Birdy Dawn

The feeling of being watched is like sitting in a cauldron full of water. At first, it's just warm—maybe insignificant. Then it simmers, rippling across your skin steadily. Then, it burns until you wish your skin would just peel off. Anything to make the feeling go away. Then, you’re numb. Atticus had become dangerously close to numbness.

Granted, Atticus did not have evidence of any kind that he was being watched. He had learned how to ignore the feeling for long enough to pretend to feel like a normal person. Besides that, he was a detective at a crime scene—of course people would watch him. Anything that got this man no, the victim had a name: Tony Esposito the justice that he deserved.

Earlier that morning, Atticus and his mentor and partner, Detective Eden Luccetti, had arrived at the Esposito residence after a call from his sister came in to police asking for a wellness check revealed that Tony Esposito had been murdered in his own home. Just looking from the outside, nothing was out of the ordinary. It was when they walked in that the havoc was revealed.

When reporters mention crime scenes, they always downplay the severity of how it is found. They always say things like, “the house was a mess,” like that even began to cover it. It didn’t cover the bile crawling up Atticus’s throat as the scent of death and drying blood crashed over him. It didn’t talk about the way he had gotten used to standing close enough to Detective Luccetti just in case it made her light-headed and she needed something to lean on. The way they both walked into a silent house that must have been rife with screams while the officers around them cleared the area and prevented anyone from trespassing on the scene.

The Esposito residence was no exception to that.

As Atticus lay awake, his pistol resting against his chest with the cold metal growing warm against the rhythmic, absentminded rubbing of his thumbs, he wondered if Tony had felt like he did right then. Did the victims he investigated experience the humid pricking of eyes all around them? Did their hearts hammer against their rib cages, drowning out the sounds of their silent homes so that they were defenseless when their killers came up to them? Did they start replacing teddy bears with handguns?

Or was this a problem exclusive to Atticus?

When the feeling first started, just after Atticus had moved here a little over a year ago, he told himself he was just imagining things. His imagination had never been something to write home to, though. It was as if his logic and analytical skills had come at the cost of his creativity. Even still, the logic that he’d grown to rely on told him that it was much more likely that he was having his first creative burst than that someone was watching him.

It would be one thing if the feeling went away when he wasn't at home. At least, then, Atticus could attribute it to something wrong with his house—like a gas leak. Instead, the feeling of being watched followed him wherever he went. It breathed down his neck and coiled around his stomach until Atticus had forgotten what it felt like for it to be still within him and not always running flips.

Sleep was a memory, too. Atticus couldn’t remember the last time he slept—truly slept. His shifts existed between bleary flashes of blackness that came with afterimages of corpses. Each time his icy-blue eyes would fly open, he’d click the safety of his pistol, and realize that nothing had changed except the moon had inched a little further over the sky. This could repeat until the sun scorched his retinas and he got ready for work again.

Tonight was like any other, but the afterimages came with a queasiness that Atticus couldn’t shake. Instead of corpses, it was his name on a list of his other identifying features. Sometimes, he thought he could read it:

“ATTICUS NOTTE:

AGE: 27

SEX: MALE

RACE AND ETHNICITY: N/A

BLOOD TYPE: O-”

He knew there was more to it, but he could never make it that far.

Atticus groaned, rubbing his temples. His head throbbed from not sleeping and thinking too hard at the same time. Most of the time, his “dreams” were things he had seen before—but he couldn’t remember where he had seen that list. He couldn’t remember if he had seen that list. Who would know those things about him? He supposed that his name, age, and sex were easy enough to figure out, but his blood type? He didn’t even know his blood type.

Ker-Chlick! Thud!

Within seconds, Atticus flew from his bed, leaving the comforter floating to the ground behind him. The door. The front door. Had he forgotten to lock the door? The feeling of being watched seared over him again, threatening to scorch him. He swallowed hard to force his heart to steady and his vision to focus.

