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A bright light shone down on Colter, its glow offensively jarring compared to the black of night around and roiling within him. He blinked up at it—a porch light—and it took him several seconds to realize where he stood. He couldn't recall driving, didn't know how long it'd taken or how he'd decided to come here. He didn’t remember anything after...
That last image flashed in his mind. The faces of all those kids, that horrific scene, the children who'd never run or giggle or be held again, their little bodies...
He tasted bile on the back of his tongue, and he lay his palm flat against his stomach, nearly doubling over. He could barely breathe past the knot of sick lodged in his throat, threatening to cut off his air supply.
He couldn't bring that atrocity here and lay it down. What had possessed him? It was all too dark and depraved, too vile for anyone.
But the thought of facing it alone made him want to crawl out of his own skin. No case had ever shaken him like this, ever made him physically ill. He’d never blacked out and ran on autopilot to find something better than the despicable evil he’d confronted—and lost to.
He couldn’t be here, though. He needed to leave, now, and figure out how to manage it on his own, like he always did. But his brain felt addled, like someone had taken a blender to it. Where would he go? How would he shake off the sickening feeling snaking inside his gut?
The porch light seared his vision, and he blinked against the pain, trying to calm his thunderous heart, attempting to breathe around the disgust all but choking him. He’d have to figure something out. He could figure it out...somehow. He just needed air.
Colter forced a deep breath in through his nose and held it, trying to forget the rancid smell still burning in his nostrils, then exhaled slowly. Another breath, attempting to steady himself before he stood tall and turned away from the door.
“Colter?” Reenie's surprised voice greeted him.
He hadn’t heard the door open—and hadn’t left quickly enough. Something in the back of his brain recognized his dulled and delayed senses as a trauma response. But knowing that didn’t alleviate it, and now remorse joined the nausea souring his stomach.
He closed his eyes, regretting that she’d see him like this, a messy tangle of blistered emotions, a shell of who he usually was, full of bitter defeat and a darkness so deep he could barely breathe. She didn’t deserve it; she shouldn’t have to mop up the mess his failure had left him in.
Colter turned back to the open door Reenie now stood in. Her big hazel eyes and white silk blouse gleamed in the light, looking for all the world like a beacon of refuge after the depravity he’d just witnessed.
That he could bring such horror to her door… A swell of disgust crashed against his ribs, and it nearly made him wretch.
“Reenie,” he scraped out past the snapshot in his mind, the scene he couldn't erase. “How’d you know…?”
“Doorbell camera,” she answered, her pleasantly surprised expression fading away as she took him in, the anguish in his features, his hollowed-out expression, the tears threatening to fall from bloodshot eyes.
“Colter…?” she said again, this time with a mixture of worry and shock.
Physically, he looked fine, not a thread out of place: dark blue cargo pants, white t-shirt, black leather jacket. But the empty, tormented look in his eyes, the despair shadowing him… She couldn’t recall a time he’d worn such an abject expression, had never seen him even close to losing his composure. He was always unflappable, strong, and capable, despite her attempts to get him to break—but only with laughter or a smirk, never like this.
“I’m...gonna go,” he said absently, listlessly motioning towards the street.
“No,” she stated immediately, her chest tightening. She didn’t need words to know he hadn’t reached two-and-a-half year old Morgan in time, the kidnapped little girl they’d spoken about not twelve hours before.
Reenie’s heart fell, a hollow ache taking its place in her chest, and she swallowed down all the questions she had with one look at Colter’s distraught face. She gripped his forearm, then slid her hand down into his, tugging him toward her as she stepped back across the threshold. "No, come here, come in."
He looked haunted and desolate, defeated in a way she’d never seen, and apprehension rattled through her as Colter let her pull him into the living room.
Reenie let go of him as he made his way inside, and she closed and locked the door. She turned towards him, and he nearly bowled her over as he crashed into her, his arms desperately, fiercely pulling her close. She stumbled back a step but managed to gain her footing and held her ground and him as she slipped her arms around him.
Reenie’s heart thundered, worry flooding her at the intensity of his embrace. She knew of only one other child he hadn’t managed to return safely. Knew, too, that it’d haunted him for some time, and he’d taken off into the mountains alone for over a week. But the magnitude of this felt heavier, more sinister, and his torment relayed agony on another level.
Colter held her like a drowning man with a life preserver, frantic and needy and afraid to let go for fear of never breaking the surface again. She felt it in the way his fingertips curled into her back, the press of his face into her shoulder, the tautness of his frame. He trembled slightly, tears wetting her shirt, though no sound escaped from him.
