And I fell. It was only a few seconds, but a few seconds of falling made for a hard landing, especially when that landing was on hard earth. The air went out of me.

None of us here were in a position to trigger for the first time.

Couldn’t be a second trigger. Too brief, no excuse for it, at the opening of a fight.

No. It felt heavier and weaker. Like the crackle of thunder as lightning struck a long distance away.

Already, I could feel my power start to creep back in, but it was a hundredth of what it was supposed to be.

Too little to matter, as red lights illuminated around me, triggered by my proximity or the impact of my landing.

Interlude 12.e

Seven Years Ago

The interrogation room was concrete, a metal table set against the wall. A monster was in the corner, perched on a metal folding chair that creaked when she shifted position.

It was all arranged to make the suspect as uncomfortable as possible. The chair was situated in the corner, and the table had a bar between the legs so the suspect couldn’t turn the chair toward the table or easily put their legs beneath.

Whichever orientation of the chair they chose, they had to sit uncomfortably or twist if they wanted to look at anyone else in the room, and they had to to turn a hundred and eighty degrees if they wanted to look at the mirror set into the wall behind them.

It was to the detectives’ benefit that the suspect was not only made uncomfortable, but that body language was put on full display with no table to block the view. Every movement of the hands, every adjustment of the feet.

It was a bit of a twist of expectations that they were on the other side of the one-way mirror. This was the room where the various members of the station normally gathered to watch investigations in progress. It was tempting to keep looking back, to try to read something into a scene without sound, when the speaker was switched off. In the other room, a thirty-something woman was talking to three officers. In this room, two officers and the suspect waited.

‘Suspect’. Nic had already come to her verdict: Monster.

Nic stood by the door, pretending to be watching that scene. She took periodic notes.

“We’re having a conversation here, that’s all,” Doug told the suspect, all smiles.

“And I’m Alexandria,” Jen, the young woman at the far end of the room said. Suspect. Monster.

“Oh, wow,” Doug said, breathy, excited, playing along and happy to play along. “That’s amazing!”

Trying to sweep their suspect up into a rhythm. Nic wouldn’t have gone about it that way.