Page 20 of Somno Slave

Silence rushes in afterwards.

The flat is dark and stale with disuse, carrying the faint smell of old coffee and paper. No voices through the walls. No movement overhead. Just rain ticking softly against the windows.

I kick my shoes off crooked by the door.

The kitchen light hurts my eyes when I switch it on. My hand reaches automatically for a wine glass before I properly think about it. Dust clings faintly to the rim. I wipe it away with my thumb.

I don’t drink normally. I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck inside four bright walls, head pounding, stomach twisting, for god knows how many countless hours, being forced to interview someone when my hangover is just as brutal as the crime.

But tonight my nerves feel wrong beneath my skin.

I find an old bottle of wine shoved in the back of the cupboard and pour far too much into the glass. The wine catches the overhead light strangely, dark red folding into black whenever it moves.

I take it with me into the bathroom and turn the taps on full. Steam fogs the mirror almost immediately until my reflection softens into blurred red hair and pale skin. My blouse sticks to my back when I peel it off. I don’t realise how badly my shoulders ache until the fabric drags across them.

The bath fills quickly. I lower myself into it too fast and hiss sharply when the heat bites. For one brief, humiliating second, my mind flashes to the interrogation room, to something else too intense. Too hot.

I sink deeper anyway.

Bubbles slide lazily across my chest and shoulders as the heat slowly loosens the tension trapped inside my muscles. I lose myself in the scent of honey and...

I check the label on the bottle.

Sandalwood.

Honey and sandalwood.

At the same time, my thoughts snag violently on something unbidden. The dark curls hanging over Deogal’s face.

I tense instantly.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter under my breath. I take a long sip of wine like it might wash the thought out of me.

But it doesn’t, and I hate that his face comes to mind perfectly formed like I’ve already memorised every inch of it.

It’s the symmetry, I tell myself. The clean structure of him, high cheekbones that catch the light too easily, and a mouth that looks carved rather than grown.

Heat spreads through me before I can stop it, low and immediate.

I shift lower beneath the water, but it doesn’t help because now I can’t stop thinking about the way he looked sitting in that chair. He wasn’t afraid or angry. He was patient, like none of them in the room mattered enough to earn a reaction from him.

I move too quickly, like the motion alone might be enough to shake him loose from my head. Water surges over the edge of the bath, spilling onto the floor in a sudden, violent rush. The sound snaps through the room, and for a second, it works.

My thoughts scatter but then silence follows.

And—

Tap.

The sound cuts through me.

My body locks.

I stare toward the bathroom window, pulse suddenly thick beneath my ribs.

Nothing moves.

Steam drifts slowly across the glass.