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The couch in the precinct's waiting area smelled like old coffee and disinfectant, the fabric sagging under Tessa's slight frame. She kept her knees drawn up to her chest, the oversized sleeves of her hoodie swallowing her hands as she picked at a loose thread. Across the room, a flickering fluorescent light buzzed like a trapped wasp, casting uneven shadows over the bulletin board—missing persons flyers, community event notices, a sun-faded sticker for a crime hotline. She didn’t look at any of them.
Detective Crow’s polished shoes clicked against the linoleum before she saw him. He moved like someone who enjoyed the sound of his own footsteps—slow, deliberate, like he owned every inch of the station. His cufflinks gleamed under the harsh lights as he adjusted his tie, the red silk catching like a warning.
The cushion dipped beside her before she could react, the weight of him pressing the old springs into surrender. Detective Crow sat too close—close enough that the heat of his thigh bled through the fabric of her shorts, close enough that she caught the sharp, chemical sting of his cologne, something cloying and sweet beneath the alcohol. He leaned in, his elbow propped on the back of the couch behind her head, fingers drumming against the upholstery just above her shoulder. "You holding up okay, kid?" he asked, voice low, like they were sharing a secret. The words curled around her ear, sticky as syrup.
Tessa pressed herself into the armrest, the plastic digging into her ribs. She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Her throat had sealed itself shut the moment his knee brushed hers, a reflex as automatic as flinching from a flame. Crow chuckled, the sound vibrating through the couch, and reached out to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered, tracing the curve of her cheekbone with a thumb before pulling away—slow, like he was savoring the resistance of her skin. "You’re real quiet," he mused, tilting his head. "That’s okay. I like listeners."
The precinct door swung open with a sharp metallic clang, startling Tessa enough that her shoulders jerked—just enough for Crow to notice. His smirk barely had time to settle before his body shifted, smooth as oil sliding off glass, putting a calculated foot of space between them. The sudden absence of his heat left her skin prickling, cold in a way that had nothing to do with the station's air conditioning.
Detective Reyes—her badge read "M. Reyes" in bold uppercase letters—strode in balancing a cardboard tray of coffee cups, her dark hair pulled into a tight bun. "Crow," she nodded, barely glancing at him before her gaze landed on Tessa. There was a beat, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes—too quick for Crow to catch—before she held out one of the cups. "Figured you could use this," she said, her voice steady, warmer than the bitter steam rising from the lid.
The coffee cup trembled in Tessa's hands, the heat seeping through the thin cardboard sleeve as Detective Reyes settled into the chair across from her. The precinct’s stale air clung to her skin, but the warmth of the drink anchored her—something real, something solid. Across the room, Crow lingered by the water cooler, his reflection distorted in the plastic jug as he pretended not to watch.
"You remember anything else about that night?" Reyes asked, her voice softer now, like she was treading on ice. Tessa stared at the black liquid swirling in her cup. The memory came in flashes—the crunch of gravel under her sneakers as she ran up the driveway, the porch light flickering like a dying star, the way the front door had creaked open too easily, as if the house itself had exhaled.
Tessa's fingers tightened around the cup until the cardboard crumpled slightly, the heat bordering on pain. She welcomed it. "The—the kitchen light was on," she murmured, so quiet Reyes had to lean forward. "But they never left it on. Mom always said it wasted electricity." The words felt strange in her mouth, like pebbles dredged from a riverbed—smooth from being turned over too many times in her head, but still foreign when spoken aloud. Across the room, Crow's polished shoe scuffed against the linoleum. Tessa didn't look up.
Reyes pulled a notebook from her blazer pocket, the pages whispering as she flipped past filled sheets. "You told the first responders the back door was unlocked too," she said, not writing yet, just holding the pen poised. "Was that normal?" Tessa shook her head once, sharply, a strand of hair slipping free from behind her ear. The motion made her dizzy. She could still smell the detergent from the hospital blankets they'd wrapped around her shoulders that night, could still hear the way the EMT's radio had crackled with static as she'd repeated, *No, we always lock it,* until her voice frayed.
After Questions: Detective Crow said he will drive her.
The car smelled like leather polish and something faintly sour beneath it—old takeout containers shoved under the seat, maybe. Tessa watched the streetlights smear gold across the windshield as Crow turned the wrong way onto Maple, the tires humming against asphalt still warm from the afternoon sun. Her fingers curled around the seatbelt strap. "This isn't the way to Aunt Lisa's," she said, her voice thin as the last light bleeding over the rooftops.
