The Key and the Cutter

“Some locks need a key. Others need a reason. And some just need someone to remind you you’re allowed to open the damn door.”

"Beatrix," the soft call sliced through the quiet like a violin’s bow across frayed strings. I startled, my breath catching, and the cold chain slipped from my fingers. The padlock hit the door with a jarring clang, metal on wood, echoing down the narrow alleyway like a bell tolling for ghosts. My heart surged to my throat as I spun around.

There he was.

Leigh.

His tall figure stood just beyond the cast of the alley’s dim lighting, a shadow haloed by the golden flicker of a single, weary bulb above the flower shop’s rear exit. The glow caught in his hair and traced the edges of his coat, softening him in the gloom—almost making him look otherworldly, like something conjured from memory rather than flesh and bone.

"What are you doing here?" I whispered, my voice trembling slightly from the adrenaline, from the cold, from the fact that he'd found me—again. Beneath the words, unspoken relief tugged gently at the tension in my chest. Even in the low light, I could feel the furrow between my brows deepen, caught between confusion and something perilously close to comfort.

Leigh’s lips curled into that familiar, maddening smile of his—equal parts mischief and gravity. "I told you I'd find you, didn’t I?" he said, as though it had been the simplest thing in the world. His tone carried a quiet certainty, a kind of promise that filled the narrow alley with something warmer than air.

"I guess," I said, my voice too small, too fractured for the scale of the emotion bubbling beneath it. In truth, I didn’t know how to respond. He always had that effect—calming the tremors on the surface while stirring the deeper waters beneath.

"Here, you're shivering," he said gently, stepping closer. Without hesitation, he slipped his jacket from his shoulders and eased it around me. The warmth was immediate and startling, the lining still holding the heat of his body. It swallowed me up, the scent of him—subtle, clean, familiar—sinking into the fabric like some kind of balm. I drew the lapels close to my neck, my fingers brushing the edge of his collar as though grounding myself in something real.

"And what the hell are you doing walking around barefoot?" His voice sharpened slightly, not in reproach but concern, laced with disbelief as he glanced down at my feet.

I gave a shrug, helpless and wordless. There was no sensible explanation—no neat sentence that could wrap up the reasons why I was out here half-dressed, haunting the alleyway like a ghost. Everything I felt was tangled up in grief and guilt, memory and the aching pull of the past. How could I possibly put that into words?

The truth was, I didn’t know what I was doing. But some part of me was glad he was here to ask.

Leigh’s gaze upon me was unwavering, his eyes catching the soft gleam of the alley light as they bore into mine. There was an intensity there—not accusatory, but searching, as if he were rifling through pages of a book only half-written, trying to decipher the chaos in margins even I couldn’t explain.

"Isn't that the dress you wore to the function last night? Have you even been home?" he asked, his voice low and measured, a question wrapped in gentle insistence.

I hesitated, the weight of his observation anchoring me in place. Slowly, I nodded and shook my head, the movement small, but it felt colossal. It was a silent confession—yes, I had worn this same dress to the function; no, I had not been home. Not properly. Not where it counted. The question laid bare a truth I hadn’t quite admitted to myself: that I had been drifting, untethered and unsure, a ghost pulled from one moment to the next by something far deeper than reason.

My lips parted as if to respond, but the words stalled, stranded behind the swell of emotion pressing at my throat. I wasn’t entirely certain of what had happened after Joel’s memorial—at least, not in a way that felt coherent. The evening had unravelled into a series of half-remembered movements: the car’s engine murmuring into silence, the bite of gravel beneath my feet, the soft glow of candlelight giving way to the blank hush of early morning. The moments blurred into one another, like smudged ink on damp paper.

I recalled standing outside the shop, staring through the darkened windows as if the past might materialise behind the glass. It hadn’t. Nothing had.

And yet, now, here I was.

Wrapped in Leigh’s jacket, its weight and warmth grounding me more than I cared to admit. His concern was palpable, a steady pulse amidst the disarray of my emotions. There was no judgement in his tone, only an unspoken invitation—to rest, to speak, to exist in this strange liminal space without needing to explain it all.

For the first time since the night had begun, I felt the tremor inside me lessen, if only slightly. Because someone had noticed. Someone had come looking. And in the midst of all I couldn’t understand, that singular fact settled in my chest like a fragile ember of comfort.

"Let me take you home," Leigh's voice was a blend of command and concern, the kind that brooked no argument but still carried a softness, as though he were treading carefully around the edges of something fragile. His hand found my arm with a firm, yet respectful grip—steadying, anchoring.