Unbidden, her mind began filtering through scenarios, all the atrocious things someone could do to a child. It made her stomach churn violently, a swell of distress making her hold him tighter against whatever horrendous sight left him defeated in her arms.
A small gasp of breath from him made Reenie force herself to shove away the sickening thoughts and focus solely on him. She settled her breathing as Colter came undone, hoping some of her calm would seep into him. Helping him stay upright as he slumped into her, she held him as he expunged whatever demons he needed to be rid of, one hand cradling the back of his head.
Colter buried his face in the crook of her neck, a somewhat awkward position given their vast height difference, but he needed something...pure and good to cling to. The scent of something sweet—her flowery perfume—and the feel of arms around him, holding him for once, were a merciful reprieve after the grim scene still haunting him. He just needed a moment, a handful of heartbeats to recall something bright and beautiful in this world, then he’d make himself let her go and walk out the door.
A new ache, desperate and mixed with longing, flooded him at the thought of leaving her. Where else could he go? Home, to the Airstream? The silence awaiting him there seemed impenetrable, the desolation fathomless. But he would—he could. Turn away from her, all light and comfort and solace, and slip back into the darkness.
Colter forced himself to pull away from her, using the thumb and forefinger of one hand to wipe the tear tracks from his face. “I should go,” he mumbled.
Reenie shook her head, the idea of him leaving anathema. “Come sit down,” she invited, motioning towards the couch.
“No, I—”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Her voice was soft, but her tone left no room for argument. “Shoes off,” she commanded gently.
Some part of Colter wanted to argue, but it took all his strength just to stay on his feet. He lost most appeals with her on a good day—and this was the farthest he could recall being from a good day in years.
He squeezed his tired eyes shut for a few seconds, then gave in to the demands of her voice, soft as honey and just as sweet, and toed off his shoes.
“Jacket,” she said, and he wearily complied, shrugging out of it as Reenie took it from him and hung it on the coat rack by the door.
“Sit down, Colter.”
He swallowed hard, shoving down the voice screaming at him to leave, and shuffled to the couch, plopping down on one end. Reenie watched him for a few beats, her heart breaking that he had no response but obedience, no fight left in him. He braced his elbows on his knees, his head hanging down like he didn’t have strength to lift it. His body held both tension and fatigue, and she abhorred that things existed in this life that could reduce him to such a state.
Confident for the moment that he wasn’t going anywhere, she went to the kitchen and grabbed a few shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey, something they’d both need.
Reenie sat down and put the glasses on the coffee table, then poured them each a two-finger shot. She set a shot glass in front of him, but he didn’t move, his eyes staring into the depths of his mind.
“Colter,” Reenie ventured after a silent, heavy minute, laying her hand on his shoulder.
He slowly turned his head to look at her, and the stark anguish she saw in his eyes scared her.
She considered chugging straight from the bottle—or offering him that option—but instead, she held a glass out to him. “Here, drink this.”
He took it from her, stared at it like it might hold a remedy, then threw it back in a single gulp. Reenie followed suit, the hot liquid burning down the back of her throat.
She poured them each another round and asked gently, quietly, “What happened?” She waited a few moments in silence before looking at him, this beautiful, broken, brave man sitting beside her.
Colter stared at her darkly and shook his head. “I can’t…”
“Colter…” she implored gently with just his name.
“No, Reenie.” His voice wavered. “Not this. I’ve never seen…” He didn’t finish his sentence, unable—unwilling—to explain the horrors burned into his memory and devastate someone else with the details.
He snatched up the shot glass and downed the drink with a grimace. “I shouldn’t have come here. It’s too much.”
Reenie gripped his arm, waiting for him to look at her, but he refused, though out of defiance or because he thought he was protecting her, she couldn’t tell. She cupped her hand against his cheek and gently urged him to turn his head until he met her gaze. The misery in his eyes made her breath catch.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” she vowed, her thumb brushing once over his cheekbone before she dropped her hand. “You don’t have to tell me what happened, but you are going to let me be here for you. With you.”
Colter stared at her, both relieved and overwhelmed by the conviction in her tone. He nodded once, then closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hands.
Exhaustion sat on him like a weighted blanket, and Reenie wondered when he’d last let someone take care of him. He didn’t allow himself to need others, wouldn’t let himself burden anyone else with the hurts and horrors he carried alone—the physical fights, the people he’d had to kill, the worst of humanity he’d seen, the hauntings of his family past.