Crow's thumb tapped the steering wheel twice before he adjusted his grip, the red silk of his tie shifting like fresh blood against his collar in the dashboard glow. "Thought we'd make a quick detour," he said, too casual, like he'd suggested stopping for ice cream instead of driving toward the husk of her old life. "Fresh eyes on the scene, you know? Sometimes witnesses remember things when they're back in the—" He waved a hand, the gold of his watch flashing. "—environment."
"But, I don't want to—" Tessa's protest died in her throat as Crow's hand landed heavy on her knee, his fingers digging in just enough to still her words. His grip was warm through the thin fabric of her shorts, the pressure deliberate—not painful, not yet, but weighted with the promise of what could happen if she kept talking. "Tessa," he sighed, like she was a child refusing vegetables, "you *want* to help catch who did this, don't you?" His thumb stroked the inside of her knee, slow, circling. The streetlights flickered past, painting his profile in fractured gold and shadow. "This is how we do that."
The car slowed as they turned onto Willow Lane, the familiar cracked pavement humming beneath the tires. Tessa's breath hitched—three houses down, the roof of her childhood home jutted against the darkening sky, the police tape across the front door fluttering like a ghost's ribbon.
The car rolled to a stop too close to the curb, the tires kissing the concrete with a soft thud. Crow killed the engine but left the keys dangling in the ignition, the metallic jingle loud in the sudden silence. Tessa's fingers stayed locked around the seatbelt, the nylon biting into her palm. Outside, the street was eerily still—no kids on bikes, no neighbors chatting over fences. Just the whisper of leaves in the sycamore that used to shade her bedroom window.
Crow's door opened with a creak that made her flinch. He circled the car with the lazy confidence of someone who knew no one would question his presence here, his shadow stretching long and jagged across the overgrown lawn. When he wrenched her door open, the dome light flooded the interior, catching the panic in her widened eyes before she could hide it. "Come on, kid," he said, offering his hand like this was a date. His palm was broad, the lines of it deep enough to hold secrets. "Don't make me drag you out."
Tessa's fingers brushed against Crow's palm—cold, clammy, the contact sending a jolt up her arm like touching a live wire. His grip closed around hers instantly, too tight, the way a predator clamps down before the kill. She let him pull her from the car, her legs stiff as if her joints had rusted overnight. The pavement scraped beneath her sneakers, the sound grating in the unnatural hush of the street. The air smelled of cut grass and something darker beneath it—mildew, maybe, or the lingering metallic tang of old blood the rain hadn't washed away.
The porch steps groaned under Crow's weight as he led her up, his hand shifting to the small of her back, fingers splaying possessively. Tessa flinched, her spine arching away from the touch, but he only pressed harder, guiding her forward like she was a misbehaving dog on a leash. The front door yawned open, the hinges silent—replaced, she realized. The original ones had screamed like a wounded animal every time someone came home. *Used to scream*, she corrected herself. No one was coming home anymore.
The couch sat alone in the middle of the living room, its floral upholstery bleached pale where the forensic team had scrubbed away the stains. It looked absurd—too bright, too out of place, like a single tooth left in a gum after the rest had been yanked.
Crow’s fingers flexed against her lower back, nudging her forward. “Take your time,” he murmured, but his grip tightened when she hesitated. The floorboards groaned under their combined weight, the sound too loud in the hollowed-out shell of the house. Her parents’ bookshelves were bare, the photographs that used to clutter the mantel gone—bagged as evidence or boxed for storage, she didn’t know. Only the indentations remained, faint shadows on the wallpaper where frames had hung for years.
Tessa’s breath hitched as her sneakers scuffed against the floorboards, the sound too loud in the hollowed-out silence of the house. She stared at the couch—the one her mother had always complained was too floral, too stiff, the one her father had napped on every Sunday after lunch. Now it was just a thing, a bleached-out husk, and she couldn’t look away. The forensic team had left it angled wrong, shoved into the center of the room like some kind of exhibit. Her fingers twitched at her sides, itching to drag it back to its corner, to fix this one broken piece.
Crow’s silence was sudden, a vacuum where his smug commentary should have been. Tessa barely had time to register the shift before his hand clamped around her wrist, yanking her off-balance. Her gasp was cut short as he threw her onto the couch, the impact jolting through her spine. The cushions smelled like bleach and something sour beneath it—old sweat, maybe, or the metallic bite of blood they hadn’t quite erased.
