Page 45 of Splintered Line
#JusticeForTheVictim.
They don’t even know who the victim is. They just know there’s blood on the pavement and a Rossi behind the wheel, and that’s enough for them to decide what I am. Silence feeds it now. That hush lets it grow teeth.
I shouldn’t be here. I should be at the house, letting Adrian and Declan talk me off the ledge, or watching Coach pace the office like the program is a patient on life support.
But containment feels like a cage tonight, and I need oxygen.
Or I need to break something.
I find her on the third floor, back corner.
The stacks.
Deepest part of the building, surrounded by history monographs and dusty journals no one touches. The lights are dimmer up here, shadows stretched longer, sound swallowed by paper and distance. Good place to disappear.
She isn’t disappearing.
She’s working.
Zoë is sprawled on the floor, boots discarded, legs extended in front of her, back braced against the shelving unit. Fabric swatches are spread around her like a crime scene—color chips, textures, edges frayed where she’s tested them—sketchbook propped on her knees. She chews the end of a pen, gaze narrowed at a page, completely refusing to feed the noise burning two floors down.
I stop at the edge of the aisle.
Just watching.
The sight of her hits like a blunt impact to the chest. Clean lines. Sharp focus. Disciplined. The kind of control people mistake for safety until they try to take it from her.
Every instinct in me says keep her away from this.
I bring it to her anyway.
That’s the ugliest part.
“You’re loud,” she says.
She doesn’t look up. Doesn’t stop drawing. Just drops the words into the quiet like she’s been timing my approach.
“I didn’t say anything,” I reply.
“You’re breathing like you’re in the fourth period of a championship game,” she says. “It’s distracting.”
I step into the aisle. The floorboards creak under my weight. A warning.
“News travels,” I say. “You really haven’t checked?”
She finally lifts her head. Her eyes are cool, assessing, sweeping me from my hoodie to my sneakers like she’s checking for structural damage.
“I checked,” she says. “They’re saying you killed someone.”
“Accident,” I correct. “Allegedly.”
“Allegedly,” she repeats, flat. “Does the distinction matter to the mob?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?” She sets the pen down. “I told you I needed time.”
“I don’t have time.”