Silence, then the soft shhhhh of running water. Atticus’s brows tied into a knot as he forced his body to move through that feeling scratching against him. Again, the thought of that list burrowed its way into his mind, and for the first time he questioned if the feeling he had been living with for nearly a year now was connected to that list and the sound of someone else in his home. For the first time he humored the idea that he wasn’t imagining things, that it wasn’t stress or lack of sleep or paranoia.

Creek... Thump! Creek...

The hardwood stairs were cold and stuck to his bare feet. Atticus knew that whoever was in his house—if there was someone in his house—they knew he was coming, “Hello?...” His voice came out in a croak that almost sounded unfamiliar to him. “You know... breaking and entering someone’s home is a crime. And it’s pretty dumb to commit a crime in the house of an officer. Why don’t you come out so we can both get back to sleep, yeah?” His question was forcefully punctuated with a yawn that reminded him that he wasn’t really sleeping in the first place.

“Look, I’m not looking for trouble if you’re not. Just show yourself, I’m sure we can work this out without the law ever having to get involved,” Atticus reasoned. He wondered if his heart pounding was making his voice waver or if the insomnia was just making it sound like that. Sincerely, he hoped it was the latter—he was talking a big game for an officer that was one more all-nighter away from sleep deprived hallucinations.

Atticus trailed his hand over the counter to help keep himself steady, his dominant hand keeping his pistol pointed. He could hear the wet sound of someone breathing into their hand to cover their noises. A giddiness grew warm in Atticus’s chest as the heat of being watched grew closer with each step. This was it. The cause of the feeling. The reason for his growing instability. Victoriously, he leapt around the counter corner to look the intruder in the eye, “Aha! There you are—Detective?!”

The words stopped in Atticus’s throat as he found his coworker huddled in a crumpled heap on his kitchen floor. She was erratic. Fervently, she shook. Her amber hair looked brown and matted against her forehead with sweat, and her bloodshot eyes were darting unpredictably in every direction. Without thinking, he tried to grab her, which earned him a few pitiful slaps to the face.

“Detective, what happened to you?!” Atticus gasped, shrugging off her attempts at attacks. “Hey, stop struggling!” he instructed, trying once more to grapple with her.

Detective Luccetti squirmed like a wild animal. It was like she was nothing beyond instinct and academy training. Tired, confused, and perhaps even disappointed, Atticus heaved a sigh as she tucked and rolled away from being detained. She couldn’t really make it that far. He grunted. Don't forget I have academy training, too, he thought, deciding to demonstrate that by reaching forward and bend her left arm behind her back. He intentionally went for her dominant arm and knew that he made the right choice when her pistol clattered to the linoleum floor,

“Detective, don’t make this harder than it should be.” He instructed her sternly. “I can’t help you if you struggle.”

For a moment, Atticus questioned whether he ought to list off Detective Luccetti’s rights. He hesitated, unsure if he was arresting her or just trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Her cheek was pressed against the floor, and she gave a muffled whimper, “I don’t... Didn’t mean to...” Her breath hitched and she sniffled. “Hurts...”

Drugs. That was Atticus’s first assumption. Quickly, his eyes darted to the clock on his oven. 11:43pm. He hadn’t been home for more than a few hours. What the hell had happened in that short amount of time, “What hurts?” he asked, choosing the simplest of the myriad of questions that stormed around in his head.

“Loud... Too loud...” She answered.

Atticus sighed, unfolding her arm and throwing it across his shoulders to help her up, “As if the person watching me was you,” He scoffed to himself, all but dropping her on his couch. “You look awful,” He commented before going to the medicine cabinet. Earlier, Detective Luccetti had told him that she had a headache, and just now she told him she was in pain because it was ‘too loud.’ This led him to assume that the best way to get the answers he wanted was to get her migraine under control. When he returned, he placed a white, oblong pill in her palm, earning an inquisitive squint.

