Protocol

Her colleagues were out on patrol, driving around the town. Deep in thought, she flipped through the pages of her notebook, looking at her notes of the past interviews. She had made up for her lack of sleep with more than just a few cups of coffee and was praying for a call and the included distraction. But the town did not hear her plead and instead stayed quiet, as usual.

When she heard the entrance door swing open with a little more pressure than she was used to hearing, she looked up.

Ethan barged into the station and looked around. When he saw Victoria, he came straight to her desk. She turned her head towards him, gently smiling, but narrowed her eyes seconds later when she realized that something about him seemed off, besides the enigmatic entrance. His jaw was set and tense, his steps heavier than usual.

She could have put a bet on what was bothering him before he even brought out the question that must have burned in his brain all the way to the station.

"I heard you went to question the kid from the supermarket by yourself?" His eyes darted over her face in search of a reaction. But she made sure to keep her composure and slowly closed her notebook to put it aside.

"Yes, he was a lead that had to be followed up on," Victoria answered calmly and raised an eyebrow. This was a new side of the man in front of her.

"Why didn't you call? I should have been there. I told you to be careful around him." His mouth was set in a hard line and his eyes darker than usual. She could see his chest rising with quickened, fuming breaths.

"Yes, you did. But you two seem to have some kind of quarrel so taking you would have been against every protocol ever written."

"Protocol?" he spat out. "Fuck... Why are you so stubborn, Victoria?" He grunted in frustration and crossed his arms over his chest.

Victoria got up from behind the desk. She slid the notebook into her pocket and walked around the table, closer towards Ethan, to give herself a few more seconds to think about how she wanted to handle his outburst.

"Playing by the rules is my job and no well-meant advice in the world is going to change that," she then answered calmly. There were a thousand snarky remarks she would have loved to throw into the conversation, but fueling fire had never helped anyone. And right now she had to make sure to defuse the situation properly and draw a clear line on how far she was going to tolerate all of this.

Visibly vexed by her words, he stepped forward, closed in on the distance that was left between them, and towered up in front of her. She could feel his anger vibrating off his body, but she had promised herself to stand her ground and not compromise her job ever again, and she was not going to break her vow now.

He did not seem to know where to aim his hostility, but she knew it was meant for Caleb, rather than her. Surprisingly, at this moment, she did not feel threatened, and yet she could only imagine what real rage in this man could look like. She knew the cues she had to look out for, and he did not fit the profile she had put together throughout her years.

So she countered his eye contact, not saying another word.

When he too did not add anything to the conversation and just glared at her with clenched teeth, Victoria sighed and leaned against the desk behind her.

"Tell me what the issue between you two is, so I can understand where your anger is coming from," she added, looking up at him.

"I can't," he answered with a dry tone, finally breaking the intense eye contact he had held up throughout the time. Not willing to even scrape the topic or make up a far-fetched excuse, he turned his face to the side.

"See? And just the way you can't explain your obsession with this man to me, I won't have to justify to you how I am doing my job."

He quietly scoffed and drew his eyebrows together. But he finally took a step back and relaxed.

"I understand." He raked his hand through his hair and sighed, looking around the station like he had woken up from a trance. "I did not mean to overstep. I just... today is not a good day for this," he then said with a faint scratch in his voice.

"No harm done." Victoria's face was blank. She had to admit that she had foreseen worse, but she was not able to deny, that something about him seemed off. "Was there anything else you came here for?"

He looked back over to her and hesitantly nodded his head, after evaluating her hardened expression.

"Yeah. I'll have to go up to the mountains tonight. A hiker reported a bear. I'll keep you updated, in case it is the one we have been looking for."

"Yes. You do that. Be safe out there." Victoria was not exactly feeling cheery after the conversation she had brought behind her, but she made sure to force a smile.

Ethan's eyebrow raised slightly while he looked at her. She was not sure if he had seen through her front, but before he could say anything, she made her way back around her table to sit down at her desk.

"Be careful tonight...", he said and stood in the room scratching the back of his head. "I mean it," he added and waited for her to at least nod before he turned around and headed towards the exit with the same heavy steps that had carried him inside.

He passed Julien, who had just entered the building together with another officer, only briefly raising his head as a greeting before vanishing through the door.

With a puzzled look on his face, Julien watched Ethan leave and stepped closer to the Deputy's desk when the door fell shut. "What's up with him?" he asked Victoria with a raised eyebrow. "Everything alright?"

Victoria blew out some air and puckered her lips into a questioning expression. "I think so. Someone was a little hot-headed today, I guess."

She watched Ethan with squinted eyes through the window getting into his truck and driving off.