It was hard not causing significant bodily harm to the poor excuse of a woman sitting across from me.

Patrol caught her running through the middle of one of the busiest Brooklyn streets—naked with a bloody steak knife—while the middle school student she just stabbed lay bleeding in her tiny one-bedroom apartment. He was only twelve. She was his teacher. Another student – male, thirteen – was also involved.

Next to me sat Detective Ryan Cage. He was holding out one of the young male’s cell phones in front of the woman, swishing his fingers across the screen for her to see. “Mrs. Robins,” he began with a growl. “We know you’ve been having sexual intercourse with both students.”

I swallowed hard, sickened.

The images were disgusting. Disturbing. Deplorable. To quell my nausea, I tried filling my head with images of unicorns and cooing babies; none of it helped.

The animal across from us didn’t bat an eye.

“Right there, that’s two separate counts of statutory rape,” I explained through tight lips.

She still didn’t even blink.

I cleared my throat a little too loudly—an unsettling crawling sensation quickly spread over my skin, and I almost choked on a swallow. Ryan angled his body toward mine and narrowed his eyes. He held the pictures on the phone away from me then, and I felt better instantly. I didn't want to see any more of them; the one kid looked like he was no more than seven years old. How could any woman find that appealing?

“Excuse me.” I coughed softly, finding my voice again. “What we need to know now is what you were doing running naked through the street with a knife covered in Tyler Kenton’s blood.”

She shook her head repeatedly and glanced behind her as if the answers were breathing down her back.

“I was trying to…” she started to mumble, but her words faded to nothing. She then fell abnormally still; so still, I thought she might have been holding her breath, trying to make herself pass out.

“What were you doing there, Mrs. Robins?” My voice was unusually loud. I needed to rein in my feelings, or I was going to vomit all over the table.

Her eyes clouded over briefly, then focused, only to cloud over again. I glanced quickly at Ryan and rolled my eyes. Was she going to play the temporary insanity card?

She leaned her elbows forward against the table and slipped her hands through her hair. Her fingers fisted the strands as her hands gripped at her scalp. Her eyes squeezed shut so tightly, they whitened and reddened around the edges of her temples and forehead.

“Mrs. Robins?” I repeated, without emotion. “Can you help me understand what you were doing in the street?”

“Naked with a bloody steak knife,” Ryan added, his knee bobbing anxiously under the table.

With a sudden jolt, she leaned back on the metal chair and clenched her hands in her lap. “They were fighting. I was trying to stop it.” She leaned forward and pointed her finger down at the table. “I ran for help. That's why I was on the street.”

“But first you got naked?” Ryan deadpanned. “Then picked up a knife instead of a phone?” He turned his attention to me again and raised his eyebrows. I met with his dramatic stare. "Do your steak knives dial 911, Detective Ward?” he asked me in a seriously dark tone.

“They certainly do not,” I answered, turning my gaze back onto Mrs. Robins.

Her eyes darted to mine with a pleading look. “I was going to get help.”

“Here’s the thing with what you’re saying that I’m having trouble with,” I said slowly. Her eyes drooped and looked blankly at my lips as I spoke. “There’s about a half-dozen witnesses who watched you run out of your apartment after Curtis, with a bloody knife, screaming you were going to—” I looked down at the papers in front of me—the statements from the witnesses, and read the same line on each of them. "You were quoted as saying you were going to slice his motherfucking cheating cock off.” I leaned back against my chair, folding my hands across my chest. “That doesn’t sound to us like you were working hard to get help. It sounds to me like you were chasing down your next victim.” I shrugged. My head was starting to pound, and my lips felt cracked and dry. I grabbed my water bottle off the table and twisted off the cap. Mrs. Robins licked her lips and followed my movements carefully.

“You do realize the knife you were holding? It matches the stab wounds on Tyler’s arms and legs,” Ryan explained slowly.

He bit down on his lips, trying to stifle a yawn. I felt his exhaustion like a living, breathing entity sitting at the table with us. We’d been at work for twelve hours when they brought Mrs. Robins in. And she’d been seated in the interrogation room for at least three hours, unable to explain a thing.

“I would never hurt…” Her eyes were suddenly huge, darting back and forth between me and Ryan frantically, chin quivering. "I would never hurt either of them. They were fighting, and I…uh…I stopped it.” All the color from her face drained instantly. “I took the knife out of Curtis’ hand. He was hurting Tyler…I…I would never hurt those boys.”

I had to brace myself not to recoil at her in utter disgust. “You were having sexual relations with both those children, Mrs. Robins.”

I grabbed the cell phone out of Ryan’s hand and tapped open a video of her and both boys in the most heinous, revolting child pornography I had ever witnessed. The sounds alone made me press a hand to my stomach and my throat burn with bile.

“You are a thirty-two-year-old adult—their married teacher. I think you were already way beyond hurting them—”

An ear-shattering shriek tore out of her throat as her fists slammed down on the table. “No, no, no! You wouldn’t understand, you stupid dyke cunt! I would never, never hurt them! I love them.” She bared her teeth and jutted her chin high. “They love me. You don’t understand.”