The scream ripped from Tessa's throat before she could choke it back—raw, unfiltered, the kind of sound that scrapes the lining of your windpipe on the way out. Crow's knee dug into the small of her back, pinning her to the couch as easily as a butterfly under glass. His fingers tangled in her hair, wrenching her head to the side until her cheek pressed into the bleached fabric. She could taste the chemicals they'd used to scour away her parents' blood, acrid and artificial on her tongue.
"Shhh, kid," Crow crooned, his breath hot against her ear. His free hand slid under her hoodie, calloused palms scraping over the bare skin of her stomach. "You don't wanna bring the neighbors running, do you? Imagine the rumors." His thumb hooked into the waistband of her shorts, tugging just enough to make the elastic bite. Somewhere outside, a car door slammed—too far away to help, close enough to remind her how alone she really was.
The sound of his belt unbuckling was obscenely loud—a metallic *snick* that made Tessa's stomach drop like a stone in water. Crow didn't hurry, didn't fumble; his movements were practiced, almost leisurely, as if he'd done this a hundred times before. Maybe he had. The zipper hissed open, inch by inch, and Tessa squeezed her eyes shut, but the darkness behind her lids only sharpened the sound. "Pl—please don't," she whispered, the words cracking halfway out. They tasted like ash.
Crow exhaled through his nose, a sound somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. His free hand—the one not twisted in her hair—traced the line of her spine through the hoodie, pressing just hard enough to make her muscles lock. "You're *adorable* when you beg," he murmured, dragging his lips along the shell of her ear. His breath smelled like coffee and spearmint gum, the incongruous normalcy of it somehow worse than if he'd reeked of liquor. "But we both know you're not gonna fight me." His fingers tightened in her hair, yanking her head back just enough to expose the flutter of her pulse. "Not after what happened to your mommy and daddy."
Tessa's sob hitched in her throat like a rusted hinge, the sound ragged and wet. Crow's fingers traced the lace trim of her red panties—the ones her mother had bought her last month, joking about "growing up too fast"—before hooking into the fabric with a slow, deliberate curl. The elastic snapped against her hips as he dragged them down, the air biting at newly exposed skin. She twisted, her sneakers scrabbling against the couch cushions, but his weight held her pinned.
His chuckle vibrated through her ribs, a low, predatory sound that had no business being so familiar. "Shhh," he murmured again, his lips grazing the nape of her neck as his free hand slid higher under her hoodie. The callouses on his palms scraped over her ribs, rough enough to raise goosebumps. "You're gonna thank me for this later." The words dripped with a sickening certainty, like he'd already rewritten this moment in his head a dozen times—her tear-streaked face softening into gratitude, her body arching into his touch instead of away.
The weight of him crushed her lungs flat, ribs bending like green twigs under Crow's bulk as he settled fully onto her back. Tessa gasped, the sound wet and fractured, her fingers scrabbling at the bleached couch fabric until her nails snagged threads loose. His knees dug into the cushions on either side of her thighs, pinning her with the casual brutality of a hunter kneeling on fresh prey. "Pl—please—" she choked out, the word splintering as Crow's hips snapped forward without warning, the pain punching the rest of her plea into a silent, open-mouthed scream.
Her vision whited out at the edges, the living room walls blurring into a nauseating smear of beige and forensic blue tape. Crow groaned above her, the sound obscenely pleased, his fingers tightening in her hair until her scalp burned. "God, you're *tight*," he breathed, rolling his hips in a slow, experimental circle that made her stomach heave.
Tessa's hands spasmed—fingers curling into fists so tight her nails carved crescent moons into her palms, then splaying wide like she could claw the pain out of the air itself.
Tessa's scream lodged in her throat like a bone—sharp, choking, refusing to break free. Her lungs burned, her ribs flexing against Crow's weight with each brutal thrust, but the air wouldn't come. It was as if her body had severed the connection between her mind and her voice, leaving only a hollow, gasping silence. Crow's breath hitched above her, his fingers tightening in her hair until her scalp stung with a bright, electric pain. "That's it," he murmured, his voice thick with something between praise and hunger. "Pretty girls, stay quiet."
The couch springs groaned beneath them, a rhythmic creak that matched Crow's pace—methodical at first, then erratic, then punishing. Tessa's vision blurred at the edges, the living room walls tilting sideways as her forehead pressed into the bleached fabric. She could taste the chemicals they'd used to scrub away her parents' blood—could smell Crow's cologne mingling with the sour tang of his sweat—could feel the wetness between her thighs that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with her body's traitorous attempt to survive.