That changed tonight. He was in no condition to argue his way out of needing her, and she wasn’t inclined to leave him to his own solitary devices. That he’d come here at all was a miracle, and she refused to let him leave to lick his wounds alone.
Reenie poured another shot and set it in front of him. “I’ll be right back,” she told him, though she wasn’t sure he heard her, and she thought he might be in shock.
She quickly changed out of her work clothes into a comfy pair of palazzo pants and an over-sized t-shirt, then moved around the house, cracking open the living room window to let fresh air in and turning off lights until only the lamp on the end-table remained aglow, casting dim shadows around the room.
The light flirted with Colter’s features, deepening the crease in his brow and shadowing the scruff along his jaw while glinting off the hurt in his eyes. She saw his shot glass empty again and hoped it’d take a slight edge off of the monster gnawing away at him.
“Come here,” she said softly, sitting at the far end of the couch.
It took a few seconds for her words to compute, and Colter wearily turned his head to look at her.
She patted the cushion beside her. “Lay down,” she coaxed.
He looked at the couch, then blinked his gaze back to her. Her expression held gentleness, affection, compassion, and sorrow—and all of it directed at him. If he hadn’t been sitting already, he might have collapsed at the tender empathy in her eyes. How long had it been since he’d let someone in, let someone see him like this: messed up, brought low, despondent and fragile?
He started to shake his head, knew he should decline, walk out the door, and leave the goodness of her presence before the horrors found their way to her. But she spoke before he could form words.
“Let me help you,” Reenie pleaded. “Just...rest a while.”
A war raged inside him. He didn’t want her involved in his messes. Didn’t want her maimed by whatever tragedy he found himself in the middle of or harmed by the dangers that were part of his daily life. And especially not something as brutal as this.
But, God, he longed for gentleness after all he’d seen. For soft hands and caring words and a presence so bright it helped keep the darkness at bay, if only for a short while. It was selfish, he knew, and he’d wear that badge, but he couldn’t help craving her light, wanting it to drown out the inky blackness of despair he carried inside him. It’s why his subconscious mind had brought him here when he’d left that scene, wasn’t it?
He didn’t deserve it—didn’t believe for a second that he did—but he hungered for it like a beggar at a feast. And he didn’t have the strength to say no tonight.
It felt like both losing and winning as he lay down. He rested his head on her thigh like she were his personal pillow and he belonged there, his ankles propped on the couch arm at the opposite end. And she let him.
Colter peered up at her once in the soft light, her hair framing her face like a silk curtain, and she gave him a sad, small smile before he surrendered, letting his eyes drop close. Her hand cupped the side of his head, and he felt tears prick the back of his eyes at the tenderness of her touch.
“You can tell me.” Reenie’s hushed voice soothed over him. “You don’t have to, but I’m here. I’ll listen.”
He knew she would—and could. He just didn’t want her to have to. Still, he owed her something after showing up on her porch like a walking travesty. He’d give her what he could without painting morbid pictures that would haunt both her waking and nighttime dreams.
Colter barely shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts, before forcing tired words out. “I’ve seen...the worst of what men can do to each other, their disregard for human life. I hate it, but I can handle it. It doesn’t sit inside me; it’s never affected me much. I don’t know, maybe…” He choked on the word but tried again. “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”
He spoke slowly, exhaustion woven into and weighing down every word. Reenie wanted to dispute his claim—and any other time she would have, maybe even thrown in a snarky comment to tease him. But she held her tongue, wanting him to expel the hurt more than he needed her to counter his statement.
“But when it’s kids… There were so many.” His voice broke and he paused, needing to admit what he’d seen, compelled to confess his own failure. But speaking the words felt like scraping slivers of glass over raw skin. “I didn’t get there in time. The kids, Reenie, they’re all…”
Reenie held her breath listening to him, the anguish and trepidation in his voice, the revelation of more than only Morgan—though she alone was enough—causing her heart to constrict. How many? All kids? How had they not know about the others? What had the man done to them?
Her stomach churned. No wonder Colter was in shock. No one could see what had to be the grisliest of scenes and walk away unscathed. She shut her eyes and swallowed down disgust at the images her mind conjured, likely cotton candy visions compared to the horrendous reality of it, the scene she knew Colter couldn’t escape.
