"Miss Addison, my first question is do you have any idea as to who would do such a thing?" Officer Jones asked Briar as they sat in an interrogation room.
"No sir," Briar mumbled as she stared at the table. The group were all very much traumatised at the news that somebody wanted them dead.
"Okay," Officer Jones gave her a reassuring smile before moving onto the next question. "Has any abnormal activities been happening the past couple of weeks?" Officer Jones' Scottish accent was the only thing to be heard in the room.
At this, Briar hesitated. She didn't know if the weird thing that had been happening was really that significant anyway. Sure the things that had been happening were quite odd and slightly creepy, but Briar didn't really think anything else of it. Officer Jones placed her dark-skinned hand over Briar's pale one in comfort.
"I know that it's scary, but this is a safe place, Briar. You can trust me," she smiled warmly at Briar who gave her a determined nod before beginning the story.
"It started a few months back I think, my friends and I were walking back from a party to Everett and Rowan's flat," Briar explained as Officer Jones began taking down notes. "Everything was fine. The four of us went inside and began getting ready for bed, but then this loud bang got everyone's attention."
"So, naturally we all went to see what the noise was. Everett opened the door because we all thought that it was somebody knocking. That was so far from the truth," Briar sniffled slightly as she recalled that terrifying night. "On the door, was a note which was held into the door with a knife."
Officer Jones stopped taking notes and looked up at Briar with a worried expression. "A...note?" She slowly asked. Briar nodded in response. "Do you remember what the note said?"
"Not exactly, just the gist of it," Briar let a few tears slip out of her eyes as Officer Jones gave her a tissue.
"That's fine, just tell me what you remember."
"It was something about how Everett should stay away from me because I belong to whoever this person is, or something like that."
"Okay," Officer Jones sighed as she wrote a few more notes before turning back to Briar. "Anything else?" Briar nodded solemnly.
"It was just before Christmas, and I was performing in the Nutcracker as the sugar plum fairy," Briar smiled slightly as she recalled how gracious and elegant she felt. "The only person I told about it was Everett since my parents don't let me do ballet."
"Once again, everything was fine until the show finished and I got back to my dressing room. And on the table was this big bouquet of red roses which I initially thought was Everett, but then he walked in with my favourite flowers, white lilies, and then I remembered that..." Briar suddenly stopped talking as she furrowed her eyebrows.
"Miss?" Officer Jones questioned in confusion as to why she had stopped.
"Roses...red...red roses," Briar repeated slowly. "And then I remembered," she whispered to herself.
All of a sudden, Briar's eyes had widened significantly and her breathing immediately began to pick up.
"Oh god! Oh god!" Briar repeated over and over again as she held a hand to her heart, feeling the rhythmic beating going extremely fast. Black spots began to cloud her vision as multiple people began running into the room.
"It's G-George...George Henderson."
•••
2 days later
"Everett Kaine?" Officer Jones asked Everett to stand up and follow him into the interrogation room.
Everett sat down in front of Officer Jones and folded his hands across the table ready for questioning.
"How is your girlfriend?" Officer Jones asked out of worry for the poor girl. "She's better now thank you."
"Okay," she sighed before adjusting her glasses and getting straight to the questioning.
"Does the name 'George Henderson' mean anything to you?"
Everett's jaw instantly clenched at the name of the fucking creep.
"Well, he doesn't mean anything to me, but yes I know him."
"How?"
"We went to the same school, Berkshire Boarding School, and now we go to the same university."
"Did you know him at boarding school?"
"Not really, a few classes together but that's it," Everett shrugged, not even remembering their late night encounter in the library.
"So, the police have been searching for a George Henderson, but he seems to have vanished," Everett sighed in frustration and anger. "However, we did search his house." Everett's head perked up at this.
"And? Did you find anything?" He urgently asked.
Officer Jones paused before speaking, "we did."
She pulled out an evidence folder before opening it and pulling out multiple pictures.
The first picture was of Briar dancing at the studio, mid pirouette. Then another of her sitting on the floor and taking off her pointe shoes.
The next three pictures were of Briar dancing again but at a party. A couple of close up pictures capturing her gorgeous smile.
The next few pictures were different ones of Briar in class, listening intently to the lecturer. The ones that really made Everett's blood boil was the ones that had Briar and Everett kissing in her room. And then some of her changing in her room.
Fucking creep.
The last one was of Briar on a stage dancing as the sugar plum fairy. So it was him.
"What happens from here?" Everett clenched his fists.
"Well, we keep on searching for more evidence that it was him that caused the fire, and from then on he will be in prison for the rest of his goddamn life." Officer Jones smiled at Everett who scoffed out a laugh.
"Thank fuck for that."
"But for now, I really recommend you and your friends leaving the country for a while until this all blows over. Do you have any place you could go?"
"Oh yeah, just need to make a call, thank you for everything."
Everett walked out of the room and immediately called the one person he knew would offer them a place that's out of the country.
"Hey man, what's up?" The deep American voice of Sebastian Kinglsey rang through the phone.
"Hey, do you have room for four people?"
"Of course! How soon can you get here?"
Status: unedited
Just a heads up guys, there's one more chapter and then the epilogue!