-Chapter 18-
Despite the woman in uniform, some part of me knows that I’m not being taken to a police station. No one is going to read me my rights, there will be no appropriate adult with me during questioning even though I’m not eighteen yet , and I’d be willing to bet my life that I will not be getting that one phone call home.
There’s no bog standard fluorescent yellow and blue panda car for me of course. I’m a celebrity and they’ve really rolled out the big guns. Another police officer sits at the wheel of a large riot van, the windows in the back blacked out, a door opening as the young man in the suit pushes me inside.
He sits opposite me inside of the van, unremarkable in every way; dirty ditch water coloured hair, dirty ditch water coloured eyes under heavy lids with a slightly pointed, ratty nose. In a pointless act of defiance, I mentally rename him Shit Face.
As we pull out of the hospital, I think about kicking up a fuss, I think about stamping my feet and yelling. I could make this journey hell; it’s what old Tish would have done. She wouldn’t have cared about anything, or at least been desperate to prove that she didn’t care about anything. And for once in my life I miss that; because here I am quiet and trembling, and I want to live.
You’d think that I’d be used to it by now, but there never stops being an excruciating agony in the fear. The waiting and the not knowing never stops being torture.
“You’re taller than you look on the telly.”
Looking up from the floor, from holding my features tight, I see that Shit Face is staring at me, his head tipped to one side, wearing a strange, dead, doll-eyed kind of expression. I manage to push some of old Tish out of my mouth as I meet his eye and mumble, “Fuck you.”
“You have more teeth on the telly too,” he adds with a snort and wrinkles up his nose slightly as he catches sight of the gap between my incisors. “You should read some of the comments people’ve been making about you on the internet. Most people think you’re disgusting and evil of course- but it’s not like you aint got some fans. Weirdos mostly. There’s a rumour going around that you slit your victims throats after sex. Like Lizzie Borden meets Lolita or something. Pervs love all that stuff.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
A light chuckle, “That’s what they all say,” and then he winks at me before leaning in- I could slap him, if my hands weren’t tied, or I could headbutt him I think wildly- and saying, “between you and me, love, I know. But it’s not what I think that matters is it? It’s what they think.” He points his head in the direction of the driver’s seat beyond the partition, confirming my suspicion that he isn’t necessarily working for the police. “And the media of course…gotta love the media.”
I don’t even want to think about that; won’t allow myself to get distracted thinking about weirdos on the internet when I’m handcuffed in the back of a riot van. Everyone gets their fifteen minutes of fame don’t they? I jerk my arms and find the metal from the handcuffs digging into my skin. I’ve got to get out somehow- past the cuffs and the young man in front of me and the police officers, past locked doors, past the outside world where everyone knows my name.
After thirty minutes or so, Shit Face stands up and raps the partition between us and the police telling them to stop for a minute. Dread washes over me once again as I imagine that I’m going to be taken out and finally shot, like it’s been in the post, like I’ve been on borrowed time. I have no idea where we are; the windows are blacked out and the sounds outside are muffled by the walls but for some reason I picture a canal, my body being kicked under the water just like Trick’s.
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The Other Harry #Wattys2015
Fanfiction*ILLUSTRATED* Tish Williams always knew her brother would knock someone out, dropping bottles off their balcony.What she didn't expect was to come face to face with a naked Harry Styles, an awfully real gun, a string of impostors and a mystery that...