“It’s not your fault,” Reenie assured him. She attempted conviction, but the shock of his revelation left her with no more than a whisper. “You have to know that. You did everything you could to stop that man. You always do.”
Her words, soft and gentle as a summer breeze, hit him harder than any punch, and a tear eked out from the corner of his eye. Reenie brushed it away with a tender swipe of her thumb.
“You’re a good man, Colter Shaw.” She stared down at him, his brows drawn together and eyes closed tight. He shook his head, but she continued, refuting his mute denial. “You are. No one forces you to do what you do, to endanger your own life. But you do it anyway. Every time. To help other people. You give them hope in hopeless situations. And you are not responsible for the depravity of others.”
The expression on his face told her he didn’t believe her, but she let the statement hang between them, wanted it to soak into him until he breathed it like air and believed it with the force of her conviction.
Some part of Colter knew she was right: he wasn’t responsible for the crimes of others. He was only liable for the race against the clock to stop them before they occurred.
Though it didn’t happen often, he’d failed before—and it made him question his every move, every time. But he’d never failed on this scale before, not with so many lives, so many children’s lives, at stake.
“But I know it hurts you,” Reenie finally continued. “Here.” She laid her palm flat against his chest, over his heart.
He barely nodded in acknowledgment before forcing his eyes open to look up at her, sincerity and an emotion he couldn’t name written on her face. Her words and warmth seeped into him, her proximity a solace he didn’t deserve but needed like air.
“I’m tired, Reenie,” he breathed on a sigh, and she knew he meant far more than physical exhaustion. He held a heart-sickness that would take time to heal and images that would never leave him.
Her brow furrowed, and she nodded slightly. “I know.” She wanted to help him; she’d take all the memories from his mind if she could so he could confidently walk his way around the world chasing criminals down and making her heart race. But that wasn’t the way of it, and she could only start by soothing him in this moment.
Reenie held his gaze for a few seconds before her fingertips brushed across his forehead. “Rest now,” she nearly whispered.
He didn’t have the energy to refuse, not when he felt so worn and hollowed out. And he didn’t want to, if he were honest, no matter how much he tried to keep the ugliness inside of him to spare her. He should hate himself for giving in to the misery, for seeking solace here, for darkening her door with the torment of such trauma. But right now, he only felt gratitude that she’d let him in and held him together while he fell apart. Reenie deserved far more than what he brought to her life, and someday he’d find a way to repay her.
With a strange mixture of regret and relief, Colter let his eyes close against the darkness still clawing for purchase inside him.
Then her fingers feathered through his hair, and he lost all sense of the world. Her nails scraped slowly along his scalp, sending shivers radiating out from the top of his head and turning his blood into molten molasses. It felt like whiplash after the events of the past few hours, but it took only a few heartbeats for the tension to ease away from his muscles, the mixture of weariness, whiskey, and Reenie’s touch a soothing balm like nothing he’d felt before and everything he wanted. He nearly moaned at the languid relief of her hands on him, the slow tender rhythm of her ministrations, her palm still pressed over his heart like she alone held it in place.
Reenie watched him visibly relax into the cushions, melt under the steady massage of her fingers in his hair, relieved he let her do this for him.
It only took a few minutes for Colter to drift off to sleep, and she stared at him, his now-relaxed brow, long lashes, high cheekbones, perfect lips, square jaw. She’d always found him wildly attractive, but seeing him like this, aching and haunted by the sinister side of humanity, caused a wave of protection to rise up in her. He’d smirk at the notion, she was sure, but he wasn’t invincible. Tonight had proven that.
An image of lost children flashed in her mind. The things they must’ve suffered, the families now grieving, the loss of the innocent, the darkness of what one person could do to another. She blinked back tears, trying to calm the churning sickness in her stomach.
And the goodness of a man like Colter, Reenie reminded herself, trying not to get lost in the bleakness of it all. He didn’t understand that he stood as a bright beacon in the midst of people’s darkness, how much lighter he made things in this world feel. He gave hope in the hardest of times, was the good in the midst of the grim. How he could blame himself…
Reenie took a deep, calming breath and stared into nothing, attempting to quiet her mind. The clock on the wall ticked the seconds by, and she absently continued threading her fingers through his hair until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer.
Outside, the nightly sounds of the city quietly echoed: a dog’s distant bark, a singular car driving down the block, a cool breeze playing with the leaves in the trees outside her window. Inside, Reenie dropped her head against the back of the couch and drifted off, holding onto the light.