Chapter 4.

Bittersweet alternatives.

XxX

APOV

My hatred notwithstanding, I had to admit that Eric was pretty smart. After my somewhat embarrassing arrest, he'd wasted no time in getting me in the back of his car, and that was where I now sat, glaring at the back of the cop's head. Well, it wasn't like I could do anything else. My hands were bound together, so it wasn't like I could open the door or anything. Even if they hadn't been cuffed, I was pretty damn sure that I couldn't escape anyway. Judging from Eric's perceptiveness, he'd probably put child lock on both doors on either side of me, so only he could open them.

Daniel loved all of this. He sat beside his father, and occasionally, he would glance back at me with a huge smirk on his face. Whenever he did this, I fought the urge to take a swing at him. It was bad enough that I had to be arrested in a cafe. I did not need some kid staring at me while I was being driven to the police station.

As I sulked in the back seat, I cursed my own stupidity. Why hadn't I changed my jeans? Why hadn't I even thought about it? I briefly considered blaming Xavier for all of this shit I was getting into, but I dismissed that idea almost immediately. After all, it wasn't HIS fault that I was messed up. That was all me. My fault.

I sighed and stared out the window, watching as buildings rushed by. Eric was driving slightly faster than the law allowed, but he had ME as a passenger. Had our roles been reversed, I would have been speeding to get rid of me as well.

As the car passed the hospital, I felt my lips curl into a grimace of pain. It suddenly became an effort to breathe, and each breath invoked a fiery pain in my chest. It was the kind of pain that only Lawrence Gordon could bring about. I wondered what he would say if he saw me like this- a drug addict, not even close to recovering from the terrifying events that had taken place just over a year ago. He'd probably snort, and insist that I'd brought it down upon myself. No doubt he'd gone back to his family, and they had lived happily ever after.

I squeezed my eyes shut and sighed. There would be no happily ever after for me. I was probably going to end up in jail.

Jail. That word alone made fear constrict around my chest. I knew what sort of freaky shit went on in jail. Rape. Now, I was by no means a scrawny bastard, but I wasn't bursting with muscles either, and if someone wanted to...take advantage of me, I had no doubt that I wouldn't be able to prevent it.

Unable to hide my fear, I shrunk back into the leather seat. I didn't want to go to jail. I didn't want to be someone's prop. And I didn't want to think about Lawrence Gordon.

What I wanted didn't mean shit to Eric, though. He hummed cheerily as he pulled into the police station, and my fear increased. When Eric and Daniel got out of the car and opened my door (my earlier beliefs were confirmed- Eric had indeed installed child lock), the air was cool in my lungs, even though the day itself was pretty warm. I supposed it was a side-effect of using heroin, as my perceptions were different to everyone else's. "Get out," Eric ordered. Daniel hovered behind him, the smirk on his face almost as pronounced as his father's. I started up from the seat, the fact that I could not use my hands hampering me slightly. As I got off the seat, my shirt peeled away from it with a sick squishing noise. Great. I was covered in a thick layer of sweat. Unsatisfied with my slow progress, Eric seized my shirt collar and hauled me out of the car, his face wrinkling with disgust as he realized just how sweaty I really was.

"Shut the door, Daniel," Eric murmured, not quite as stern with his son as he had been with me. As Daniel did so, Eric shifted his grip on me, his fist gripping the back of my shirt rather than the front of it. His other hand pushed me hard in the small of my back. "Get moving," he snapped. I considered telling him to get fucked, but decided that that would probably just get me in deeper shit. So, I merely shot him a haughty look and began moving. Now, I hadn't the faintest idea of where I had to go, but Eric remedied that. He guided me through the somewhat busy police station, where cops darted around me, many of them shooting me disgusted looks.

When we reached a certain point, Eric dismissed Daniel, handing him a roll of notes- the money I had meant to receive for developing the photographs! The kid grinned, and he took off. I let out a long sigh, and was steered into an interview room. Eric sat me down and then left the room, presumably to retrieve another cop. After he shut the door, I heard the lock click into place.

Eric was locking me in.

A fair few minutes passed before the claustrophobia set in. I sucked in a deep breath and tried to remain calm, but it was useless. Alone in this room, with fear brewing deep inside me, I could not help but discover similarities between this room and the one I had been chained in before. They were roughly the same size. The door was locked. And, once again, I was rendered immobile, incapable of freeing myself. "No," I whispered, shaking my head, as though that would somehow rid myself of the horrifying images that seemed seared into my eyes.

Even though it had happened over a year ago, I could still see the soiled walls and floor of the bathroom. I could remember the sheer coldness of the place, and I could recall perfectly the smell of rotting flesh, as I lay shackled in the makeshift prison, beside the innocent man I had bludgeoned to death with a toilet lid.

Needless to say, I was a wreck by the time Eric and two other cops returned. I was sweating buckets. My shirt clung to me like a second skin, and my hair was plastered to my head. Combine that with my wild-looking eyes, and my haggard breathing, I really did look fucked-up. I noticed how the eyes of the two new cops, a tall, well-built guy and a woman not much older than me, took in all of these details, looking as though they were adding it to some kind of mental checklist. I was more than willing to bet that I looked like an actual drug addict now, and that my situation was only getting worse.

I stared at them from my chair, my hands twitching slightly in my agitation, though I was pretty sure that that they could not see it- I made a point of hiding my cuffed hands underneath the table. Eric cleared his throat. "This is Detective Hoffman and Detective Kerry," he began, looking at me oddly. I supposed he was surprised at how quickly I had deteriorated. "They're going to interview you."

