His booted foot, crossed over his other leg, tapped a restless rhythm against the desk.
With every tap, the old wood creaked, a small sound lost in the cacophony of the police agency.
People shouted, protesting vehemently about matters he could not be bothered to decipher.
It was so relentlessly loud that Langston figured true peace would only descend upon the world the day this place finally fell silent.
His gaze was fixed on a report that stopped abruptly after a single sentence.
“Hey, Langston, still not done with that report?” a colleague called out.
“It’s a closed case.
How many more days are you going to stay stuck on it?” His coworkers knew his habits well: mostly lackadaisical, but once he sank his teeth into something strange, he was tenacious.
“Leave him be,” another jeered.
“He’s just stewing because he couldn’t say a peep to Duke Crawford.”
“You don’t know a damn thing, so mind your own business!” Langston snapped at his snickering colleagues.
He furiously scratched out the first sentence with his pen, then crumpled the paper and hurled it across the room.
It was a strange case.
Why would those bastards, who should have been lying low after the massive raid, fire a gun at the station in broad daylight?
There were far too many witnesses.
And it had been the middle of the day, the sun blazing overhead.
Stranger still, two shots had been fired, but only one casing was found in the wall.
The other had vanished without a trace.
And how could a bullet fly through that crowd and hit nothing?
“Something’s not right,” he muttered.
His eyes drifted to a note at the bottom of the page.
He was not sure if it was true, but there had been another witness he had failed to mention during his interrogation of the woman who was supposedly the future Crown Princess.
A laborer on the opposite platform had given the exact same testimony.
If only he had detained those two witnesses before they vanished, he would not have suffered the humiliation of being silenced by the Duke.
He had been a cop for over five years, but the nagging suspicion that he had let the culprit slip away because of Liam Crawford’s damn authority was eating him alive.
The revolutionary crackdown was official police business, but the commander-in-chief was Liam Crawford, acting on royal orders.
The Duke’s information and power had led to great successes, so he was certainly a man to be trusted, but…that woman was another story.
As Langston vigorously scratched the back of his head, a fellow officer flopped into the chair beside him.
“What’s the problem?
You don’t really think the Duke would cover for a criminal, do you?”
“Not him, the woman!” Langston shot back, exasperated.
‘You too?’ He crossed his arms.
“She’s the most suspicious one.
And what’s all this about being the Crown Princess?
Have you ever seen a future Crown Princess running around looking like that?” He had no appetite for writing the report, still fuming that he had let her go without a proper investigation.
“If only a real incident would just go ‘boom’, I could lump her into the investigation and get to the bottom of it.”
As if on cue, the iron door screeched open.
A police officer, breathless from running, shouted urgently, “Hey, on your feet!
A building on Topaz Road has been attacked!”
“Ugh, again?”
“Damn bastards.
Can’t go a single day in peace.
Where is it this time?” The officers grumbled as they rose, checking the rounds in their guns before holstering them.
“Jensnail.
There’s a witness who saw Duke Crawford go in just before the explosion.”
“Shit.
Hurry!” The officers, who had been listlessly gearing up, now had grim expressions.
They bolted out the door, not even bothering with their jackets.
Langston, who had been blinking blankly, slowly drew his outstretched legs together and rose from his chair.
‘It’s here.’
His eyes narrowed as he grabbed his fully loaded revolver.
The silence, which had descended as if the world had ended, was broken by the flutter of Arlen’s eyelids.
A sound like trickling sand reached her ears, and the sharp scent of dust stung her nose.
The hard wall at her back, the weight pressing down on her—it was suffocating.
As these unfamiliar sensations bombarded her, her heavy eyelids slowly lifted.
“Ugh…”
When she opened her eyes with a groan, she was in absolute darkness.
She had been standing under bright lights, but now, no matter how many times she blinked, there was only an inky void.
A dull ringing filled her ears, as if they were stuffed with cotton.
The only sound was the soft rustle of debris settling around them.
Startled, she tried to move, but she could not budge.
Alarm seized her, and her chest heaved.
Just then, the weight pinning her down stirred.
“Wh-who is there?” she gasped.
