His Masterpiece by Ava Lore

Chapter Fourteen
    I cried from the moment we entered Turkish waters, and didn't stop until I was released from custody.
    I don't remember much of what happened after I lost sight of Malcolm. Tears made the world blurry and unreal, and in my chest a black hole had appeared, a terrible, unbearable void that would not let me go. My very bones seemed to creak under the strain of withstanding the crushing gravity of a heart collapsed, and I sobbed out my agony.
    Malcolm, who I fought so hard to save—I'd saved him. And I'd lost him. And I didn't know what to do about either of those things. My brain had been bleached by the sun, all my rational thoughts faded, leaving behind only the blinding white feeling of loss and longing. I didn't want to be separated from him. Not yet at least. It wasn't time. I wasn't ready.
    Outside of my head, the Turkish Coast Guard was the first to deal with me, and after I sobered up and looked back on it I felt sort of sorry for them. People shouted at me in Turkish and English, demanding to know where the guns were stockpiled, but of course there were no guns. At least, I hoped not. The small part of me who still distrusted everyone, who never let her guard down, wondered, briefly, if Malcolm had been playing me the whole time and there were, in fact, stockpiled guns on board.
    But if there were, they were stored in another dimension. The Coast Guard found nothing. To their credit, they covered me in blankets after it became clear I was having some sort of mental breakdown and stopped shouting at me for the same reason one doesn't shout at toddlers—it just makes them cry harder. They left me alone until we landed and the US took over.
    That wasn't quite as pleasant as getting shouted at. The FBI—or CIA or someone, it was never quite clear to me—interrogated me several times, though they got nothing from me. Thankfully I wasn't being charged with a crime. Quite the opposite, it seemed, as Malcolm's list of sins now included kidnapping as well as fraud and embezzlement, and no one would listen to me when I told them I had been on the boat of my own free will. I may have been incoherent with grief, of course. That might have had something to do with it.
    Eventually I just stopped trying to talk. Never talk to the police. That had been drilled into my head for ages. Good advice. I clammed up and hummed aimless tunes, whatever I could think of while staring into the distance. Acting crazy had worked for Malcolm. Maybe it could work for me too.
    Then Felicia came to my rescue.
    ––––––––
    It didn't even take her twelve hours to get to Turkey and take me home. She had probably been en route even before I knew that my time with Malcolm had come to an end. Money can do a lot of things, and when she showed up with a small army of lawyers, my release was quick and painless.
    She didn't say anything. Just hugged me and handed me a bundle of my clothes, brought straight from my apartment, and I dressed myself before we left for the airport. The old familiar feel of jeans and a t-shirt and one of my comfortable old hoodies sliding over my arms and hiding my face from the world calmed me, and I finally stopped crying.
    I hadn't been wracked with enormous sobs the entire time, although that I certainly had been completely incoherent with depressing regularity, but even when I was speaking or humming or forcing myself to think about something else entirely—such as how the orange blankets the Coast Guard had given me totally clashed with my skin tone—huge tears had welled up and spilled down my face. It was only when I was wrapped up in my own clothes, with my best friend, in her private car heading for home that the tears finally slowed to a stop.
    A tense silence descended as I wiped my face vigorously. I could hear the horrible rattling sound my chest made every time I took a breath.
    Felicia sat next to me in the back seat and watched me, her face full of sympathy and concern. I hate to be