Page 96 of Cuffed By Your Love
“Clear down here,” Chambers whispered behind me, voice taut, wire-thin.
I gave a single nod, chin sharp. Then I started climbing. Each step of those stairs sounded like a drumbeat in a funeral march. The walls stretched shadows across me like long fingers trying to drag me back down.
Creak. Rope against wood.
The sound froze me mid-step. Not loud, just enough to whisper trouble. Another sound followed: plastic, pills rattling in a bottle. My chest went still.
Cop mode. Breathe steady. Move cold.
Jonay’s bedroom door was cracked open, a thin line of black slicing the hallway. I eased up against the frame, inch by inch, gun high.
And then, his voice.
Kam.
Not hiding. Waiting.
Rope was coiled on the nightstand like a snake. Pill bottles scattered across the dresser, little orange soldiers of chaos. Andin his hand: steel. A gun. He held it low, deliberate, like a man who’d been practicing the gesture in the dark for weeks.
When his eyes found mine, there wasn’t fear. Just obsession cracked wide open into madness.
“You don’t belong here,” he hissed, his lip curling. “She was mine first.”
That word—mine—slithered, slimy.
“Kam,” I said, voice low, even, iron-heavy. “Put the gun down. We can work through this.”
He laughed, hollow, mocking. “It’s always you, huh? Mr. Perfect. Detective Pretty Boy. Even back in the academy… I could never stand your golden boy ass. You shine, Eli. Always smiling. Always trying to help me out like I was some fucking charity case. You think I didn’t see it?” His hand trembled on the grip.
Something inside me pinched, an ugly twist of pity I didn’t want but couldn’t stop. His voice wasn’t just hate; it was hurt cracking open.
“Kam, listen?—”
“No, you listen!” His voice broke, snapping sharply before sinking low again. “You know how many fucking meds I had to take to even act halfway human? To drown out the voices screaming in my skull? Tomakeme a decent person? And even then, they didn’t want me. Failed piss test, false positive, gone. Dream over. Meanwhile, you? You slide right in my spot. Badge, respect, future. And then her. Jonay.” His eyes flickered wildly.
I lifted my free hand just an inch, steady, palms out. “It doesn’t have to end like this. Put it down, Kam. Please.”
He shook his head, jaw tight, a bitter smile twisting. “You can’t help me, Detective Perfect. I’m a lost cause. And I’m just gonna keep coming for her. She’s the only person that ever loved me, and I treated her like shit because her jealous bitch of a cousin switched my fucking meds. I would’ve never cheated onJonay if Taleah’s snake ass hadn’t fucked with me. I overheard her on the phone bragging to her bitch ass friend about how she switched them… planted shit in my head… pretended to be Jonay. I’m fuckin’ stupid, yo.”
Every muscle in me wanted to explode, to rip him apart for even saying her name like that. But I kept my voice calm, desperate under the steel. “Kam, stop. You don’t want this.”
His eyes watered, rage softening into something far more dangerous: no remorse. His voice cracked. “I’ve been off my meds for months, nigga. I’ve done too much fuck shit to come back from. You know, my mama used to hear voices too. She would snap on me and talk to me crazy as hell. She used to lock me in a closet just to stop the voices in my own damn head. She’d lock me in that muthafucka for days, weeks even. I used to scratch at the wood door, like a little rat clawing to get out till my fingers bled. One day, she took me out finally. She talked shit about how bad I smelled, right before she ate her gun in front of me. My whole damn childhood, darkness and whispers. I won’t let y’all do the same to me, lock me in a fuckin’ cage.”
My gut clenched. For a split second, I saw not the monster, but a broken man clutching at a loaded truth.
Then he spat the venom. “Taleah’s body’s in North Self. She played with my life by fuckin wit’ my meds. She took Jonay from me, so I took hers.”
The room tilted. My finger tensed. Chambers’s breath behind me went sharp.
“Kam—”
“Tell my baby I’m sorry,” he said, eyes glassy now. “Almost three years together, and I never even told her about my sickness. I was scared she’d leave, so I ruined it myself. Tell her I loved her, Elias. Tell her I know you’ll love her like I wish I could’ve.”
My chest pulled tight, lungs fighting air. “Don’t do this. Don’t make me?—”
But he already was. He lifted the gun clean, calculated. The barrel aimed at my chest like a verdict already written.
“Kam, drop it!” I pleaded, voice cracking past the control. “Don’t make me do this, Kam.”