And that’s when she spit in my face. The slimy saliva slowly dribbled down my cheeks and neck. I squeezed my mouth and eyes closed, trying to calm myself. Bitter vomit gurgled up in the back of my throat, yet I somehow kept it down. Hot sparks of adrenaline whipped across my skin, and my blood pulsed through my veins at a sickening speed, devouring any exhaustion that had been fogging my thoughts before.

“Are you kidding me?” Ryan hissed.

The sound of the legs of his chair scraping quickly over the floor had my hands clenched into fists. I couldn’t respond. I wasn’t allowed to respond. I heard Ryan yank her off the seat and her chair hitting the floor.

There was a quick burst of struggle until the door slammed open and Ryan shouted, “Detective Ward needs alcohol swabs!”

The cold, noxious phlegm dripped off my chin as the scuffle continued again in the hallway. I felt a rush of cold fresh air sweep over my skin as another officer came in to help. By the smell of the cologne, I knew it was Detective Dean Fury. He was in front of me immediately with alcohol pads, swabbing them across my face.

“I got you,” his voice whispered, wiping every area of my face and neck.

I took a deep, bitter, ethanol-filled breath and opened my eyes.

Dean's eyes leveled with mine. "You good?"

Out in the hall, Mrs. Robins was telling everyone how she was going to find out where I live and teach me a lesson; put the fear of God in me.

Even though it went against every cell in my body, I smiled up at Dean and nodded. “Just peachy.”

“You got some tough skin, Callie Ward.” He playfully knocked his knuckles into my shoulder.

But there was no other kind of skin to have as a New York City detective, was there? I had no choice in the matter. It wasn’t easy either. My skin had gradually thickened over time—my first year was the hardest—when I realized the only way to build up my armor was to stand there as I got verbally assaulted over and over— until I felt defeated and dehumanized by the very people I was trying to protect. Some days, I’d drive home with tears stinging my eyes and my face bright red with rage. I’d scream when I stopped for red lights—at the top of my lungs—until my throat burned and my chest ached. Some days, I went home and drank myself into the morning. Now it’s just another perp, another day, and I was just trying to last to the end of my twenty years so I could retire somewhere quiet and peaceful. And alone.

I scrubbed my face raw in the bathroom until it stung.

When I came back out, Sergeant Max Kannon was at my desk with a slip of paper and a telephone number. He slumped down in the chair next to my desk and sighed.

"Call the medical division and get an exposure number." He leaned back heavily in his chair, blinking a pair of sleep-deprived bloodshot eyes at me, and tossed the paper on my desk.

“That’ll be my third time this week,” I said with a smirk, folding the paper and shoving it on the top of my reports pile.

He smiled, shaking his head. “This job is just too glamorous for you.”

“Still waiting for someone to give me a tiara.”

“You’d have more luck getting a straitjacket around here,” he said with a laugh.

A bottle of water shoved in my face interrupted our bantering. I flinched back and trailed my eyes up the length of the arm to Ryan Cage's face.

“Water?” he asked, a little out of breath. “Oh, and by the way, a certain Mrs. Robins would like for me to relay to you what she wishes to insert up your rectum when she finds you alone in the street.” He ended his prompt with a wink and a smile.

“Jesus, I don’t even want to know.” I grimaced. “I want to peel the layer of skin off me that she spit on. Or bathe in bleach.” I wonder what a bleach bath would do to my skin.

Behind Ryan, Dean walked up with a steaming cup of coffee and held it out to me. “Coffee?”

I looked at Ryan to Dean to Max and laughed. "Guys, really, I'm okay. You're all making me feel weird." I took the water bottle and coffee and smiled up at everyone.

Ryan sat on the edge of my desk and crossed his long legs, staring at me with a poorly hidden frown. I think he was trying to get me to talk about something—something I hadn’t caught on to yet. I slid the water bottle onto the desk and looked down into the Styrofoam coffee cup, which warmed my hand. There was nothing to do but change the subject. Did Ryan believe I did something wrong in the interview, maybe I reacted someway he thought was worrisome? My squad was a team of protectors, especially Ryan. We’d gotten close over the last few months, and I was happy to call them my friends—but the whole thought of talking about feelings and stuff, about interviewing that disgusting pedophile? I just wasn’t ready to go there—not now—it would have to be done in a few days over some beers and a half-assed game of poker.

A change of topic was desperately needed.

“Hey, so I totally forgot, ” I said, switching gears. “What time is the party tomorrow night?”

Ryan was hosting a huge get-together for his younger brother, Cameron. The squad was set to give him an award for helping to save one of our officers’ lives. Officer Brooke Fury, to be exact—Dean’s sister, and Ryan’s girlfriend.

“Six.” Ryan’s tone was lighter as he smiled. “You should bring someone,” he urged, winking at me.

“Yeah,” Dean said, poking me on the shoulder. “I heard you were dating that squad boss from Manhattan North.”

“Yeah,” I said with a devilish smile. “I dated him for a night or two.”

