Chapter 8: The Station Interrogation Room
The fluorescent lights buzzed like a trapped insect.
Ender sat at the metal table, his hands folded in his lap, his spine pressed flat against the hard plastic chair. The room was too cold. Too white. Too much like the hospital room he'd sat in when he was nine, waiting for his mother to come back from surgery that never happened.
His jaw still ached.
The split in his lip had scabbed over, a dark line that cracked every time he spoke. He'd caught himself touching it in the car on the way over, tracing the ridge of it like a scar he needed to memorize.
Across from him, Detective Marlow was a woman built like a boxer—broad shoulders, short gray hair, eyes that had seen too much and stopped being surprised by any of it. Beside her sat a victim's advocate named Priya, young and soft-spoken, with kind eyes and a notebook she kept open but rarely wrote in.
"Do you need water?" Priya asked. "A break?"
Ender shook his head.
"Okay." Marlow leaned forward, her forearms on the table. "Take your time. We're not in a rush."
That was the thing about the statement. They'd been in that room for an hour and Ender had maybe said fifty words. His voice kept catching in his throat, the words dissolving before they could reach his tongue.
"He started hitting me when I was seven."
The words came out flat. Monotone. Like he was reading from a script someone else had written.
Marlow nodded slowly. "What happened when you were seven?"
"I cried." Ender's fingers tightened around each other. "I don't even remember why. I dropped a glass or something. It broke on the kitchen floor. I was scared I'd get in trouble."
"And you did?"
"He hit me across the face." Ender's voice was barely above a whisper now. "Backhand. I fell into the broken glass. He told me to stop crying or he'd give me something to cry about."
Priya's pen hovered over her notebook.
"Did he ever break anything? Bones, teeth?"
"No. He was careful."
"Careful how?"
"He didn't want marks where people could see." Ender's throat constricted. "He'd hit my back. My ribs. Places my shirt covered."
"Did your mother know?"
The question landed like a punch to his sternum.
Ender's eyes burned.
"She knew," he said. "She knew and she didn't—she couldn't—" He stopped. Swallowed. "He told her he'd kill her if she left. He told her he'd kill me. She believed him."
"And you?"
"I believed him too."
Marlow was quiet for a moment. The only sound was the hum of the lights, the distant murmur of voices from somewhere beyond the walls.
"How long did it go on?"
"Until I left for college." Ender's voice cracked. "Fourteen years."
Fourteen years.
The number hung in the air like smoke.
"Did he ever threaten your life directly?"
"He told me he'd bash my skull in if I ever embarrassed him in public." Ender's fingers found the scars on his ribs through his shirt, pressing against them. "He told me no one would miss me if I disappeared. That I was a waste of space. That I was an abomination."
"Because of your appearance?"
"Because of everything." Ender's laugh was hollow, broken. "Because I was too quiet. Too soft. Because I looked like—" He stopped, his voice failing.
"Take your time," Priya said softly.
"He said I looked like a girl," Ender whispered. "He said I looked like a freak. He said if I was going to look like that, I should at least have the decency to hide it."
The pen in Priya's hand stilled.
"Did anyone else know? Teachers, friends?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I was ashamed." Ender's tears spilled over, hot and relentless. "Because I thought it was my fault. Because if I'd just been normal, if I'd just been better, he wouldn't have—" He stopped, his breath hitching. "He wouldn't have had to hurt me."
Marlow's jaw tightened.
"That's not how it works, Ender."
"I know that now." Ender wiped his face with the back of his hand. "I don't know if I believed it then."
In the hallway, Gene pressed his forehead to the cold cinderblock wall.
His shoulders were shaking. His fists were clenched so tight his knuckles had gone white, the week-old split reopening, blood beading along the seam of his skin.
He could hear every word through the thin door.
Every goddamn word.
Zenix paced behind him, six steps one way, six steps the other, his boots scuffing against the linoleum. His hazel eyes were wet but he wasn't crying—not yet—just burning, a fire that had nowhere to go.
"I'm going to kill him," Zenix said. His voice was low. Controlled. Terrifying.
"No."
"You heard what—"
"I heard." Gene's voice was muffled against the wall. "I heard everything."
"Then how can you just stand there?"
"Because Ender needs us to be here when he comes out." Gene turned, his dark eyes red-rimmed. "Not in a cell for murder. Not hauled off by cops. Here."
Zenix stopped pacing.
"I hate this," he said.
"I know."
"I hate that we can't do anything."
"We can do this." Gene pushed off the wall and crossed to him, gripping his shoulder. "We can stand here. We can wait. We can take him home and hold him and remind him that he's not what his father said he was."
Zenix's jaw worked.
"And what if that's not enough?"
Gene's grip tightened.
"It has to be."
Two hours later, the door opened.
Ender walked out on legs that looked like they might give out at any second. His face was pale—paler than usual—and his eyes were red, swollen, empty. He looked like someone who had been hollowed out and filled with sand.
Gene got to him first.
He didn't speak. Just wrapped his arms around Ender and pulled him close, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other pressed flat against his back.
Zenix was there a second later, bracketing Ender from the other side, his cheek resting against Ender's hair.
"We've got you," Zenix whispered.
