.Perfect Fantasy. |H.S.|

Chapter 12. Superstition.

He made a quick introduction of how things were going to be handled from here on, then they asked me as much as I could remember from the shooting episode, and I tried to be clear with the events of the night, from the moment I first heard the noise by the door to the moment I lost track of my conscience.
They were taking notes, mouth crumpled shut, while I quickly went through the fact that this person made first contact with me through the phone. Tate scarcely responded to my story, and when I ran out of words or thoughts, he gave me a strong nod, glanced at his watch, and closed his notebook.

"There are three things that are important for the following of this investigation and the buildup of your case; the first one is of course, the person we held in custody, and for you to make the identification, second one is the evidence we found on your home and third one is anything else you may find relevant to share with us." His voice kind of gave me a sudden fright to what was happening, mum clutched my hand harder and I just went through everything once more, trying to find what else I could be chipping in to this. "Do you have any questions about this process?"

I do have a lot of questions, a very important one amongst them, but I start with the easier one. "What is this evidence you're talking about?"

"We've been having access to your residence from the minute the call was made and we made several discoveries that are critical in here," He clamped his hands together and then moved to get what was inside of the yellow envelope he was holding, pulling out several photographs of things I instantly recognize.
The red letter I discarded, the huge blood stain and the broken china on the floor where I remember falling, some markings at one of the walls by the tv room, and a picture of my bedroom. I frowned at them all, looking from one to the other, trying to guess what was happening.

"Why is there a picture of my bedroom?" I flicked at the small photographic paper as I looked up to him.

"We found out from the person in charge of your housekeeping that there were several items missing from your personal belongings, we don't know how much or what items exactly, but there were also signs of a person occupying the space under examination."

I wasn't sure I actually heard him say that last thing, a lump forming down my throat from worry and anticipation.

"What do you mean, occupying?"

"Yes, well, we found indications of someone using the areas of your house, while we weren't there, and our team was trying to figure out how much time has this person being doing this."

I was feeling my heart beating in my ears, almost blocking the things that were mentioned, and my mind peeving with a million more questions.

"Doing what exactly?"
This whole thing was only leaving me with a huge pounding headache and what felt like cotton balls being stuffed in my mouth.
I wanted this to be over.

"Using your personal space, your bed, clothes, shower..."

A wave of nausea hit me and I closed my eyes for a moment, touching my temples and the bridge of my nose, as I tried to work out what to feel from all of this. I barely listened as my mum and Robin were voicing questions and thoughts to the man in front of us and I took a quick glance at Gemma, her hand was clutching her mouth, eyes wide open in panic.
She wasn't even looking at me, and I didn't want her to.
I felt everything shifting to the horrible spot of not feeling secure, at all. This was a major violation of my privacy and what was worse, it was a sickening thought of someone overstepping the limits and boundaries of my private life.

There was the matter of the red letters that somehow made their way into my house, I've never said a word about them and now they were looking at the evidence pictures of it, horrified at the thought of somebody doing this to me. Robin started pacing around the room, completely affected by all the information being handed out like it was nothing. My mom was shaking, her hands betraying her as she looked at them more time than she needed.
I felt like I just had enough of this bullshit, anger bubbling inside of me as I waited for them to stop talking and ask the main question of them all.

"How am I going to identify the person?"

The officer looked at me and nodded.
"The attending doctor on your case mentioned to us the fact that you are staying here until your psychological treatment is completed, so we figured out the best way to do this was through some photographs."

He pulled out another stack of papers, from a second envelope and I eyed them with fear. I took them in my hands and looked at the first picture, the one on top.

I stared at the face of a man looking straight at the camera, the features strong and sharp, there was a strangeness of the face and an unsure feeling was crawling inside of my skin.

"Where...?" I couldn't even finish the question, I was shuffling through the next picture, looking at the same man but from a side profile, my mind was scraping from all kinds of different thoughts. "Who... is he?"

My words were failing, as I shuffled the pictures back and forth, horror blending into my bloodstream as I waited for the officer to say anything about this.

"He was inside your residence after the paramedic's arrival."

"No, no, it can't be." It took me a moment to grasp the meaning of Tate's words. I shook my head, too upset to even remember the face of the person sneering at me from across the room on that awful night, the very same person whispering awful meaningless words into my ears as I was fighting to keep my eyes open. My mind was spinning, and I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.

Something was seriously wrong.
Dammit.
The fear was still there but it was muted.
I couldn't even process what I was looking at and Im looking away from the small table, refusing to look at the photos any longer, horror and anger filling me as I catch mum taking them at once and doing another consideration.

"That's not the person I saw."

"Are you sure? Take your time and look at..."

"I FUCKING LOOKED!" I yelled in frustration and then grimaced when I noticed my insensitive and unnecessary outburst, my heart sinking in my chest before I even opened my mouth to confirm the bad news. "That's not the fucking person."

"Are you sure Mr. Styles?" The man had the actual nerve to keep pressing the matter, he kept rambling about what they found or not that day, but a wave of dread caused my stomach to spasm.

I stood and regarded him incredulously.
Again, I had failed to see what truly lurked below the surface of it all.

"Well for starters it wasn't a man who did this, I'm pretty sure it was a woman."