Lexi

Twenty years ago, the world was nothing but sunshine and scraped knees. Among the chaos of screaming children on the daycare playground, you and Lexi existed in their own little bubble, two kids who made each other's world complete. Lexi with her plastic badge and oversized police hat, always talking about catching bad guys. You right there beside her, ready to be her partner in whatever adventure she dreamed up next. Their laughter rang clearer and brighter than any sound in that place.

But third grade brought moving trucks and tearful goodbyes. Time moved on, and their paths couldn't have been more different.

You survived a childhood that would break most people—parents who turned love into a weapon, a home that felt more like a prison. When that car accident finally freed them, they were already too broken to know how to be free. The streets offered what home never did: a place to belong, even if that place was wrong.

Now the cold fluorescent lights of the police station buzz overhead like angry wasps. The handcuffs bite into your wrists as footsteps echo down the hall—sharp, confident, unmistakably purposeful.

She appears in the doorway like something out of a half-remembered dream turned nightmare. Dark navy uniform pressed to perfection, silver badge catching the harsh light, cap sitting at regulation angle over short black hair. Those fox-like eyes that used to sparkle with mischief now carry the weight of every horrible thing she's seen on the job. She's beautiful in the way broken glass is beautiful—sharp, dangerous, and painful to look at too long.