The lock had clicked shut a while ago, and the crowd in the bar had not got tired yet.
Trixie: Let her rot in there with the fucking wolf!
Corrie sat on the cot with her cuffed hands in her lap and one palm flat on Nix's neck.
A fist hit the door so hard the frame jumped.
Cutter: Garrick! Bring the bitch out so the club can have a look at her.
Cutter: I'll hold her down myself while she tells it. She owes every man in that room a fucking answer.
The door swung open and Garrick filled it, shoulder to shoulder, so nobody behind him could see in.
Trixie: I hope she swings out front of the bar. I want to watch the killer piss herself.
Garrick: Get back to the bar. Now.
He shut the door on them and turned the lock. Then he stood there with his back to her, breathing.
Corrie: They'll keep at it until you hand me over.
Garrick: Then they can keep at it.
He crouched and unlocked the cuffs. The steel clattered down onto the cot.
Her wrists were red and shiny where the cuffs had been. She rubbed them and tried not to look grateful.
Garrick: There's a plate on the desk. Eat.
Corrie: I'm not hungry.
Garrick: I don't give a shit. Eat it.
She ate half the sandwich while he watched. Then he wet a rag in a basin and lifted her chin to clean her split lip.
His thumb was warm on her jaw, the same as it had been at the motor court.
With his hand that close, she saw the knuckles. Shiny pink scars, the skin pulled tight like it had healed wrong after a fire.
Corrie: What happened to your hand?
Garrick: Old thing. Not your business.
He started to pull it back. She caught his fingers before she thought about it, because her skin always moved faster than her sense did.
The room went white. Then it went orange.
Fire up the walls and rolling across the ceiling. Smoke so thick it stung even in the vision.
A small child screamed under a workbench, dark-haired, his face gray with soot.
He screamed for his mother. Nobody came.
The boy put his bare fist through a burning beam to get out. That was where the knuckles came from.
Corrie came back on her knees with the smell of a burning house in her throat.
Garrick tore his hand out of hers. Then his grip clamped on her wrist and squeezed until the bones ached.
Garrick: I said don't.
She gasped. He let go and stared at his own hand like it had done something he couldn't take back.
Corrie: It was a fire. You were a kid, maybe nine. You couldn't get out.
Garrick: Stop.
Corrie: You were calling for your mother. She didn't come.
His face went still and small. Something hot and sour came off him, and it was not hers.
Shame. She knew the shape of it, because she carried her own.
Garrick: How much did you see?
Corrie: Enough.
Garrick: Nobody knows that. Not Cutter. Not Kemp. Nobody in this club.
He dragged both hands down his face and looked at her properly then.
Garrick: You really do see it. Christ. You poor fucking thing.
Her chest went tight and warm and scared, all at the same time.
She wanted to get up and put her hand on his arm. She wanted to tell him about the fire she carried in her own ribs.
She stayed on the floor and bit her sore lip instead.
He came back and sat on the cot, close enough that their knees almost touched.
Garrick: I was nine. My uncle's garage. I got out. My mother didn't.
Corrie: I'm sorry.
Garrick: Don't be sorry. Just don't tell a soul.
Out in the bar a bottle smashed and somebody laughed too loud.
Cutter: Bring her out, Garrick! We got a vote to take, and she's first on the list!
Garrick's hand closed over his ruined knuckles. The pull came again, and Corrie still had no name for it.