Ender didn't respond.
He just stood there, between them, and let himself be held.
They didn't speak on the drive home.
Gene drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on Ender's thigh, a grounding touch that said more than words ever could. Zenix sat in the back seat, leaning forward every few minutes to press a kiss to Ender's temple, his shoulder, his knuckles.
Ender watched the city pass by the window and felt nothing.
Or maybe he felt everything.
He couldn't tell the difference anymore.
The apartment was warm when they walked in.
Zenix had left a lamp on, the soft yellow glow pooling on the floor, and there was a blanket draped over the back of the couch that Ender didn't remember being there before. It smelled like cedar and lavender—like them.
"Sit down," Zenix murmured. "I'll make you tea."
Ender sat.
The couch cushions swallowed him up, soft and familiar, and he pulled his knees to his chest, making himself as small as possible. Gene sat beside him, one arm draped over the back of the couch, his fingers brushing Ender's shoulder.
"You did good today," Gene said quietly.
"I cried in front of strangers."
"You told the truth in front of strangers." Gene's voice was firm. "That's not the same thing."
"I couldn't even look at them."
"You don't have to look at anyone. You just have to tell your story."
Ender's eyes burned.
"What if it doesn't matter?" he whispered. "What if he gets out? What if—"
"He's not getting out." Zenix appeared in the doorway, two mugs of tea in his hands. "Your mom pressed charges. The cops have statements. The neighbors heard him screaming. He's done."
Ender took the mug with shaking hands.
"You don't know that."
"I know people like him." Zenix sat on Ender's other side, close, his thigh pressed against Ender's. "He's a bully. Bullies fold when they're cornered."
"He's not—"
"He is." Gene's voice was hard. "He's a coward who beat up a child because he couldn't handle his own failures. He's nothing. He's less than nothing."
Ender stared into his tea.
"I believed him," he said quietly. "For fourteen years, I believed everything he said about me."
Gene's arm tightened around him.
"Then let us un-believe it."
Ender looked up.
"How?"
"One day at a time." Zenix's hand found his. "One kiss at a time. One night at a time."
They took him to bed.
Not for sex—at first. Just to hold him. To strip him down to his boxers and tuck him between them, their bodies a cage of warmth and safety.
Ender lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
Gene was on his right, propped up on one elbow, tracing the freckles on Ender's chest. Zenix was on his left, his fingers carding through Ender's long, tangled hair.
"You're beautiful," Zenix murmured.
Ender flinched.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't lie to me."
Gene's hand stilled.
"We don't lie to you," he said. "We've never lied to you."
"You don't have to say things just because—"
"Ender." Gene's voice was sharp. "Look at me."
Ender turned his head.
"You are beautiful," Gene said. "Not despite your scars. Not despite your freckles or your glasses or your hair. Because of them. Every single thing your father told you was wrong. Every single thing he made you believe—it was a lie."
Ender's eyes welled up.
"How do you know?"
"Because I've seen you." Gene's thumb brushed his cheekbone. "I've seen you laugh. I've seen you cry. I've seen you come apart beneath us and put yourself back together. I've seen you stand up to your father, even when you were terrified. I've seen you tell the truth to a room full of strangers."
"I didn't stand up to him."
"You did." Zenix's voice was soft. "You pushed him away. You fought back. Even when he was hitting you, you didn't just lay there. You fought."
"It wasn't enough."
"It was everything." Gene leaned down, pressing his forehead to Ender's. "It was brave. It was the bravest thing I've ever seen."
Ender's breath hitched.
"I don't feel brave."
"That's because bravery isn't a feeling." Zenix kissed his shoulder. "It's a choice. And you made it."
They touched him then.
Not roughly. Not with the desperate hunger of that night in the motel—though that hunger was there, always there, a low hum beneath everything else. This was slower. Softer.
Gene's mouth found the scars on Ender's ribs, kissing each one like a prayer. Zenix's hands mapped the planes of Ender's body, learning him all over again.
"You're ours," Gene whispered against his skin.
"You're safe," Zenix breathed into his ear.
"You're home."
Ender cried. Not from sadness. Not from shame. From the overwhelming, impossible weight of being loved.
When Gene slid inside him, it was gentle. Measured. A slow, deliberate claiming that made Ender's breath catch and his spine arch.
Zenix held his face, kissing away his tears, whispering things Ender couldn't quite hear but felt in his bones.
"I love you."
"I love you."
"We love you."
Ender came with their names on his lips. Not a scream. Not a sob. Just a whispered, broken prayer.
They held him after.
Gene pulled him close, still inside him, still connected, his heartbeat slow and steady against Ender's back. Zenix draped himself over both of them, his arm around Ender's waist, his lips pressed to the curve of Ender's neck.
"I don't deserve this," Ender whispered.
"Stop." Gene's voice was firm. "We've talked about this."
"I know, but—"
"Then stop again."
Zenix laughed softly.
"He's stubborn," he said. "We'll have to work on that."
"You're one to talk."
"I'm not stubborn. I'm determined."
"Same thing."
"Is not."
Ender smiled.
It was small. Fragile. But it was there.
And for the first time in a long time, it didn't feel like a lie.