Sinner

Dusk to Darkness

I stumbled over but he caught me just in time. His face that of concern, yet slightly professional— curious, interrogative.

"Lev! Lev!" I repeated his name trying to find the words.
"Freeman..." he tried holding me up.
"My leg, I can't feel my leg and he was.. he got me.. he was outside, he's outside."
I wrapped my arms around his neck, clenching onto whatever handfuls I could grab of his jacket.

"Lure." He spat through gritted teeth, pulling my arms off of him. "Have you lost your wits, what are you doing?!"

I stopped quivering and let go of him.
With a small half breath, I tried forming better sentences, but the more I tried the worse I did.
"I didn't know, I forgot the address and I asked this man if he knew and he knew you. He knew you when I said your name and he was.. he said he lived around here and he tried, Lev he tried to... and I ran, I ran from him and I hit him."

Lev listened carefully, his gaze cutting.
"You outran him and came here?" He asked. "Freeman why are you here?"
"I ran and he was after me, he's outside!" I panicked again, breaking free of his grip and pointing towards the gate. Like I child desperate for her parents to believe her.

Lev looked at me with a new found interest in his eyes, like I was a vintage ornament and he was a collector, or like the devil that hated art in museums. His hands traveled up my ears, putting me in irrational unease. To my neck and along my jawline.
"Aren't you to outrun me Freeman?"

"At least you won't rape me!" I gasped.
He raised his brows.
"Fuck." I pulled out of his grip, letting myself drop to the ground.

"In case you haven't noticed, I shut down your entire business and left you for the streets, I've imprisoned your father and threatened to blow your brain out on more than one occasion and yet you're here." He said. "Lure, are you okay?"
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I demanded, "why are you always so rude?"
"Why are you always so kind?" He asked. "You should put a bullet in my head, before I put one in yours."

Of course! What else was I expecting?
I truly wished in that moment, I had a gun. So I could shoot him in his smug face and then shoot myself because it was really getting hard living with the embarrassment at this point.

Looking up at him, Lev was a perfect model of calm and I felt the desperate need to beat it out of him.
I held my phone out to him. "I stabbed him in the eye."

He raised his brows, slightly impressed, somewhat amused. "Well done." He said, "what did he look like?"
"40. Blonde..."
"Brown eyes, bearded?"
I nodded. "What the fuck?"

"That's Tim Bohen," he said, "he's wanted."
"Well then?!" I demanded. "He's wanted, you're a cop. Chop chop policeman!"
"Don't worry about it, he's due for an encounter next week."

Lev passed the phone back to me, but it slipped out of my hand. The thought of murder making me go numb. I swallowed hard. "What?"

"I just don't want to be the one to do it." Lev said, squatting down beside me, blonde hair falling over his forehead. "You know some of us have a hard time pulling the trigger, something very foreign to your father."

He picked up the phone and firmly shoved it into my hand. "Did he hurt you?"
I couldn't help staring at him. Staring at how blinded he was in his hatred. How indifferent he was to everything.
"I'm calling 911." I said.
"I am 911."

I reminded myself of the influence he held in the department and how corrupt he was himself.

"Unless you're in on it." I spat.
"I'm on what?"
"I don't know, maybe you wanted to scare me."
He drew a sharp breath. "If I wanted to scare you Freeman, I wouldn't have hired Tim Bohen." He said. "That man is wanted for 46 robberies, half a dozen rapes... women, a dozen men and probably even the neighbour's dog. That's not the guy you hire to threat, that's the guy who gets the job done."