Drawing Blood

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I followed Jonathan's advice, and took my place in all of it. I could see where I fitted into his machine. He put those stepping stones before me, and I trod them obediently. Devlin had no idea he would be the master of his own downfall; he said. He had no idea he would reap the consequences of what he had sowed. He had set those wheels in motion, himself. And his destiny had been consummated.

"If he had left you alone, I wouldn't be here, saying this to you," Jonathon warned me before he left. "I would have been just another nameless face in the crowd. But by sending in a wolf, especially when my son is here, Devlin has caught my attention..."

I'd gone there to break things off with Adam, I was told to say. There were too many people who saw him that day, for me to state otherwise. He was too intense for me, too possessive. He wanted more than I could give. He could lose his temper at the drop of a hat. I tried to make things work between us, but it had been impossible. He had been unreasonable, jealous of my friendship with Luke. I did not see any other way to stop hurting. I decided to leave for my own safety. I decided to leave for my own sanity.

I cried, then. I wept for those few who had lost their lives. I wept for Adam. The police weren't to know any better. They didn't have a map to my heart, or my mind. I would thoroughly hate myself for doing that. I would hate Adam just as much. But it was a hate which was mixed with an undying love. A bittersweet feeling only the lonely can bear. They have said that, sometimes - the academics. They have said hate is the product of an unfulfilled love. How Adam put me in that situation, and expected me to feel otherwise, was beyond my comprehension. How he thought I would cope, bewildered me. He had gone, and I would not see him again. Whether he had made it out in one piece was irrelevant. Those eyes of his, those beautiful emerald eyes, would not grace my own again. My imagination was all I had left. To be able to touch him in the here and now, was gone.

I forced myself to re-live those victims' final moments whilst I was sitting there, in that tiny room. Those people who died would be callously used for my own benefit. They would add to my distress and discomfort the way a thorny blanket would add cuts to my skin. I would picture their attempts as they fought off what was towering over them. I would imagine their dying screams, and their terror. I would use all those images until I could not bring myself to think of them anymore. When they asked me if I needed to compose myself, if I needed a glass of water, I would shake my head and say it should have been I, who were lying dead on the ground. Not those innocent bystanders who had gotten in his way. "I broke thing off with him," I would say. "This is all my fault..."

I would chew down on my nails, when I spoke. I would stare at the detectives with wet eyes. The female, whose name I cannot recall, would tell me it was my right to end the relationship. That, I didn't need a reason. She would show me some sympathy and add I wasn't to blame for Adam's actions. He was the regulator of his own emotions.

"I had only been with him to get things out of my system," I would speak when she told me that. "I should have never allowed it to become so serious. He had taken it rather badly," I admitted.

Chris had discovered our secret affair. That was why he had been sitting with me on that park bench. He had relayed to me what he knew, and that was when he had threatened to inform Will of my deceit. She asked me why, then; why had he threatened that? I said I didn't know why he had done it. It was for her to decide. "Chris had merely given me the courage to call things off with Adam. It was something I ought to have done after Brighton," I said.

She wrote something down in her notepad. It was in shorthand. "Luke had come with me. Ask him if you don't believe me," I went on. "He would be able to confirm all of this if you ask him. I had been too afraid to be there alone and had wanted him by my side, you see. I knew what Adam was capable of. He could get very angry when challenged. He could become quite aggressive. Our exchange had been a heated one, as I had expected. Things had gotten out of hand. That was when Luke entered the room. He heard the commotion. He saw Adam grab me by my coat. I somehow managed to shrug myself free at that point, to escape his grip. That was why my coat was there. I left it behind. It had not been safe to take it with me. I managed to scratch myself, in all the madness. That was why my blood was on the wall. I had gone there this morning in the hope he had calmed down."