The interrogation room of the eastern Kentucky district of the United States Marshals Service lacked the familiar murmur of conversations outside the door in the main office. One more strangeness against the intense familiarity of the place Raylan called home for well over a year. That the county he once called his actual home, Harlan, was part of.
Raylan sat at the metal table, head bowed, eyes shut as he exhaled shakily. Despite the unnerving quiet of the room, he knew he wasn’t alone but if he didn’t look directly at them, he had a moment to collect himself. The links between cuffs clacked softly as he raised his hands to his face and scrubbed hard. At another time he might even laugh at the momentary need of reassurance in touching the brim of a Stetson no longer present. If it ever existed and wasn’t just a hallucination of his goddamn mind.
Finally he dropped his hands back to the table in order to face the situation. Two marshals sat across from him, one older, one younger, both familiar. The disappointment and disgust on the older man’s face as he leaned in almost made Raylan recoil but he held his ground and met Arlo Givens’ head on.
“I asked you a question, Raylan.” Arlo slapped an open palm on the file and Raylan winced. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
While Arlo’s expression was hard to bear, Raylan couldn’t even meet Boyd Crowder’s sympathetic gaze. That was infinitely worse than the disgust and disappointment. “Raylan,” Boyd drawled. Bad cop, good cop. “This all ends if you admit what you’ve done, my old friend.”
Raylan shook his head and shifted his gaze between the two men, staring at his reflection in the one way mirror. The image stared back at him, tired, haggard, dressed in a prison orange jumpsuit. He shook his head harder.
“How much longer are you going to hold on to the delusion that you are the hero?” Arlo moved in his line of sight, forcing his attention back. “You put on that hat and imagine you are someone else but that will never change who you really are.”
Arlo opened the file and began to lay out pictures on the table in front of Raylan. His aunt Helen lying on the floor of the kitchen, blood staining her cotton nightgown from the buckshot taken close range to her chest. Coover and Doyle Bennett, both shot dead, and Mags Bennett lying between them. Nicky Augustine riddled with bullets in the backseat of his limo. Tommy Bucks shot several times, laying limply in the chair at a nice restaurant on a roof in Miami. Pictures that kept appearing one after another.
Raylan slammed his hands on top of the pile, rising from his seat. “I did my job!” He bellowed finally and turned to Boyd. “I did my goddamn job. There are people that can - “
Boyd’s expression changed. “What people, Raylan?” he asked quietly. “Art Mullins? The man you got shot, left for dead. The ex-wife that you left to deliver and raise your child on her own? The daughter that didn’t even know her daddy until months after she arrived on this earth?” Boyd leaned in. “Or maybe the mama that you didn’t even come home to say good-bye to when she passed.”
Raylan slowly sunk back into the seat. “All you have to do is say it, Raylan. This is all over if you just say the words,” Boyd added with an air of sympathy Raylan wasn’t entirely sure he faked.
“I’m not a good person.” The words felt like acid in his throat, on his tongue. He struggled to get them out, barely more than a whisper.
“What’s that, boy?” Arlo snapped, making Raylan jump.
“I’m not a good person.” Raylan snapped angrily. “I understand that!” The room fell silent around them, Boyd and Arlo exchanging a look of satisfaction.
“‘bout time you finally admitted it,” Arlo stated. Raylan dropped his head into his upheld hands, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing hard. After a moment he dropped his hands again, facing the two men that sat across the table from him.
“I asked you a question, Raylan.” Arlo slapped an open palm on the file and Raylan winced. “Do you know what you’ve done?”