Well, at least Eric wasn't going to. That was the first good thing that had happened today. After a brief murmured conversation with the big guy, Eric left the room. The two cops moved forward, and the big guy, whose name I assumed was Hoffman, sat opposite me, while the woman hovered in the background, probably to make sure I didn't make a run for it. That was unnecessary. Judging from the size of this Hoffman cop, I wouldn't even make it that far- the guy was huge!

Hoffman cleared his throat and looked me over, his expression not stern, as Eric's had been, but rather fatherly-looking. It was disconcerting, to see that expression on a cop. "Adam," he said, "You are in fact a survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps, is that right?" I nodded, not quite meeting his eyes. Hoffman tried again. "Are you grateful, Adam?"

Those horrible images flashed past my eyes again. I shook my head, trying to destroy those images, trying to rid them from my sight, from my memory, and a small cry of pain escaped from between my lips. As soon as it happened, I immediately felt ashamed and berated myself for letting my weakness show. I glanced up at Hoffman, and he was regarding me curiously. He wanted me to elaborate. My hands shaking uncontrollably, I spoke my next words through numb lips, "H-He left me there to rot. To starve to death."

"And is that why you became a drug addict? Because you felt as though there was no other way to deal with the aftermath?"

I nodded slowly. Hoffman looked slightly frustrated, and I knew that he knew that there was more to the story than I was telling him. "Did anything else happen, Adam?" he asked gently. "Anything else that made you feel this way?"

I glared at him. My problems with Lawrence Gordon were private, and I did not want him to know. This cop was treading dangerous waters.

Luckily, Hoffman took my hard expression as a silent confirmation. After a few more minutes, in which he tried to pry more information out of me about Lawrence, with no success, he drifted from the room, and the woman remained behind, for which I was grateful. Claustrophobia tended to leave me alone when I had someone with me. She watched me carefully, treating me as though I was wild animal that might attack at any second. It infuriated me, but I dared not move. If I abused her, then my time in jail might be increased that little bit longer.

So I simply stared at the ceiling, a mixture of emotions stirring inside me: anxiety, self-loathing, anger, and fear. That last emotion won out over the others, and my breathing increased, until I was more or less hyperventilating. The thought of going to jail terrified me, perhaps even more so than the memories of that infamous bathroom. I didn't want to go to that place, where power was measured in how many people you had killed. I would be the bottom of the pack, the one that everybody would use- in more ways than one. I swallowed tightly, in an attempt to control my breathing, and I caught the female cops' eye. She stared back at me, with a touch of concern on her face. My lips worked uselessly for a moment, before I managed a coherent sentence: "Am-Am I going to jail?"

The woman considered me, her expression turning thoughtful. "I wouldn't think so," she eventually said. I stared at her desperately, wanting her to go on, but she refused to. I slumped in my chair, feeling slightly calmer. There was a chance I would not go to jail. I would cling to that chance, no matter how slim it was.

The day dragged by, and I was only allowed to leave the room once- to go to the toilet- under supervision. When I inquired as to why, the reply I received was shocking: "Wouldn't want you to try and kill yourself or something." I mean, sure, I was messed up, of course I was, but there was no way in hell I would try and kill myself. I suppose, to the police, it was not an entirely ridiculous idea. I wondered sickly whether it had happened before, whether a criminal had killed themselves so they would not have to be imprisoned.

It was late in the afternoon when detectives Matthews and Hoffman returned. "Adam," Hoffman said soberly, "You need to attend a hearing." I nodded, and inquired as to when, to which Hoffman replied: "Immediately."

The next few minutes were a blur. My cuffs were removed, and my hands were shoved roughly behind my back, where they were cuffed together once again. I looked at them incredulously when this happened- surely they didn't think I was still dangerous? - but said nothing. I was forced into another car, and, thankfully, Eric wasn't driving this time. I did not know the name of the cop who was driving me, and really, I didn't give a shit. I just wanted to know if I was going to be alright. This situation wasn't that much different than the one I had been in before, only my foot was shackled, not my hands.

The next hour was a haze. I stood in front of the magistrate, stuttered through my story (I carefully edited out my problems with Lawrence- they didn't need to know that), and sat back down while they pondered about what to do with me. My breathing, which had slowed down considerably, sped up again, as I looked into the faces of those who would decide my fate, and saw that they were impassive. They really didn't give a shit about me. Great. Fucking great. One of the cops sitting beside me, Fisk I thought his name was, told me to be quiet. I realized that I had opened my mouth to say something cutting to the magistrate, and I closed it hastily, not wanting to get in more trouble.

The head of the magistrate, some old guy, eventually stood up. Realizing that he was about to address me, I also stood up, feeling really gross. They hadn't let me change before attending, and, as a result, my shirt was soaked with sweat. The only good thing about it was that I had not chosen to wear a white shirt today- otherwise it'd be transparent. "We have come to a decision," the old man said. I waited with bated breath. "We will not imprison you, as long as two thousand dollars be paid for your bail."

Two thousand dollars. No fucking way. Did I seriously have to pay that much?

"You also have the option of attending the Homeward Bound Clinic," the man continued. "The city will pay for your attendance, should you accept." Homeward Bound Clinic. Wasn't that a rehab, run by Jill Tuck? When I did not say anything, the old man glared at me. "Mr. Faulkner, you have a choice to make."

Did I ever. I didn't particularly want to go to rehab, but if I didn't, then I'd be proving Lawrence right- that I was a pathetic excuse for a human being. And, if I went, I might learn how to banish the dark cloud that constantly settled over me. That was what rehab was for, right? To recover from trauma and that kind of shit?

Hell, I might as well give it a shot. If I went, then that meant I would get to avoid awkward conversations with both Seth and Xavier, at least for a while.

At long last, I exhaled and glanced back up at the old man.

"Fine. I accept."