If it was drugs then they must have been sneaky—even like this she’s cautious, Atticus observed before telling her, “It's an Excedrin. Good for killing migraines. I wouldn’t give you anything suspicious, Detective.”

After she had taken the pill, Atticus watched her wade in and out of consciousness for the better part of an hour. Every movement, every twitch, every breath was under utmost scrutiny. He tried to think of every substance that might have caused his coworker to not only be so out of sorts but also to end up in his house. Rohypnol didn’t make sense; GHB was eliminated for similar cause; Maybe ketamine?... A twinge of anxiety prodded at him. He had a memory of his mother warning him when he first started training to not give patients on drugs more drugs and he wondered if he should have taken her to a hospital first. Too late now, he realized. I’ll take her to a hospital if things get worse.

When Detective Luccetti started to come to, Atticus decided to break the silence, “You know, if you need to pay me a visit, I don’t mind. I’d prefer some kind of warning, though. Preferably not at,” he paused, checking his watch. “Half past midnight.”

Detective Luccetti nodded at him, her movements jagged and slow, “I-I’m really sorry.” She began. Atticus took note of the labored way she had to focus to make words, how each syllable demanded all her attention. “I... Don’t even remember how I got here. It’s all a blur.”

Atticus rested his chin in his palm, tapping his index finger to his cheek while he continued his interrogation, “Do you live close by?”

“I don’t really know where I am,” Detective Luccetti bit her bottom lip, her swaying body holding still briefly. “I’m scared to admit it... but I think I could have just as easily ended up in anyone’s house just now—I just so happened to wind up in yours.” With that last statement, she finally brought herself to meet Atticus’s eyes.

Atticus had been in many police questionings. He had gotten countless witness statements, taken numerous criminal confessions, and cross-referenced more people than he cared to remember. It was for that reason that it felt like his blood was coagulating in his veins. In that moment—maybe she was aware of it, maybe she wasn’t-- Detective Luccetti exhibited all the signs of a liar. With that realization came the murky heat of being watched again.

Atticus frowned, his hand sliding down and pressing a finger to his chin, deep in thought. He sighed; I need sleep—that's all. She’s been in just as many, if not more, interrogations as I have. She wouldn’t be that obvious if she was lying, would she? He tried to defend her. Then he remembered her clumsy attempt to lie to him earlier that morning, “That’s even worse, somehow,” he groaned, half to himself and half in response to his partner.

“H-how?” Detective Luccetti asked, blinking up at him with a pout. It was almost like she was offended at the notion that anything could be worse than her current circumstances.

To prove a point Atticus tossed his gun on the brass coffee table between them. Metal clanged against metal and made Detective Luccetti cover her ears and cower. Atticus gestured at the gun as if to say, see, “What would you have done had you not landed in my house? The only reason you didn’t get shot tonight is because I know how to handle one of those things! What if you’d ended up in some trigger-happy gun-nut's home, Detective?”

“I’d have fought them!--”

“Like you fought me?” Atticus refuted her immediately.

Atticus pursed his lips. Realistically, this interrogation was doomed to be directionless at this rate. He crossed his arms, one final question coming to his mind, “How did you know where I lived? You’ve been here, what? Once? No offense, Detective, but I wouldn’t exactly consider us friends outside of work.”

Hurt contorted Detective Luccetti’s face. Atticus noted that, for future reference, adding ‘no offense’ did not soften his bluntness at all. She shrunk, shaking her head, “What if it was fate?” she asked.

The question hung out in the air and sent a jolt down Atticus’s spine. He watched her, hoping she’d give some kind of tell to say she was lying—or at least joking. But there were none. She turned away from him, her cheeks glowing with rose. Atticus was speechless. There was part of him that wanted to tell his crazy coworker to get out of his house, and another part that felt like this was another mystery that he should be investigating.

“U-um... Atticus?” Detective Luccetti’s hands were rested in her lap, but her fingers were twiddling about rapidly.

“Yes?”

“Well-- I asked--”

“I know what you asked.”

