Running for my life - The maner

The Interrogation

Chapter seventeen

Christopher waited until the last trace of Catalonia’s footsteps thinned into the hallway and disappeared, as if the house itself had swallowed the sound. The lounge held its breath. In the pause that followed, even the small domestic noises seemed to reconsider themselves, the faint tick of the clock, the soft settling of upholstery, the whisper of air moving through a vent. Late-afternoon light lay across the room in pale, slanted bars, catching dust motes that drifted and turned like slow, indifferent planets. The curtains were half drawn, and the shadows they cast made the corners look deeper than they should have been, as if the room had acquired hidden recesses the moment she left it.

He remained standing, cantered on the rug with a deliberate stillness that felt practiced. The furniture arranged itself around him in clean lines: couch facing armchair, coffee table between, the family photographs on the sideboard turned into silent witnesses. Without Catalonia’s voice, without her movement softening edges, the lounge stopped being a place where people lived and became a place where people were evaluated. A room staged for judgment, every chair a position, every lamp a spotlight, every shadow a place to be found wanting. Christopher let the silence lengthen on purpose, measuring the boys by the way they filled it, how quickly they tried to patch it with motion, how long they could endure being seen without speaking. He watched them squirm as if the quiet were a weight he had set on their shoulders, and he waited to see which of them would buckle first.

Scott and Tiller stood side by side near the edge of the couch, close enough that their sleeves almost brushed, not quite close enough to be comfort. Tiller’s breathing came in shallow, uneven pulls, two quick inhales, a pause, then a longer exhale he seemed to force through his nose as if trying to be quiet about it. His fingers twisted the hem of his shirt into a tight rope and then released it, only to start again, the fabric worrying under his hands until it creased. His eyes kept snapping toward the hallway and back, as though Catalonia might reappear if he looked hard enough, as though the right glance could summon her like a spell. The boy’s youth showed in the restless energy he couldn’t hide, the foot that tapped once, twice, then stilled only to begin again, the way his shoulders rose toward his ears when he swallowed.

Scott tried for composure with the seriousness of someone playing at adulthood. He held himself straighter than his body naturally wanted to, spine rigid, chin set, as if he’d seen soldiers stand that way in films and believed posture could be amor. But fear leaked through in small betrayals, the quick tightening at the corners of his mouth, the blink that came a fraction too fast, the way his hands hovered near his sides as if unsure where to rest. He wanted to look brave; he wanted to look capable. He also wanted, desperately, to be small enough to slip past notice. The conflict flickered across his face in micro-expressions, resolve, then doubt, then a careful blankness he tried to hold like a mask.

Christopher’s gaze moved over them with the same measured attention he’d given the baseboards and picture frames earlier, as if the room and its occupants belonged to the same inventory. He did not look at them the way an adult looks at children. He looked the way a scientist studies specimens, noting the tremor in Tiller’s fingers, the controlled stiffness in Scott’s shoulders, the synchronized glances toward the hall. Height. Stance. Response to silence. The bond between them, close, but strained by the need to perform. Each twitch, each shift, each swallowed word became data. He watched without blinking, and the longer he watched, the more the boys seemed to feel their own bodies as liabilities, every movement a confession.

“Sit,” Christopher said.

The word was not loud, not sharp, yet it cut through the room with the clean finality of a door closing. It left no space for negotiation, no softness to lean into. Tiller reacted as if the command had reached inside him and pulled a string. He scrambled onto the couch too quickly, knees catching the cushion, hands flailing for balance. The couch gave under his weight and bounced once, an innocent, childish recoil that sounded obscene in the hush. Tiller’s face tightened with immediate regret, his eyes widening as if he could rewind the moment and place himself down properly, quietly, like someone older. He froze mid-adjustment, caught between the instinct to settle and the fear of making it worse.

Christopher’s eyes narrowed by a fraction. “Still.”

The second word landed heavier than the first. It seemed to thicken the air, to press against Tiller’s skin. Heat climbed Tiller’s neck and spread across his cheeks in a visible flush, the colour of embarrassment and alarm. His body went rigid, shoulders locked, hands flattening against his thighs as if he could pin himself in place. He scooted back in small, careful increments until his spine met the cushions, then stopped moving entirely, holding his breath for a beat as though even breathing might count as disobedience. The silence that followed felt newly sharpened, as if Christopher had tuned it to a finer edge.

Scott approached the couch as if it were a test he’d been preparing for. He lowered himself with controlled precision, careful not to jostle the cushions, careful not to make noise. He placed his hands on his knees, fingers spread and still, the posture of a child who had watched adults in offices and tried to memorize the rules. His movements carried the learned caution of someone who understood authority as something you navigated, not something you challenged. Both boys were aware, painfully, of being watched. Not merely seen, but evaluated. Their bodies became performances under Christopher’s gaze, and the room, with its neat furniture and angled light, felt like a stage where the wrong gesture could be punished.

Christopher took the armchair opposite them and folded one leg over the other. He rested his hands on the chair arms with a neatness that suggested control rather than comfort. His voice, when he spoke again, carried the same clinical steadiness, no warmth, no cruelty, only expectation.

“School,” he said. “Grades. Subjects you excel in. Subjects you struggle with.” He paused just long enough for the words to register as categories, not conversation. “Friends. Names. How often they come here. Where you go after class. Who picks you up.”

Tiller’s mouth opened too fast. “I—I’m good at math. Mostly. And science. But sometimes—” He stopped, catching himself when Christopher’s expression didn’t change. He swallowed and tried again, smaller. “Math and science.” His fingers tightened on his own knees, knuckles paling. “After school I… I usually come home. Or I go to Liam’s, but only if Mom says, Catalonia says it’s okay.” The correction came out hurried, as if the wrong name might be another mistake on a list he couldn’t see.

