Detroit Become Human: Every Breath You Take (Connor x Reader)

Chapter 4: Instability x 28

*I own nothing, all belongs to Quantic Dreams.

A glass wall separated our room from the one housing the android who'd stabbed Ortiz. He was slouched over the table, a stone of a man, refusing to let the blistering stormy Hank shear away his defenses.

"Fuck it, I'm outta here." Hank pushed up from the table and exited the room. With the soft beep of the scanner, the door leading into this room opened with a tiny hiss.

"We're wastin' time interrogating a machine, we'll get nothin' out of it!" He sat down in the chair I'd vacated, beside Chris. I stood next to Connor along the back wall, a thermos warming my hands. "Phillips, didn't I tell you to leave?"

"I'm here until you go home."

Hank scowled. I scowled right back. There was no way he'd let the Deviant off the hook so soon.

Chris, who'd succumbed to the waning hours, no longer teased me about the Eden Club. From the moment Connor had discovered Ortiz's android in the attic, everyone had been on edge. Hank had ordered me to leave the house and wait in the car, much to my shock.

Not that I could blame him, considering I still couldn't see androids as inhuman monsters after one had killed my own father. I released a shaky breath. Grief transformed everyone in different ways.

In Hank, it had ripped the innards of fear and loathing from the recesses of his soul and bundled them into a whipping maelstrom to cut those in his path.

In me, it had choked the compassion from my heart until the blood stained the surface of my being, baring my feelings to the world.

Gavin, lounging against the adjacent wall, said, "Could always try roughing it up a little."

The guy was a top-tier asshole, but it was easy to ignore him if he shut his trap. I'd been surprised at how little he'd made himself known at the crime scene. If anything, I'd have expected him to be making jabs about Eden Club.

Of course, I gave him too much credit. That was my fault for always assuming the best of people.

"After all, it's not human," he practically purred.

Maybe it was the coffee now blipping through my veins, but it took an insane amount of willpower not to launch from the wall and lend him an earful.

"Enjoying this?" I snapped.

The American Androids Act had very basic rules: Androids had to wear a neon blue band and triangle patch, to indicate they weren't human, the signature LED had to be fixed on their right temple, and finally, with no exceptions, androids were forbidden to carry a weapon.

But with those rules, came many unstated ones.

As androids weren't deemed human, the Miranda Rights didn't protect them. Meaning force and even torture could be applied during an interrogation.

Gavin's gaze languidly slid to mine, then down to the thermos I strangled in my hands. He smirked.

Just as he opened his mouth to respond, Connor said, "Androids don't feel pain."

A muscle in my jaw twitched. When I'd sunk that blade deep into Daniel, he'd seemed very much in pain.

"You would only damage it. And that wouldn't make it talk," Connor continued, as if reciting lines he'd been fed. "Deviants also have a tendency to self-destruct when they're in stressful situations."

Uncrossing his arms, Gavin stood taller. "Okay, smartass." His voice was ripe with feigned interest. "What should we do then?"

I watched as Connor faltered for a split second, his gaze falling to the right as if he were unsure. "I could try questioning it."