“So? What do you think?.. I mean—is it possible--”

Atticus pressed his thumb and index finger to his nose bridge. He had a headache and now wasn’t sure if it was entirely from lack of sleep or from how outlandish her proposition had been, “You want to know what I think?” He repeated. “I think you’re on drugs. I think someone dropped you off at my house in some kind of sick joke. I think I haven’t slept in nearly a year because I can’t stop feeling like someone is watching me.” He laid all his cards on the table for his fellow detective to see in exhausted frustration. Each word felt like he was throwing knives, and, in that moment, he didn’t care if she got caught in the crossfire. “I think that you lied to me. I think that I’m going crazy. I think that there is someone out there who killed Mr. Esposito and that maybe that someone drugged you up and dropped you off at my house. Because maybe that someone is the same person who has been watching me, day in and day out, without break! That maybe that someone is toying with me.” I think that someone could be you, Atticus stopped his tirade just in time.

Detective Luccetti’s eyes had gone wide. With each new sentence, she flinched like a dog being admonished. By the end of it, her face was buried in her hands, “A-Atticus... I’m so sorry! I had no idea!” She sputtered.

When Atticus had stopped himself, he was just as shocked as his coworker. It all just erupted from him so suddenly that it gave him whiplash. It was only when Detective Luccetti began apologizing that he realized that he had blown up. Then, guilt punched him in the gut as he noticed the only sound that followed his yelling was the girl across from him crying. He paused.

What a terribly disgusting thing Atticus had just suspected Detective Luccetti of. She was vulnerable—in pain and out of sorts in a house that she didn’t recognize. Even if she had lied, she must have been so scared. Then, she sees his familiar face and what did he do? He accused her of being on drugs and all but screamed in her face in a loud, uncontrolled stress-dump.

“I wish it was you that I could hear,” Detective Luccetti whispered.

Atticus blinked at her wish. What could she mean by that? Between the talk of fate and the weird wish, it dawned on him that he had worked with her for almost a year and truly known nothing about her. He was frozen in his place. Emotional outbursts weren’t something that Atticus was well versed in handling—especially not the type that he caused. If it was between the two of them, Detective Luccetti was much more equipped to play the hot-headed “bad cop” type. After several moments of trying to say the right thing, all he could manage was a pathetic,
“Uhm... I’m sorry, Detective. I was... out of line.”

Eden ended up staying the night with Atticus. In the end, she couldn’t explain anything to him in the state she had been in. When she woke up, she was sore with embarrassment. Because she knew this house. She knew it because she had been there more than once. Much more than once.

At first, it was by accident. In testing the distance of Atticus’s mind-numbing affect, she had followed him home from afar to get an estimate of how far she could get from him before she was out of range. Then, occasionally, after a particularly thought-invasive shift, she would find herself hiding just far enough away from his house that she could get some silence to mull over theories. She’d just kept on like that until it was a daily occurrence. His house was about halfway between her home and the station, and she convinced herself it wasn’t an issue if she never went inside.

So, it was with that realization that all defenses for Eden’s strange behavior with her coworker went out the window.

Atticus’s words from last night still rang in Eden’s ears, “Because maybe that someone is the same person who has been watching me, day in and day out, without break!” She buried her face in a couch cushion. For the first time ever, she wished she could hear everyone else’s thoughts rather than her own.

Good job, genius. Way to get a one-way ticket to HR. There’s no way he’ll still want to work with me after this. You blew it. Your one chance to get rid of this little “gift” of yours. Gone.

It would come as no surprise to her if Atticus transferred departments. She wouldn’t blame him if she left the state after her blunder. She groaned, memories of the night prior coming back to her in half-second glimpses.

Suddenly, one of those memories made Eden’s heart lift. Last night, Atticus had suspected her of being on drugs. That was her way out! Then, she froze. As an officer, she shouldn’t be treating drugs as an excuse. She was trained ruthlessly about how drugs were not and excuse of any sort and she knew the same was true for Atticus. Still, what choice did she have?

