feel

4

NONE OF this was new to her. Not the cement slowly seeping cold through the back of her head as she leaned against it. Not the wrists rubbed raw and stinging from being held in metal for so long. Not the dark comfort of smoke trailing past her lips and closed eyes as she counted the amount of footsteps she heard. Not the phone rings nor the bustling officers nor the cool night air as it swept past her bare arms in gusts as the doors swung open and shut. Not the voices as they bounced around like scars in her brain.

"You're doing it again."

Nor was the soft grunt as another person was pushed down into the bench beside her. What was new was the question that came next.

"Cigarette?"

Carter opened her eyes, a disinterested gaze landing on the person sitting next to her. His eyes were blue, cold, resentful, hurt. She reckoned his voice was usually colder than this but by the lack of recognition she could draw from him it seemed to be the first time he had been in this environment. The type of eyes that usually charmed their way into a warning, but this time couldn't escape arrest.

He was studying her too. Her brown eyes guarded, calculating, comfortable. He could tell she'd been here before. The type to know a prison cell intimately. There was an unsureness brought upon by his disturbance that he normally would have smirked at. But then again, he would have normally been interested in nothing other than seducing her until they ended up in the backseats of his Camaro. Normally he didn't end up handcuffed sitting on a bench in a police station figuring out if it would be easier to kill himself before Neil got a phone call or for him to just await the coming slaughter.

"Losing yourself."

Carter slipped a hand into her back pocket and produced a cigarette and lighter after another moment of sizing him up. She let his bound hands come up and place it between his lips before she lit it. The stranger pulled away, taking a drag of his cigarette before pulling it away with both hands still locked together.

"I'm Billy by the way."

Carter watched him from her peripheral, puffing out her own cloud of smoke and watching in amusement as he pretended not to struggle with his handcuffs.

"So whatcha do?" Came his voice after a heartbeat, a genuine attempt to start a conversation.

Whether that conversation was simply to distract his mind from the unknown of what would happen to him or simply as an excuse to look into those deep and guarded eyes, he didn't know.

Eyes that made time stand still in front of billowing storm clouds.

She turned to look at him, silently plucking her cigarette from her lips and flicking it to the cement floor, where she ground into it with the toe end of her combat boot.

Carter's gaze bounced between his eyes.

Eyes that seemed to pierce her heart with jagged topaz.

"Stop losing yourself, Car."

And then she was back, the unanswered question dangling tauntingly in front of her.

"They think I trespassed," she said, gesturing with suspiciously unbound hands to their surroundings, "you?"

Billy took another drag and chuckled.

"Vandalism."

There was another silence as they both stared ahead at cold walls and colder faces.

"So did you? Tresspass, I mean."

Carter glanced at the boy. There was some sense of shared trust already forming - a common sense of psychotic screwed-up-ness that made it make complete sense and none at all for the two to trust each other.