𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐭

𝐭 𝐡 𝐫 𝐞 𝐞

My name is Alveanea.

I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was the hexagonal pattern on the ceiling. I sat upright and saw that there was a new bottle of water and three slices of pancakes on the coffee table beside me. The detective must have put them there.

Why not waffles though? They're better.

After eating, I felt the need to go to the washroom. I opened the door and peeked outside for any signs of the washroom. To my left, I saw a lady officer coming down from the hallway and was still busy straightening her uniform, so I just assumed the hallway would lead to the washroom. When I was walking to the washroom, the police officers stared at me like I was a madwoman and whispered among themselves.

"Hey, that's the bloody girl that Barnes brought in last night."

"Why isn't she in a jail cell?"

"I reckon she's the one who shot that girl."

Take deep breaths. You can't afford to be put in a jail cell because you've assaulted a police officer, can you? Now, keep cool and ignore them.

After I returned to Detective Barnes' office, I saw him sitting on his chair behind the desk, drinking coffee. "I hoped you had a good rest; now let's head over to the interrogation room to ask you some questions about last night's incident."

I nodded as he gestured to me to leave the room first and I followed him into the interrogation room. The word interrogation itself sent a chill down my spine I had managed to get out of the police's hair for the past few years, living in the streets, and now I was being interrogated for my best friend's death and had to lie to the police. When Detective Barnes opened the door for me to go in, I saw that there was another detective in the room already, waiting for me to settle down and begin the questioning.

The interrogation room looked exactly like what was shown in movies. A table with two chairs on one side for the detectives and one chair on the other side for the people they're interrogating. And in this case, it was me. There was a mirror facing me as I sat down on the chair, and there were probably more officers behind the mirror, watching and listening to everything I did during that interrogation.

A robbery went wrong.

Viktor's words flashed in my head as I tried to be as calm as possible.

Time to test my acting skills and hopefully, they don't suck. They don't know anything yet. Calm down. If they find out about the women I killed, I would be in handcuffs right now.

Breathe in, breathe out.

"I'm Detective Parker and this is Detective Barnes. We'll be asking you questions about what happened last night with the murder of Zari Smirnov," the detective sitting beside Detective Barnes started talking. He had a shaved head and I could smell his strong cologne.

I recognised that voice. He is the voice that spoke behind me telling officer Barnes to 'let me process'. Being together at the same crime scene and interrogating me now... they must be partners.

I flinched when he said her name and shifted uncomfortably at the thought that they probably have a whole case file on her right now.

"So for starters, can you tell me your name?" Detective Parker started the interrogation.

"Tiana." It felt so weird to say the name even though I had been using my 'fake' name for the last few years of my life, and yet it felt more natural to use the real one that I had only discovered last night.

"And your last name?" he asked me after a few seconds of silence.

"Don't have one. Didn't know my birth parents."