The thumping of Atticus walking down the stairs brought Eden to attention. She stiffened, about to lift her head to greet him as usual and then reminded herself she was supposed to be recovering from being drugged and went back to a pitiful slump. She heard him click his tongue and wrap around the couch to her head, “Uh... How’re you feeling?” He asked her.

“My head’s pounding,” Eden mumbled back, her face still flat on the cushion.

“I figured it would be. I’ll get you some water,” he said, leaving the room.

Silence washed over the detectives, filling the room with tepid tenseness. Then, as if on cue, both began to speak, “So, about last night--” They both stopped.

“Sorry,” Eden chirped.

“No, you go first,” Atticus coughed, handing her a glass of water.

Still groggy, Eden sat up. She told herself to just sip from the water, but her body had different ideas. The moment it hit her tongue; she was chugging through the entire glass. She heard a half-chuckle, half-sigh come from Atticus, “My mother told me it's not uncommon for those types of substances to cause dehydration,” He commented.

Eden furrowed her brows. Those types of substances? What does he mean by that—oh, wait, right! The drugs. She then took a deep breath, facing him, “Right... about that... I don’t really...”

“Remember what happened?” Atticus offered.

“Right.”

“Well, the way I recall it, a certain someone had a fun night where she decided to commit her first B and E,” he told her. The words he said were sarcastic, but there was something about his tone that gave Eden goose bumps. “What happened after I left the office, Detective?”

Eden thought for a while—it was genuine. The parts between the investigation and ending up in Atticus’s house came in kaleidoscopic hazes. She shook her head, trying to come up with a plausible story, “I was retracing Mr. Esposito’s last known locations,” she told him, flicking a now hardened strand of hair behind her ear. “He had gone to a bar the night before his murder with his sister, remember?”

“Yeah, something to that effect,” Atticus nodded, crossing one leg over the other. “Anything after that?”

Eden looked down and shook her head, “I got a drink—I thought I'd do some people-watching. See if anything looked out of place,” Her cheeks heated up as she crafted this story of herself. Even in fiction, it was embarrassing that she might be so careless as to get drugged—after all, between being a woman and being a detective, it would be an act of sheer stupidity for someone to successfully sedate her. “I-it all happened so fast.”

Atticus pondered that for a moment, “We ought to have you tested.”

Eden flinched, “P-please, no!” she blurted out.

Eyebrows raised at her outburst, Atticus asked the next obvious question, “Why?”

“Because” Eden started. It wasn’t drugs, it was mind reading, “I’m ashamed of myself, Atticus. What kind of detective almost becomes a victim of her own case? I’d be lucky if I don’t lose my job—or worse, become a laughingstock.”

Eden watched Atticus try to fight a chuckle. He really was trying to be considerate of her, she was sure of it. Despite his most valiant efforts, a snicker forced its way past his lips, which he then tried to cover as a cough, “Detective,” He reasoned. “You’re kidding, right? The drug they used on you could be massive evidence.”

Eden bit her lip, “There can always be more evidence found.”

The laugh subsided almost immediately, replaced with a icy glare, “Is that really the reason you don’t want to be tested?”

Eden stiffened under his scrutiny, but nodded, nevertheless, “Atticus, I’m really am serious. I’m too embarrassed. I’d rather this case be solved without becoming a piece to this creep’s game.” She insisted.

Atticus sighed, combing his still-bed tossed hair back with his long fingers, “Fine, fine,” he shrugged. “What else do you remember.”

Eden paused. Then, a memory cleared from the night before, making her jump, “Hold on! Atticus—you said something strange last night! You said something about whoever drugged me and whoever killed Mr. Esposito being connected right? There was a third thing—what was it?”

He looked her dead in the eye as he answered her question, “My feeling of always being watched.” He answered, coldly. Between them was the unspoken threat that both said many strange things the night before.

Silently, their game had begun.