot hurriedly shoving into that shoe that he had at the ready and looking up guiltily, like he had been caught doing something he ought not have been doing, like she could hear where his mind had wandered. He waited for her to question it, waited for her assault him with another bout of questions or worry that he couldn’t address…

  Then all she did was look at him, glancing from his shoes and back to him before nodding as if she had concluded something. “You about ready?” Her voice gentle, the keys dangling off of her right middle finger indicating that maybe he had taken longer than he had estimated he would to get those shoes on.

  “Yeah… Let me just…” He tied the one, shoving his other foot inside of the other and making as quick of work out of it as he could. “I’m ready...” For whatever the station was going to hold for him, he didn’t have any choice but to be ready really… so he intended to be ready. Worrying about it would only going to make it worse, only going to further draw out the inevitable pain.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The car ride over had been uneventful and silent, the both of them lost within their own thoughts, both worrying about the same set of things, and neither one of them able, or willing, to verbalize it in a manner that would have opened conversation. Nicole didn’t want to talk about it, she knew that he was right, that she was unlikely to be arrested, but the worry was still there, and more than that the worry that he really would was far too present for her to know how to cope with. Coupled with the realization that she had Aaron would have actually, had he not been interrupted, very likely would have killed her was more than she could process all at once. Just like the day before, and the day before that even, it was too much for her to deal with, too much for her to make sense of within the confines of her own head. Or out of.

  By the time they pulled into the station parking lot the silence had become unbearable, the car’s engine even louder than that of either of their breathing. Mason throwing the car into park and the both of them sitting there for another few moments. He opened his door, and she still couldn’t move. He swung his legs out of the car, and she started straight ahead out of the windshield. “Nicole?”

  But she couldn’t even acknowledge it, her throat working silently and no tears coming. She’d cried herself out she wasn’t sure, even if he was arrested, if she would be able to work up enough moisture from her dehydrated body to properly express her sorrow.

  “Nicole, we have to go inside.”

  She knew that and she wanted to tell him she did, but all she could do was swallow, her head shaking minutely as if to at least let him know that she could hear him, even if she couldn’t properly acknowledge him.

  “We can’t just sit out here…”

  She didn’t know why he sounded more worried now than he had before. Did she look deranged? Was she coming off crazy? Did he think that it had finally broken her? … maybe it had, her tongue darting out to wet her lips and her face turning slowly towards him. “I don’t think that I can walk,” she said slowly, testing her legs to find very little, if any response. “Not on my own.” Her voice sounded distant even to her own ears, the words echoing in the car and then again within her own head.

  He didn’t do much more than look at her for a moment, his body finally unfolding itself from the car entirely, door closing and her heart starting to thud unevenly in her chest. Would he go in without her? And be mad about that later? Maybe it was for the best. Maybe this way she wouldn’t have to see them put cuffs on him or have him ripped away so finally and viscerally. Maybe he was trying to spare her… or maybe he was just walking around the car, opening the door from the outside and holding his hand out for her.

  She looked at him… and then at his hand, weighing the options in her head before finally reaching out to him as well, fingers closing around the circumference of his hand and her lips thinning. “Okay,” she said, “okay,” again, her whole body lifting out of the car, more from help from him lifting her than her actually standing. She didn’t want to go in, she didn’t want to hear what they had to tell them, or what they were going to do, but she was following Mason’s lead. Allowing him to wrap one arm around her and mostly support her weight as he locked the car, keys tucked into his pocket and his voice… not answering her own, walking the both of them through the parking lot and around the cars until they could reach the front entrance.

  She wanted to stall. She wanted to scream that she couldn’t go. She wanted to throw herself against him and insist that they run back to the car—that they just run- there were places they could go. Even if he thought she needed her family, they would be fine, she could exist without seeing them every day. They could go to Canada… or Peru… or Ireland, she thought that Ireland doesn't have extradition… she could be wrong, but if they ran, they would have time to research it before they weren’t able to go any longer.

  Mason wasn’t saying anything though, opening that door and cutting off whatever other option she had other than to follow him inside, walking up to the front desk and not even having to speak, neither of them.

  They were both silent as the woman looked up, her smile faltering on her face and pushing that button beside her on the counter, the doors to her right opening and her nodding as if to encourage them to go through.

  Were they allowed to say they didn’t want to? Were they allowed to say no? She was probably judging them for their supposed incest, probably looking at them sideways because she thought that she knew their situation. How did you explain to someone that they were adopted siblings, not just siblings? How did she explain that there was so much more to it than that? Why did she have to? Why did anyone need to know what it was? What they were?

  “Mr. and Ms. Carter!” The man she thought was Detective Branson waved them over, half of his body
sticking out of the doorframe and beckoning them. He didn’t look angry, or particularly… anything really.

  Her heart was hammering up in her throat and Mason’s fingers tightening against her side as he steered them over. They were going to a room, that was good? Wasn’t it? A room didn’t seem like there was going to be an immediate arrest, a room looked like they were going to have the chance to speak, to defend whatever case was being put against them this time.

  They’d only just come up upon the room, stopped just inside of the doorway themselves when Mason froze, every line in his body going taut and his gaze levelled somewhere beyond the stern looking detective in front of them.

  “Mason?” She started to question him, but he didn’t even look down at her, her own gaze moving beyond them and into the room, looking at the other detective sitting at the table across from… some random girl. She was very pretty, as far as that went, even with her eyes all swollen and red and the obvious tear tracks leaking down her face. She was very pretty, and the longer she looked at Mason and Nicole the more guilty she began to look, her gaze darting away from them and back to the detectives.

  Who was she? How did Mason know her? Where had she come from? She had so many questions, but neither the girl nor Mason was talking.