My eyes leave the one way mirror, falling over the detective sitting across from me. She's staring at me expectantly, wishing for an answer I'm not going to give her any time soon. Or ever. Her eyes drift toward the window, slowly coming back to land on me like she's unsure how to proceed.
"Why did you become a murderer, Hadley? Why did you decide to be the Butterfly serial killer?" Again with this tedious question.
"Do you know anything about Rabbits detective?" She shakes her head, but I'm already talking before she's finished. "If a mother rabbit is stressed, hungry, bored, scared, or really many other frivolous things..." I pause, swipe my tongue over my bottom lip to relieve some of the dryness. "She'll eat her babies."
"If you're going to continue to waste my time, I don't see a reason for this talk." She starts to scoot her chair back, and I lift my cuffed hands from the table, the metal clanking against it as I crook my finger at her in a come hither motion.
Brows tilted in confusion, she casts a quick glance at the other officers through the paned mirror. She slowly rises from her chair, palms flat along the steel surface of the table as she leans toward me. I stand, and she watches, the rise and fall of her chest quickening with the action. Her body instinctively knowing it should be wary as I lean forward, my cheek just skimmer hers as my lips brush along her ear, "Some people are just born Unsettled."
"Wha..."
Her voice is cut off as my hand clamps around her throat, fingers digging into her soft pale flesh with such force my nails draw blood. I feed off of her panic, squeeze harder as her hands grab at mine, fingernails scratching my skin as she yanks on my arms. They always do that. Panic. There's probably a hundred different ways she could get out of my hold, but when that dark inky fear sinks in, they always lose all rational thoughts in their pathetic little heads.
I hear the shoes squeaking outside of the door, the shouts before they come busting in, and I tighten my grip on the detective's throat, soaking up her terror for just a few seconds longer. The door bangs against the wall, and I'm quickly ripped from the table and thrown backward, my head smacking roughly against the brick at my back. But I don't feel it; all of my attention is on the detective and the bloom of pretty little bruises marring her creamy skin. So fucking beautiful, it makes me smile.
She would have made such a pretty, pretty butterfly.
The detective's eyes catch mine for just a moment, a brilliant shade of emerald green brimming with tears. She's coughing, her hand clutching her throat as she tries to regain composure. I told her she wouldn't get the answers she was looking for. She should have listened.
"Where's Rhys?" I ask it as I'm yanked to my feet by an officer at my side. I've already asked this, one hundred times even, but no one has yet to answer me. "Where's the man who called the police?"
I watch the rough swallow the detective pushes down, she nods to the officer checking on her. He backs up, and I'm shoved into my chair once more, this time, with an officer at my back. "If you mean the victim, Kyler... "
"I'm not talking about fucking Kyler! I'm talking about Rhys. Are you stupid? The man who called you guys. He was there when the officers came into my house." I don't have my rings anymore, but I know I'm getting angry, my hands trembling so that the metal of my cuffs ting against the tabletop.
"There wasn't another person there, a woma.."
"Rhys called you!" I scream it, cutting off her sentence as my fists bang against the table. My heart is beating so quickly I'm starting to feel faint.
The detective holds her hands up while the other officers step forward at my aggression. She slowly grabs the back of her chair, pulling it back and taking a seat again. "I can see we're having a disconnect here, and I'm just trying to figure out the facts." I grit my teeth as she looks at the officer next to me then back. "When my officers got to the scene, there were only two people at your house, Hadley. You and Kyler. You're saying there was another man there?"
My eyes flit around the room, my chest rising and falling at a pace that can't be healthy for someone at rest. "Yes."
"And you say that this man, Rhys?" She waits for confirmation, and I nod. "Is who called the station to report the Butterfly Killer was in the middle of another murder?"
I blink at her, fingers squeezing tightly inside of my fists. "Yes."
Someone knocks on the door, opening it to bring in what looks like a tape recorder or voicemail box. They set it on the table in front of the Detective, and she nods to them with thanks before turning her attention back to me. "This is the recording of the call to the department. Are you saying this person is your Rhys?" She presses play, and before I can even think, the recording starts.
"77843 E Redburrow St the butter..."
I don't know what makes me do it, but something makes me launch forward to knock the recorder off the table, smashing it into the wall, so it breaks apart into pieces. I reach out for the detective, screaming a war cry as I'm ripped back by my ankles. I can't hear that recording. I don't want to know who called. I don't need to hear it. I already know it was my Rhys. It was Rhys, no one else.
My arms are pinned to my sides as I continue to scream, kicking the officer at my back in the shins. Jerking about, I break his hold, sprinting forward to grab at the Detective once more. I'm knocked to the ground by an officer, my face smashed into the cold tile as I glare up at Detective Porter. Her eyes are wide with what is undoubtedly fear, and I can't stop the ugly, barking laugh that leaves my chest. This woman wants to stand there and tear apart my reality, pick at the core of my very existence, but she is scared?
I'm fucking terrified. I don't know who I am. I don't have certainty in my future. I am a broken, sad girl who's puppet strings have finally become so tangled, the only choice I have at untangling them is by hacking at the frail strings with a cleaver. The one constant I have, the only person I have is on the brink of being ripped from me, and I refuse to let it happen.
I refuse to let it happen.
"Do you know what it's like, Detective Porter?" I yell it from the floor, my words slightly muffled from the pressure the forearm on my head is applying. "Do you know what it's like to be alone? To exist on this fucking floating rock and not have a single soul that gives a shit whether you live or die? From the moment I was conceived, I was branded insufficient. My oldest childhood memory is of my parents crying, crying because they
didn't know where they went wrong to get me for a child. I've had pills and anti-depressants shoved down my throat since I could swallow a fucking pill because I was born broken. I needed to be fixed." The forearm leaves my head, and I'm yanked up to my knees. "And do you know what Detective Porter?"
I'm allowed to stand, and she wipes a tear from her cheek, staring at me as I'm shuffled toward the doorway. "What?"
"They were right, Detective. I am broken. I do need to be fixed. I am unsettled." Spinning, I catch the officer at my back off guard, slamming the shard of metal that I’d picked up from the broken voice machine when I was pressed to the floor into the side of the officer's neck. Blood sprays along the mint green of the wall as he scrambles to dislodge it, his mouth gurgling.
I vaguely hear the detective screaming in the background as a gunshot rings out, my shoulder searing with agony, "Don't kill her! Don't shoot!"