Officer

Chapter 3 - Officer

The knock hit like a fist against the door. Torin’s eyes snapped open. Blood had dried in crusts down his cheek. The gash still gaped, raw meat showing where the flesh had split. His left leg throbbed in time with his pulse, dead weight from the knee down. The pan lay across his chest where he had fallen asleep clutching it.

For a moment, he didn't breathe. He stared into the darkness, disoriented, his mind struggling to remember where he was. The room was cold, colder than it had been when he'd finally surrendered to sleep, and the air carried the stale smell of dust, sweat, and dried blood. His body ached in places he hadn't known could ache. Every muscle seemed to protest the smallest movement, but it was the pain in his leg that kept him anchored to the present. A dull, relentless throb pulsed beneath the skin, rising and falling with his heartbeat.

He slowly tightened his hand around the bat.

The memory came back in fragments. The taste of blood in his mouth. Then the long, empty stretch of darkness that had followed. He couldn't remember how long he'd been asleep, only that he'd been exhausted enough to stop caring whether it was safe. That frightened him more than the wound.

Torin lifted his head slightly and listened.

The silence felt unnatural. Even the wind seemed to have died outside. He could hear the faint creak of the building settling around him, the soft rasp of his own breathing, and somewhere in the distance, a loose piece of metal tapping rhythmically against something. Each sound seemed magnified in the darkness.

His eyes moved toward the door.

It was only a few yards away, but suddenly it looked impossibly distant. He couldn't see through it. Couldn't see what waited on the other side. The thought made his stomach tighten.

Maybe whoever had knocked had already gone. Maybe they'd never been there at all.

Torin swallowed, wincing as his dry throat protested. He shifted his weight carefully, trying to keep his injured leg from scraping against the floor. The movement sent a sharp bolt of pain through him, and his fingers clenched around the bat until his knuckles whitened.

Then another knock came.

Harder.

He dragged his limping leg towards the door. Every step sent white fire up his thigh. He unlocked the door and pulled it open.

Brask stood there first, a plaster cast covering one hand, white tape stretched across his forehead. Behind him stood an old police officer in a wrinkled uniform, his badge catching the hallway light.

“You are under arrest, Mr. Torin,” the officer said in a flat voice. “On charges of Violence and Threatening tenants over late rent.”

Torin’s mouth tasted of copper. He tried to straighten, but the movement sent a sharp pulse through his injured leg. He gripped the handle of the door to steady himself.

“They’re lying,” he managed. The words came out cracked, almost a whisper. “Look at me. I’m the one cut open. They—”

The officer’s hand closed around his wrist and yanked. Torin barely had time to react before his balance went. The door handle slipped from his fingers. His dead leg dragged behind him, useless and slow, then slammed into the doorframe as the officer pulled him through. Pain exploded up from his knee. His breath caught, and for a second his vision went white.

He stumbled forward as the officer dragged him into the hallway. Tenants had already gathered, drawn by the noise. Brask’s wife stood near the elevator. The influencer girl was there too, her phone still in hand, recording. Others crowded behind them, peering over shoulders and whispering. No one looked surprised. Some were smiling. The same thin, satisfied smile.

Torin tried to find his footing, but his injured leg buckled beneath him.

The officer caught him by the back of his shirt and drove him face-first into the wall.

The impact knocked the breath from him. Plaster dust rained down from the point where his forehead struck. His open cheek scraped across the rough paint, leaving a fresh smear of red. For a moment, all he could hear was the ringing in his ears.

The officer kept one hand between his shoulder blades, holding him there. Then he dropped to one knee, bringing their faces level. His breath stank of cheap tobacco.

“You think you can just do whatever the fuck you want here, huh? This building got dumped on you because even the last bastards couldn’t squeeze rent out of these pigs. And you thought you could?”

Behind the officer, the crowd shifted. Torin caught sight of the influencer girl’s eyes. Then Brask’s wife. The same look. The exact same disgust he remembered from years ago—those girls standing over him while their boyfriends poured salt into the hole they had put in his leg, laughing while he screamed.

Torin’s face stayed empty. No anger or even a plea. He let his neck bend until his chin touched his chest.

“I understand.”

The officer stood and turned to Brask.

“Don’t kill him. But if there’s any fucking problem, he doesn’t need to keep breathing. Just make sure he never lives soft again. I’ve got full orders. Handle it my way.”

The words floated past Torin’s ear. His parents were the once who were in The lynching in the capital. The videos that still lived online. The people who had gone quiet. His eyes widened once, just once, at the thought that the quiet had only been temporary. Peace had never been on the table.

The officer walked off. The tenants followed, still smiling, their voices fading down the corridor as doors began closing one by one. Brask remained for a moment, watching Torin from the end of the hall before disappearing after them.

Torin waited until the hallway was empty. Then he pushed himself upright against the wall. His arms shook from the effort. Blood dripped from his chin onto the floor, each drop dark against the pale tiles. He looked down at it for a second, then turned toward the lift.

He limped to the lift and pressed the button. When the doors opened, he dragged himself inside and leaned against the wall, breathing hard while the doors slid shut.

On the ground floor, the officer was leaning close to the influencer girl, one hand resting casually on her shoulder.

“My sweety, come live with daddy. Why stay in this shithole?”

She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“Dad, this place is pure luxury. And I’m not a child anymore. Let me live.”

Torin walked past them without looking. Outside, a cab was already waiting at the curb. He opened the rear door, climbed in carefully, and settled himself against the seat, the ledger tucked beneath one arm.

His eyes were flat and hard, holding something colder than anger.

The driver glanced at the blood on his face and shirt, then looked at him in the rear-view mirror.

The cab pulled away from the building.

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