Page 10 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
Doesn’t look at anyone.
Just keeps moving like there’s nowhere else for it to go.
I know that kind of edge. Not like this. Not that far.
But I know the shape of it, the way something builds under the surface until it needs to be dulled or redirected before it turns into something you can’t pull back from.
My fingers flex slightly at my sides before I still them, grounding the movement before it turns into something restless.
Breathe. Slow. Steady.
In.
Out.
Jackson is moving beside me, not pacing, but not still either, his attention catching on every person who walks past, every staff member, every guard, his voice low and tight each time he asks the same question.
“Have you heard anything?”
“When is he being released?”
“What’s happening?”
The answers don’t change.
“We’re waiting.”
“We’ll let you know.”
“It’s being handled.”
Handled.
The word sits wrong.
Everything about this feels too contained in the wrong way, too procedural, like it’s being pushed through channels that don’t understand what they’re actually dealing with.
I let my focus drift back to Elijah.
The pacing hasn’t slowed.
If anything, it’s sharper now, tighter, like whatever is sitting in him has settled deeper instead of burning out.
That’s the part that sits uneasily in my chest.
Not the violence. Not even the fact that he nearly killed Vargas. It’s that he didn’t stop and he doesn’t look like he would have.
Footsteps approach down the hallway, more deliberate than the rest, cutting cleanly through the background movement.
Jackson stills beside me.
I turn slightly as a man steps into view, his stride unbroken, his presence contained in a way that doesn’t ask permission to be here.
“Can I help you?” one of the guards asks.
“I’m here on behalf of Elijah Bellandi.”
There’s a beat.