Scott waited a beat longer, eyes fixed on Christopher’s face as if searching for a signal that never arrived. “My grades are fine,” he said carefully. “History’s easiest. English is… manageable.” He chose each word like it had weight. “I don’t go out much. I help at home.” The last part sounded rehearsed, a line meant to prove usefulness.

Christopher nodded once, not in approval but in acknowledgment, and continued as if turning pages. “Routines,” he said. “Bedtime. Screens. Chores. What you do when you’re told no.” His gaze flicked to Tiller. “Do you argue?” Then to Scott. “Do you sulk?”

Tiller’s eyes darted. “No,” he said too quickly, then amended, “Not—sometimes I ask why. But I stop.” He glanced toward the hallway again, a reflexive plea for rescue. “I stop.”

Scott’s jaw tightened. “I don’t sulk,” he said, and the defensiveness in his tone betrayed him. He corrected it immediately, smoothing his voice. “I do what I’m told.”

Christopher’s face remained neutral, giving nothing back. The lack of reaction made every answer feel provisional, as if it might be judged insufficient later. “Your father,” he said, and the room seemed to contract around the word. “How often do you speak to him. What you talk about. What he expects of you.”

Tiller’s breath hitched. “We don’t—” he began, then stopped, eyes widening as if he’d stepped near a ledge. “Not much,” he finished, quieter. Scott’s gaze dropped to his hands, and for a moment his careful posture faltered, shoulders tightening as though bracing for impact. Christopher watched the shift with interest that did not soften into sympathy. He asked about meals, about homework, about who they listened to and who they ignored. Each question arrived like a test with unknown right answers, and the boys answered the way people answer when they are trying to survive, too fast, then too slow, too much, then not enough, always listening for the sound of disapproval that never came, because Christopher offered none. His stillness made the interrogation feel endless, a corridor with no door at the far end.

When the questions tapered off, Christopher leaned back. The chair did not creak, even the furniture seemed to cooperate with him. He kept his hands where they were, fingers relaxed, posture composed, and let the quiet return, not the earlier quiet of waiting, but a quieter quiet, one that implied decision. His eyes stayed on the boys with cool intent, and under that attention Scott and Tiller seemed to shrink into the couch as if the cushions could absorb them.

He saw Tiller first, because Tiller made himself easy to read. The boy’s need for approval sat close to the surface, bright and exposed. Tiller wanted to be good. Tiller wanted to be liked. Tiller wanted the rules to be clear so he could follow them and be safe. That kind of hunger could be shaped. It could be rewarded into obedience, starved into desperation, trained into reflex. Christopher noted the way Tiller corrected himself, the way he watched for cues, the way his body stiffened at a single word. A child who would learn quickly, if the lessons were consistent.

Scott was more complicated. The older boy’s composure was an effort, not a trait. Christopher could see the strain in it, the constant calculation behind Scott’s eyes, how to appear mature, how to protect his brother without provoking attention, how to keep his own fear from showing. Protective instincts, yes. Pride, too. A tendency toward resistance disguised as responsibility. Scott’s obedience, if it came, would come with conditions, internal bargains, silent resentments. Christopher catalogued the tightness in Scott’s jaw, the way his shoulders squared when his father was mentioned, the way his gaze dropped not in submission but in containment. This one would require a different approach, structure, expectations, consequences that left no room for interpretation. Praise used sparingly, like a tool, not a gift.

He considered their bond, the way Tiller leaned subtly toward Scott, the way Scott’s body angled as if to shield without touching. Bonds could be leveraged. Bonds could be redirected. Bonds could be broken and rebuilt into something more useful. Christopher’s mind moved through possibilities with the same calm precision he’d used to inventory the room. Intelligence, adequate, with potential. Obedience, untested under pressure. Resistance, present, especially in the older one. Need: high in the younger. He imagined the shape of their days under firmer rules, the habits that could be corrected, the softness that could be trimmed away. Under his gaze, the air seemed thicker, as if the room itself had become a substance the boys had to breathe through. Time stretched, elastic and cruel, and neither boy dared to move, because movement might draw the next decision down on them like a blade.

The weight of Christopher’s expectations settled over the lounge like a second ceiling, lower than the first, invisible but undeniable. It pressed down on the light, on the furniture, on the space between breaths. Tiller felt it in his chest, a tightness that made each inhale careful and each exhale measured, as if too much air might be noticed. Scott felt it in his shoulders, the instinct to brace against something he couldn’t see, the sense that the room had become smaller around them. Even the dust motes in the slanted light seemed to drift more slowly, as though the air had thickened under scrutiny.

Christopher did not smile. He did not offer reassurance, did not soften the edges of what had just happened into something that could be called normal. He shifted slightly in the armchair, only a small adjustment of posture, but it carried the unmistakable signal of continuation, not closure. The interrogation had not ended, it had merely found its rhythm. The boys understood, in the quiet way children understand new rules before they can name them, that Catalonia’s absence was not a temporary gap but a condition. She would not step back into the room and turn this into a family conversation. She would not rescue them from being measured against standards they did not yet know how to meet.

Christopher’s gaze moved from Tiller to Scott and lingered, as if choosing where to apply pressure next. Tyler held himself rigid, desperate to be invisible and perfect at the same time. Scott kept his hands on his knees, fingers spread and still, trying to look older than he was, trying to look like someone who could handle what was coming. The second ceiling pressed lower. Christopher’s eyes narrowed, thoughtful, and the silence that followed was not empty, it was loaded, poised, waiting for the next question to fall.