His hand moved from her hair to under her jaw, fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath her chin, forcing her head up until her neck arched at an unnatural angle. Tessa groaned weakly, the sound barely escaping her lips—a helpless, animal noise dredged from somewhere deep and broken inside her. The pain was a live wire, white-hot and frayed, sparking down her spine with every ragged breath. Crow’s thumb pressed into the hollow of her throat, just hard enough to make her swallow against the pressure.
Tessa's fingers went slack against the couch fabric, the strength draining from her limbs like sand through an hourglass. The pain was a relentless tide, each thrust dragging her further from herself, until her body felt like a foreign thing—something hollowed out and used up. A weak groan escaped her lips, barely louder than the creak of the couch springs beneath them. Crow chuckled above her, the sound vibrating through her ribs. "That's it," he murmured, his breath hot against the nape of her neck. "Just take it." His fingers tightened under her jaw, tilting her face toward him as if he wanted her to see the way his lips curled around the words. "You’re *made* for this."
Her vision swam, the living room walls tilting at odd angles, the forensic tape blurring into streaks of blue. Crow’s voice dripped into her ear, syrupy with false sympathy. "Bet your daddy never told you how pretty you’d grow up to be." His free hand slid down her side, possessive, marking her skin with the heat of his touch. "Bet he never imagined *this*." His hips snapped forward, punctuating the sentence with a brutality that knocked the air from her lungs. Tessa's mouth opened soundlessly, a silent scream etched into the lines of her face.
The rhythm came suddenly—not the practiced, controlled movements of before, but something jagged and desperate, like Crow had lost the thread of his own performance. His fingers dug into her hips hard enough to leave bruises, each thrust a punctuation mark in a sentence she hadn’t agreed to speak. Tessa’s vision fractured at the edges, the living room dissolving into streaks of beige and blue, the forensic tape on the walls blurring into watercolor. Her breath came in shallow hitches, her lungs fluttering like moth wings against the crush of his weight.
Crow’s breath hitched above her, his voice fraying at the edges as he muttered something low and garbled—praise or profanity, she couldn’t tell. The pain had crystallized into something beyond language, a white noise that filled her skull until even the sound of her own heartbeat faded into static. Her fingers twitched against the couch cushions, the fabric rough under her nails, but her arms might as well have been miles away for all the control she had over them.
His hand under her jaw moved with a slow, deliberate pressure, fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath her chin until her head lolled forward, limp as a doll’s. The sudden slackness of her neck made her skull feel impossibly heavy—a bowling ball balanced on a toothpick—and when Crow thrust again, the force of it sent her forehead smacking against the couch armrest. The impact bloomed behind her eyes in a burst of white static, pain radiating outward like ripples in a pond.
The darkness behind Tessa's eyelids pulsed in time with the throbbing at her temples, a sickening ebb and flow that dragged her toward consciousness like a tide pulling at driftwood. Her cheek pressed into something rough—the couch fabric, bleached and stiff from forensic scrubbing—and for one disoriented second, she thought she might still be dreaming. Then the weight shifted above her, the leather of Crow's belt creaking as he moved, and reality crashed back in with the force of a gut punch.
Crow's fingers tangled in her hair again, but this time there was no pretense of gentleness—just a sharp yank that wrenched her head backward until her neck screamed in protest. Her eyelids fluttered open just in time to see him looming over her, his silhouette blotting out the ceiling light, the edges of his form haloed by the headache-inducing glare. His fly was still open, the zipper teeth glinting like a row of tiny knives.
His free hand moved with practiced efficiency, fingers wrapping around himself in a loose fist, the rhythm slow at first—almost teasing—as if he were savoring the drag of skin against skin. Tessa's breath hitched at the slick sound of it, the obscene wetness amplified in the hollow silence of the house.
The first hot stripe hit her cheekbone with the precision of a paintbrush stroke—thick, viscous, stinging like salt in a wound. Tessa flinched weakly, her eyelid twitching shut against the splash, but Crow's fingers tightened in her hair, holding her face steady for the next pulse. It landed across her parted lips, the taste blooming bitter-copper on her tongue before she could clamp her mouth shut. "That's a good girl," Crow chuckled, his thumb swiping through the mess on her cheekbone, smearing it like war paint. His breath came ragged but satisfied, the sound of a man who'd just checked off another box on a long, dark list.
He released her hair abruptly, letting her head drop forward like a broken marionette. The wet strands clung to her face, some stuck to her eyelashes, and she didn't—couldn't—wipe them away. Her arms felt leaden, her fingers numb where they still gripped the couch cushions. Crow sighed above her, the sound almost contented, as he tucked himself back into his slacks with the casual efficiency of someone zipping up after a piss. The zipper's teeth clicked shut like a punctuation mark.