"No." I jerked my arm free, the movement abrupt and sharp, fuelled by an instinctive resistance that surged from somewhere deep within. "Not yet." My voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried the full weight of something unfinished. Something that wouldn't let me leave.

A need. A tether. A knot tied to this place—our place.

"What is it?" Leigh asked, his brow knitting in quiet concern, eyes searching mine as if trying to unpick the tangle of thoughts I could barely comprehend myself.

"I need to get inside," I confessed, the words slipping from my lips like a plea, borne of desperation and memory.

To someone else, it was just an old shop. Dust and timber. Glass cabinets and unsold relics. But to me, it was a mausoleum of dreams. A museum of moments—each item, each shelf, carrying the fingerprint of Brody’s laughter, my hope, our shared ambition. It was the last place that had still felt like ours.

"So, go inside," Leigh said with an easy shrug, as if the solution were simple. But there was no simplicity in the barricade before me.

"They've chained and padlocked it," I hissed, venom and despair mixing in my voice. I turned on the spot, letting my anger speak for me as the chain rattled against the heavy door once more, the metallic clatter echoing like a protest. "This is my shop. They had no right to do this." My fists clenched, helpless fury blooming in my chest. It felt like they’d locked away a part of me in there, with no intention of ever giving it back.

Then, unexpectedly, Leigh smiled. Not mockingly—never that—but with a glint in his eye that suggested mischief, memory, and something more.

"What?" I snapped, the word sharp, defensive. My heart thudded faster, a cocktail of confusion and rising irritation ready to spill over.

"Wait for me. I won't be long," he said cryptically, his voice lowered, as if we were characters in a secret drama. His eyes darted briefly up and down the alley before he gave a sly, knowing smile that carried the familiar glimmer of a man about to do something completely unorthodox. Something only Leigh would dare.

And even though I didn’t know what he was about to do, I knew better than to doubt that he could.

The nearby wall erupted into a spectacle of technicolour, a sudden, brilliant bloom of light that splashed across the alleyway like liquid fireworks. The shifting spectrum shimmered in a mesmerising dance—ripples of crimson, sapphire, emerald, and gold swirling in hypnotic synchrony. Though no longer a surprise, having seen Luke harness this same phenomenon, it still caught me off guard with its uncanny beauty. For a brief moment, it was as though the weight I carried, the sorrow and guilt woven into every inch of my skin, had been lifted by that otherworldly radiance.

Leigh, without hesitation, stepped into the chromatic veil, his figure swallowed by the light in an instant. I stared after him, part of me yearning to follow—to escape into that unknown place, to leave behind the cold, the grief, the aching need for closure that haunted every step I took in the waking world.

Then, as swiftly as it had appeared, the wall fell back into shadow. The colours receded like a tide, leaving behind the plain, grey bricks and the hush of dawn’s stillness. I wrapped his jacket more tightly around myself and waited, shivering from more than just the morning air. My heart thumped in quiet anticipation, measuring out each second with hollow beats.

---

Less than five minutes later, the wall bloomed again—an eruption of colour heralding his return. Leigh stepped back through the portal with the calm swagger of a magician finishing a trick, holding up a pair of bolt cutters like a prize pulled from the depths of another reality.

"These ought to take care of it," he announced with a grin, his voice echoing faintly off the stone walls as though the alley itself was in on the act.

"I'll take those," I said, reaching for the tool with a quiet intensity. The cold metal met my hands with a weight that felt reassuring—solid, certain. This was something I could control, something I could break.

I positioned the padlock between the cutters' jaws, knuckles whitening as I gripped the handles. A deep breath steadied me, anger and loss coiling into resolve. I squeezed. A sharp crack split the silence as the lock yielded, snapping apart with a satisfying finality that echoed far louder than its physical sound.

"Don't look so surprised," I said, a small smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth as I caught Leigh watching me. His eyebrows had lifted slightly in bemusement.

He stepped in, removing the shattered remains of the lock with a swift, sure movement. "I'm… I'm not surprised at all," he replied, his smile widening, eyes gleaming with something between admiration and pride. "I know you're more than capable of doing such things."

"Good," I said, the single word tight with quiet triumph. I stepped back as the heavy chains clattered to the ground, the final obstacle cast aside. With a measured breath, I reached for the key—Detective Jenkins’ secret gift, the last relic of a compromise made in shadows. The brass slid into the lock with a soft snick.

Turning it, I felt something shift deep inside me. A door opened not just to the physical space before me, but to the memories, the ghosts, and the fragments of a life I'd left locked behind. And now, I was ready to face whatever waited on the other side.