They Call Me the Coroner | Top Gun: Maverick

Angel Tesha

~~Jasper~~

"Where is she?" I bark at the woman cleaning up in Tesha's room. The busted television staring back at me in a cluttered mess from the floor. The matress is off the bed. The rail on the bed is bent and there's handprints of blood on the walls. "What have they done with her?"

She puckers her lips and puts a hand on her side, speaking in broken English. "They take her out. They say she ruin room and hurt herself! She ruin room, yes." She motions to the walls, then she saddens and speaks softly. "Hurt herself...yes."

My heart beats faster. "Where did they take her?"

"Cell." She says pointing down the hall.

*****

The heels of my feet click as I step quickly down the hall to Tesha's isolation cell. The guard meets me at the door and I show him my clearance. He eyes me with a squint.

"Got your firearm?"

I show him the pistol at my side and cock my head. "Why does that matter?"

"Just in case. Boss' orders." He nods his head to the door. "She'd wacked and he didn't want to take any chances."

I furrow my brows and frown as he unlocks the door. Stepping inside, I find her seated on the floor, leaning against the middle of the back wall. Her eyes staring at my calves.

She never looks away from the door, as I slide to the left and let it shut. I clear my throat.

"Hello, Tesha." My voice cracks.

She blinks. Her body slumped against the wall. It seems all she can do just to sit up.

Her face is bruised and her nose is broken. Around her eyes is black and the white in her sockets is bloodshot. Her lips are cracked and swollen. The blue irises in her head look like they are glowing.

She winces as she wheezes air into her lungs.

I step over to her and she moves her eyes to look at me. There's a strand of hair between her cracked, bleeding lips. I reach up slowly to get it.

Jerking her hand up, she wraps her fingers around my forearm and squeezes hard enough to make me grunt. She doesn't need nails for her bony fingers to dig into my skin. Her eye twitches and we stare at each other for a long time.

Her face is stone. Her eyes loathing.

I open my hand in a sign of surrender and back away some, sitting across from her on the floor. My forearm painted red from the blood on Tesha's palms.

"They didn't rebandage your abdomen." I point to her stomach.

She just stares at the floor.

I feel the pistol at my side. She's not the only one full of shame and guilt. I can't even begin to express how much I hate myself right now.

I take the gun out and eye it for a second. My heart hammering my ribs. This will prove how far she's gone.

This can go one of three ways.

First way: she listens to me.

Second way: she does something stupid. But I think if she was going to off herself, she would have figured out a way to do it by now.

Third way: she shoots me.

I set the gun in the floor between us and glance at her. "I want there to be some trust between us."