“Ugh. I don’t want to hear about your wild sex life,” Max grumbled next to me. "You work with me, so you're asexual. Period. You don’t have any of that devil vagina magic. ”

Ryan barked out an obnoxious laugh. “I totally see Callie having a ton of devil vagina magic—she’s probably the grand wizard of them all.”

I set my coffee cup down and threw a balled up napkin at him that had been lying on my desk for who knows how long. He caught it easily, still laughing like the jerk he was.

“Liv was telling me about a teacher she works with. The guy is single, stable—” Dean began.

“Thanks, eHarmony, but no,” I snapped, instantly annoyed.

Ever since Dean met his girlfriend Liv and Ryan started dating Brooke, it’s like they both came down with some sort of widespread incurable disease that makes your heart malfunction and turns your brain into pink fluffy cotton candy. Worse still, they thought everyone else should suffer the same symptoms along with them. To me, all that lovey-dovey crap was a socially acceptable form of addiction. It’s disgusting. When I go out with all of them, ugh, they act like those obligatory overly mushy, sentimental couples who believe in the dumb ass fairy tale of meeting your soul mate. The four of them constantly have their tongues in each other’s mouths, all while murmuring how they can’t live without each other. And all they talked about, all they seemed preoccupied with, was how to find me a serious relationship. Last week, they'd even showed me a list of single men in the area. I didn't have the heart to tell them; I already slept with half of them.

I’m single by choice, not because of lack of options. The only thing I ever wanted to be committed to was myself.

Unlocking my coat and purse from my desk drawer, I started to gather up my stuff to leave. Why couldn’t a woman ever just be single without it being some huge pity party from her friends? Why did people think my life needed to revolve around me nailing down Mr. Perfect?

There was nobody perfect. Not for me.

I'd been utterly annihilated by relationships before, just like most people. To search out another one that’ll end the same way was total self-destruction in my opinion. I found most people asked themselves, “Hey, hold up…do I really want to deal with this love stuff?” Ironically, they answered with, “Yeah, this time it’ll work. I believe. I mean, even though my heart was charred ash, I have faith that there's more left inside this old bag of bones that's worth being destroyed, again."

Hell no, not for me.

I slipped my arms into my coat and waved each of them off with my middle finger. It was a loving gesture. “Wonder Woman, Superwoman, Bat Woman, they were all single, and I'm single, too, because just like them, I’m a badass superhero.” Wrapping my scarf tightly around my neck, I stepped out into the icy rain, still laughing at their confused expressions. I understood nobody got me, and that was all right. When you didn't let people in, you're bound to be misunderstood. And I was The Ms. Understood.

Driving home, the streets blurred in front of my eyes. It had been a long, rough day, and I needed to be back again in a handful of hours. I rushed home, blinking frantically—I just wanted my bed and maybe a nice glass of red wine.

As I pulled up to my house, the rain turned to an icy mist that hung heavily in the air. On the corner one of the streetlamps was out, casting the whole street into a dark, ominous shadow.

I climbed out of the car quickly and noticed the neighbor’s kid across the street, sitting alone on their front porch. I pulled up my sleeve to check the time on my watch: ten o’clock. Too late for a kid that young to be outside, and too cold to be without a jacket, again. How the universe chooses when some people get to be parents and others don't, I will never understand. No child, especially one that young, should be outside alone in the cold, at night.

If it were my child…

I crushed the thought instantly. It would never be my child. I would never be able to say, my child. That privilege was something that was taken from me. And it's not something I could put into words or clear thoughts, so I stayed far away from thinking about it or dealing with it.

But this kid on the porch?

Just a few weeks before, I noticed the kid outside alone, wearing a thin tee shirt, a couple of sizes too big. I wondered if the kid even owned a coat. I'd never met the parents or parent. I was rarely home to be making nice with the neighbors, but with the way the house was kept, I'd say they didn't have much. I couldn’t even tell if the kid was a boy or a girl.

Then one night last week after work, I went to the mall and purchased a plain black coat. It was one of those heavily insulated ones that were waterproof and made for below zero weather. I slipped fifty dollars into the front pocket and hung it on the knob of their front door. The next day it was gone, but I’ve yet to see the kid wearing it. I lifted my hand and gave the child a small wave. He, or she, darted inside the house immediately. Good, now the kid wasn’t out in the cold anymore.

My boots crunched across the icy gravel of my driveway to my front door. I punched the alarm code in on the small keypad and let myself inside.

Feeling the weight of the day on my shoulders, I undressed in the hallway, forgoing the wine, and just settled on slipping between the sheets of my warm bed. The house was quiet. I breathed in deeply, trying to relax my muscles and my mind. Decompress from work. A clock ticked somewhere, and I sighed, turning to lie on my side. Alone again, facing the empty wall, I pulled at my pillows until I was curled up around them.

Somewhere outside, a small baby cried, and a sudden stab of blinding grief and crippling disappointment burned through my chest. I clutched the pillows tighter, wetting them with my silent tears as a heavy exhaustion swept me under. My eyes fell closed involuntarily, and I drifted off to the baby’s cries, praying that someone was there to hold the child and ease its fears—hating that it would never be able to be me.

But that was perfectly okay, because I was very used to being alone.