Free He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not by Lena Diaz

button for the second floor.
    Nausea churned in her stomach as she stepped out into the elevator lobby, a small alcove set back from the squad room. She wiped her palms on her long, denim skirt and stared out at the hauntingly familiar scene. The walls were still a depressing battleship gray. Row upon row of paper-strewn desks still filled the cavernous space. The combination of phones ringing, the clicking of computer keyboards, and people talking still produced the same low hum she sometimes heard in her dreams.
    Some of the faces had changed, but most were familiar, as if the last four years had never happened. But time had passed. In spite of the crying jags she’d gone on the past few days, she wasn’t the broken woman she was back then. She refused to cower now.
    She straightened her shoulders and looked down at the threshold that separated the elevator lobby from the squad room. That thin black grout line looked so small, so insignificant, but she knew once she crossed it there was no going back.
    She took a deep breath and crossed the line.
    “Miss, can I help you?”
    Amanda finger-combed her hair over her scar and turned toward the freckle-faced police officer who’d approached her. Her heart squeezed in her chest at the youthful innocence on his face. He looked like he should be renting a tux for his senior prom instead of wearing a gun and a badge. How many crime scenes would it take before that innocence was shattered and gone forever?
    For her it had only taken one.
    She smiled, keeping her face partially averted so he wouldn’t see her scar. “I’m Amanda Stockton. I’m here to see Chief Richards, if he’s available?”
    “Sure, follow me. He’s in the main conference room.” Before she could stop him, he charged off through the maze of desks toward the right side of the room, his eagerness to please showing in every bouncing step he took.
    She caught up with him at the door. “Please, wait. He’s not expecting me. I don’t have an appointment. Does he have an assistant who could see whether he has an opening, or—”
    “Mabel’s off today. I’m sure it’s not a problem. I’ll let him know you’re here.” He tapped on the door, then pushed it open and stepped inside to speak to someone she couldn’t see.
    As the door swung further into the room, a wall of horrific photographs swam into view, including one of her, covered in blood, squeezed into the impossibly narrow, rotten tree trunk she remembered so vividly.
    She could almost smell the damp, rotting wood, feel the insects crawling over her skin, in her hair, biting and stinging, the paralyzing fear as a twig snapped nearby, fear that the killer had found her.
    Blackness swirled at the edges of her vision. Her breath came out in sharp, choppy pants. Her pulse pounded in her ears, drowning out the sounds around her. Panic flooded through her. What had made her think she could relive that nightmare again? She wasn’t ready. She had to get out of here.
    Whirling around, she rushed through the squad room, no longer caring that anyone could see her scar as her hair flew out behind her. She skidded to a stop in front of the elevators and punched the “down” button.
    Too slow, too slow. Can’t breathe .
    She punched the button again and frantically looked around. A door to her left had a red sign marked “stairs.” She lunged toward the door, her high heels slipping on the polished terrazzo floor.
    “Amanda, wait.” Strong hands grasped her shoulders, pulling her back.
    “No, leave me alone.” She kicked back with her heel, striking her attacker’s shin. A pained grunt sounded behind her. A powerful arm circled her waist and pulled her back against a solid chest.
    “Amanda, it’s Logan,” a deep voice whispered next to her ear. “No one’s going to hurt you.”
    Logan. It was Logan. Her panic drained and she collapsed against him, inhaling his comforting, familiar scent as her labored lungs struggled for air.
    He turned her in