Page 42 of The Arbiter
“You brought me here to… what? Rearrange the morgue?”
She snaps. I take one slow, deliberate step toward her. The humor vanishes from her expression immediately, replaced by a cold, sharp realization.
“Do it.”
She looks at the long, silver line of drawers. Then back at me.
“You already know what’s inside them,” she whispers.
“Yes.”
“Then why—“
“Madeline.”
Just her name. Nothing else. The way I say it is enough. Her jaw tightens, but she turns away. God, I love the way she's so feisty about it. A beautiful challenge. Even now, she fights me.
The first drawer slides open with a long metallic scrape. She moves to the next one. Another tray. Another corpse. The sound echoes through the cold room again and again as she pulls them out one by one.
I watch her the entire time. Her shoulders remain rigid, tension locked deep in the muscles of her back. Yet her hands move with mechanical precision, years of training overriding everything else. Then she reaches the drawer. Jake. She hesitates. Only for a second.
“Open it,” I demand harshly.
Her fingers close around the zipper. Slowly, she pulls it down. His pale face stares up at the ceiling. Dead. Powerless. Exactly where he belongs.
Madeline exhales slowly through her nose, a long, shaky breath, before taking a hesitant step back. Now the room is filled with the dead. Every tray pulled out like a silver tongue. Every bag opened. Every corpse visible. She turns toward me again, and for the first time, she looks truly small against the backdrop of my work.
I take a few slow steps forward, closing the distance until I’m standing directly in front of her. The tension between us has shifted. It's no longer just fear. It's something thicker. More dangerous. She feels it too. The pull. The heat underneath the cold air of the morgue.
“On your knees.”
Her eyes widen slightly, the pupils blowing wide.
“I’m not—“
I don't let her finish. I grab her by her neck again, my grip rougher this time. The gun in my other hand presses hard into her side, a cold reminder of who holds the leash.
“Let me make one thing clear, Madeline.”
My voice stays calm, but there’s an edge in it now.
“I’m a patient man. Always have been.”
My grip tightens just enough to make her gasp.
“But with you—“
I bite down on my lower lip, frustration cutting through the words like a dull blade.
“It’s fucking impossible.”
I push my hips closer to her body, pinning her against the edge of a cold steel table.
“Do you feel that?”
I ask quietly, my lips inches from hers.
“What that look of yours does to me? How it ruins every bit of my control?”
