Under Different Circumstances

Chapter 6

The car ride to the station was too short for my liking, but my curiosity was sparked when we pulled up to the 21st district police precinct. I was about to see Jay in his everyday work environment and wondered if that meant that I would get to see a different side of him.

He gave me his hand as I climbed out of the car behind him and held on to it tightly as we walked up the stone steps of the building. Inside, we were greeted by a woman with grey hair standing behind the front desk.

"Detective Chuckles!" she called out when she saw Jay. "So, even on your night off, you manage to get shot at. I wouldn't call that bad luck anymore, I'd say it's an actual skill."

Despite the joking tone in her voice and the nickname she'd called Jay by, the expression on her face stayed intimidatingly serious.

"I just couldn't bear the thought of not seeing you all night, Sarge!" Jay joked as he led us up some more steps to a metal gate.

He signed himself in with his palm and passcode and opened the gate.

Before we reached the top of the stairs, Vanessa and Kim came running towards us.

"Are you guys okay?" the women spoke over each other.

"We're fine guys, don't worry," Jay told them.

Kim's eyes lingered on Jay's hand wrapped around mine and smirked when my eyes met hers.

"Good to see you again, Hailey," she said, spotting the heels in my hands and my bare feet. "Not the best footwear for running away from an armed offender," she chuckled, lightening the mood.

"No, it's not," I laughed. "Luckily, I had already taken them off before we had to run."

I lifted my foot to look at its sole. It was black from dirt and bright red from the rough ground my feet had endured. I had also sustained a few little cuts.

"Come on, let me take care of that," Kim grabbed my wrist and pulled me away from Jay to a doorway. "There's a sink and a first-aid kit in the locker room, and I have an extra pair of sneakers in my locker."

I glanced back at Jay who motioned for me to go with her. "Go ahead, I'll quickly write up my report and then we can do yours."

In the doorway, Kim nearly ran into Kevin who entered the room with a phone and a clipboard in his hands. "Hey, girl! How are you doing?" he greeted me with a big smile.

Before I had a chance to reply, Sergeant Voight walked up the main stairs and asked his team for an update.

Kevin gave me a quick, apologetic smile and walked over to Voight, holding his phone up, "Patrol found a car matching Jay's description by an abandoned warehouse, but there's no sign of Wright. Tech is going through the phones that were logged into the area around the parking lot at the time of the incident. They're hoping that one of them might belong to Wright, but since there are so many, nothing has caught their eye yet."

"Come on," Kim said softly, snapping my attention away from what Kevin was saying, back to her.

She led me into the locker room and to the sink in the back corner. While I washed my feet, Kim sat down, straddling the bench closest to the sink, and unpacked a first-aid kit in front of her.

"You seem to be surprisingly at ease, considering what happened tonight," she said after a while of silence.

"Do I?" I asked, feeling proud that a cop was impressed by my composure. "I guess I've always been able to stay level-headed in stressful situations. Freaking out won't help anyone after all. But Jay being there also helped a lot. I felt like I could fully trust that as long as he was there nothing bad was going to happen."