Nic left the room, gathering up the things. Because she didn’t trust herself, in small part. She kicked the stop and let the door start to swing closed. Let Jen think that her words wouldn’t matter.

A minute and a half passed. Long enough for Jen to consider how fucked she was. Not long enough for her to work out any answers. Doug re-entered.

“The good cop returns,” Jen could be heard, and there was a bitterness in her voice.

“Detective, not cop,” Doug said, and there was no warmth in his voice. He could sound like a real bastard when he wanted to.

We’re all good cops, anyway, Nic thought to herself.

“Why?” Doug asked. “Why do this?”

In the twenty-year-old monster’s defeat, her earlier composure and certainty about her way forward were shaken. She didn’t second-guess things or think about what she’d learned in law class.

“I didn’t tell him to do anything he wasn’t already thinking about doing. He doesn’t have that long to live, anyway. He comes to me, saying he’s miserable, he’s sore, he’s sick of the medication, he wants to end it all, and I’m supposed to say no? Fuck me, if he was a dog and he was that bad off then we would have put him down a long time ago.”

He’s not a dog, he’s a kid.

Doug didn’t say anything. Nic, standing in the hallway, near the door, was silent, teeth clenched.

A monster had told a little boy to kill himself, and he’d tried. Now he was in more pain than ever. And for all that the classes and the workshops on powers and crisis points hammered in all of the things to look out for, it never came. Killers and thugs and abusers, victims and victimizers. Hundreds like Owen. Maybe even hundreds a year.

No magic answers or anything like that. Just… concrete rooms and human psychology. Looks of defeat that were nowhere near enough.

Restless, angry, Nic paced down the hall. Her boss was there, and he raised his eyebrows.

In answer, she gave him a nod. It had worked.

At her locker, she helped herself to a drink, and she leaned her forehead against the top shelf of the locker where some loose evidence baggies still rested. The drink burned in her mouth and throat, and frustrated thoughts burned in her head.

It was nine. Late enough that dinner was almost certainly out of the question. Not so late that failing to call and see if dinner was in order would be allowed.

She had a message. She put in the three-digit code, and held phone to ear. Was Lee mad?

“Mommee! I had my bath and we had waffles with chocolate chips and strawberries for dessert! Love you miss you going to bed now! Daddy’s going to read me a book!”