As she struggled to break free from the stranger’s hold, a voice flowed from right beside her.
“Arlen Sermont.” Her struggles ceased at the familiar masculine voice.
As her eyes adjusted, the blurry silhouette holding her sharpened into focus.
“Your Grace?”
The person holding her was none other than Duke Liam Crawford.
“Are you awake?” he asked, his voice strained.
“Are you hurt?”
“I… I do not think so.” Her relief was fleeting, cut short by a sudden, dawning horror.
“…What happened?”
“It seems the building collapsed.
We are trapped.”
“The building… collapsed?”
While Arlen was stunned, the Duke remained unnervingly calm.
She was speechless for a long moment.
Her last memory was of the ceiling giving way; the ground beneath them must have crumbled with it.
The violent revolutionaries she had heard about flashed through her mind.
“Was it them?
The revolutionary group?”
“Without a doubt,” the Duke stated, his voice grim.
The same people who had opened fire at the station.
She was stunned by their audacity, but the fact that she was once again entangled in their chaos left her with an indescribable dread.
It was only then that she realized how close they were, their faces almost touching.
She flinched, pulling her shoulder back.
“Ugh.” A pained grunt escaped his lips, his composed expression twisting into a grimace.
Only then did Arlen notice his condition.
The sleeve of his right arm was shredded, as if scraped by something sharp.
Her heart plummeted at the sight of blood seeping through the fabric.
“Are you hurt?”
“As you can see,” he answered readily, making no attempt to hide it.
“My arm is numb.
I think I hit something.”
‘It is because of me.’ Gray dust coated his blond hair, but hers was relatively clean.
His tall frame had shielded her smaller one.
And since he had given her his coat, the impact he had taken must have been far worse.
‘What should I do?’
Finding a piece of wood that could serve as a splint, Arlen sat facing him.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she ripped the hem of her skirt.
Liam’s eyebrow shot up.
This was the same woman who had been too mortified to appear with a single torn ruffle.
Now, with her sleek legs exposed, she began rolling the strip of fabric.
“What are you doing?”
“Your bone might be damaged,” she said, her voice steady.
“We must immobilize your arm.”
Before he could question her further, she carefully placed the splint under his arm and began wrapping it with the cloth.
Her touch was clumsy, but she seemed to have some idea of what she was doing, fashioning a surprisingly decent bandage.
Liam watched her, a soft chuckle escaping him when he noticed the small floral pattern embroidered on the fabric.
He rumbled with another quiet laugh as her deft fingers tied the end into a neat little bow.
“There.
Just a moment.” Oblivious to his amusement, Arlen did not stop.
She twisted the remaining fabric into a makeshift sling and looped it behind his neck.
Her sudden movement brought her body close, almost into his arms, and a subtle, sweet fragrance washed over him.
Liam flinched, but her actions were devoid of any artifice, and she quickly pulled away.
Her faint scent lingered in the air.
“How is it?” she asked.
“Is it uncomfortable?”
Pushing the fleeting thought aside, Liam carefully moved his right elbow.
For a makeshift bandage, it was remarkably effective.
The pain had lessened, and his arm felt much more stable.
“You are quite skillful.”
“I know someone who gets hurt often.”
Though he was the one injured, she smiled with genuine relief, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
He was about to ask who she was talking about, but stopped himself.
‘What does it have to do with me?’
With the immediate crisis handled, Arlen’s expression turned serious again as she surveyed their surroundings.
He had expected her to be terrified, to break down sobbing, but she had regained her composure with remarkable speed.
‘Is she naturally brave?’
While he mulled over her character, Arlen’s eyes scanned their prison.
It was pitch black, but she could make out a tangled mess of stone and wood, like a thicket of thorns.
Directly above them, a massive, star-shaped chandelier was wedged precariously in the debris.
Spotting a pillar supporting what was left of a staircase, she began to shift.
“We have to move.
In a collapse, you are supposed to move toward a structural pillar.
It is the strongest point.”
Liam’s gaze followed hers.
He agreed that the space beneath the pillar was safer than their current spot, but he did not move.
“It is a waste of time.
We will only exhaust ourselves.”