L I A R .
act 1, scene 7.
WHEN YOU HAVEN'T slept in days, there comes a point when you begin to break - when you can't stop your hands shaking, and you sweat, and your head starts spinning. You start to question everything.
The guilty ones believe they're innocent. The innocent ones start drafting their confession.
Inés Almero had passed that point a long time ago.
The girl sat before the Inspector had broken down before her eyes, but she continued to destroy her. Inés was the key to this whole investigation - and she knew it.
──── T H R E E MONTHS EARLIER
"CARLA!" INÉS COOED her best friend's name into her telephone as soon as the girl picked up her call.
"Inés, it's six-thirty. What do you want?" The blonde groaned. Her voice was distorted by the speakers, but Inés could hear the annoyance in her tone.
"Could I ride with you this morning?"
It wasn't unusual for her to carpool with the Rosón's, as they were more often than not passing her house anyway. Whenever her parents were away, she spent weeks flitting between spending the night at Carla's and Lu's houses - but she never as asked anything of them as unannounced as this.
Inés bit her lip and chewed on her nails as Carla remained silent on the other end of the line. She prayed that the blonde didn't suspect anything of her, which was borderline impossible anyway as she had only spoken two sentences.
"Okay." Carla hummed eventually, making Inés let out a huge sigh of relief.
"Okay," She repeated, mostly herself to reassure her that her plan was going well. "I'll be to your house for eight."
A final "Ciao." was grumbled down the phone before the call was ended. Inés flopped down onto her bed, holding her mobile to her chest as she steadied her breathing. Everything was going accordingly. She was fine.
2 hours later, Inés was dolled up to her usual standard and waiting for Carla to open her bedroom door. Teo had let her in from outside, warning her that the girls had best be quick conversing or they would leave without them. With a kiss on her head, he sent her running up the stairs to her friend's room.
"Carla?" Inés called, knocking lightly on the door. The blonde opened with a smile, losing the resentment she had felt from the early morning call when she saw her friend's glowing face.
"Morning, chica." She grinned.
If only she knew...
"Your dad said we had to be quick." Inés spoke calmly as she sat down on the bed and watched her friend fill her bag with what she needed. They only spent 5 minutes gossiping to each other (which was definitely impressive for them, as they spoke for hours upon end about nothing every day) before they were giggling their way to Carla's car.
Inés sat in the car nervously until she was sure all Rosón's were inside with her and that their front door was definitely locked. That was probably the most essential part of her plan.
"¡Mierda!" She hissed, trying to make herself look as panicked as possible.
"¿Que?" Carla asked with even more urgency than Inés was faking, eliciting just as much concern from her parents.
"I dropped my ring." Inés groaned, patting the seat in search of it, though she knew full well she had left it on top of Carla's bed. She wouldn't lie - if she was a fly on the wall watching her performance, she would grant her an Oscar there and then. "Can I go back inside to check if I left it?"
Her eyes flicked over to Teodoro and the Marquess, who smiled at her patiently.
That was why she could help Nano and Marina couldn't - all the rich people liked her.
"Of course." Beatriz looked at her husband briefly for conformation, before recognising his nod and smiling once more, "The code for the alarm is 1-6-4-9."
1-6-4-9.
With those 4 digits, Inés had sentenced Marina Nunier to death.
Those numbers spelled the beginning of the end. 4 syllables changed the lives of the Las Encinas teens forever.
"1-6-4-9. Got it!" Inés hummed, taking Carla's key from her hand and letting herself out of the car with a smile. She jogged up to the doors, unlocked them and hurried on inside, disabling the alarm immediately. That completed half of her plan.
Before she could forget, Inés ran upstairs to retrieve her ring from Carla's bed and slid it back onto her finger. She took off her blazer and unbuttoned the arm of her shirt as she headed back downstairs and to the kitchen. She rifled around one of the draws before she found a pen, scribbling the alarm code onto her arm so she wouldn't forget.
It may have seemed like a waste of time, but Inés could barely remember what she had had for breakfast, never mind a random 4 number combination that carries the weight of a whole family's livelihood.
As quickly as she entered the house, she had done up her shirt and was back in the entrance hallway. She searched the tray of keys until she found one fittingly labelled 'spare house key'. She grabbed it quickly and attempted to twist it off the key chain, as she had stashed an old key of hers in her pocket to replace it with.
The loudening footsteps made her palms sweat and she fiddled clumsily with the key. She couldn't get it off the ring.
Just as Carla opened her front door to check on her friend, Inés had managed to stuff the key in her pocket and glance down at her ring, pretending she had just put it on.
"Got it!" She smiled it Carla, strutting out of the house with a smirk on her face.
The Rosón's didn't have a clue.
The nervousness Inés felt didn't disappear once they were pulling up into Las Encinas either. As she walked with Carla up the steps, she caught eyes with Marina. They looked at each other momentarily, Inés sending a small nod her way to confirm all was well.
They had united over a common enemy - anything that was harming the Garcia's. But Marina seemed to be in it more for Nano, much to Inés' delight.
"I forgot to tell you." Carla gasped as they entered the school building, "Marina cane to my house last night, after Guzmán's party."
"Did she?" Inés stuttered, chocking on her breath in surprise. That definitely wasn't following the 'leave it to me' plan she'd tried to establish.
"Yeah," Carla laughed, "She only came for a glass of wine but it was nice to speak to her."
Inés felt her insides start to boil. All she'd ever wanted to do was help Nano and Samu. If any of their friends clicked on to their plan due to Marina's seemingly constant need to be proving herself, they were all screwed. Inés and Marina would be disowned by their families and friends, and Nano would most likely end up dead, with Samu trying hard to keep his mother from completely breaking down.
"Hola, Carla."
Speak of the devil and she shall appear.
"Marina!" Carla cooed, grabbing the redheads cheeks and squeezing them together. "You look beautiful."
Inés rolled her eyes. She looked absolutely no different than she usually did. "Do you need something?" She asked bitterly.
"Christian has been asking for you." Marina nodded down the hall, a smirk growing on Carla's face. "He went that way, I think."
"Adios, chicas." The blonde grinned as she strutted off down the hallway in search of her toy boy. The remaining girls stood stand-offish at first, until an angry Inés broke silent vow.
"You went to Carla's?" She asked, a heated glare growing on her face, "That wasn't what we agreed on."
Marina smirked, thinking in her head she had been a great asset to their plan. She held out a set of keys and let them hang from her finger until Inés snatched them away and threw them straight back at her chest.
"Put them away." She hissed, frowning at the girl who still wore a satisfied smile. "He only needs this one."
She in turn held out her key, not before checking if any of her friends were around, and placed it into Marina's palm.
"Do I just give him this one? Is it a master key?" She asked, holding it up to inspect its shape. Inés rolled her eyes and swatted her hand down again. She was going to blow their plan before it was even in action.
"It's the key for the door." Inés sighed, dragging the girl into a classroom so she could safely give her the code from her arm without being seen. She rolled up her sleeves and read out the number, "The alarm code is 1-6-4-9. Do you want to write it down?"
"No." Marina shook her head, the confident smile on her lips growing. "I'll remember. 1-6-4-9."
As the curly-haired girl turned to leave, Inés reaches out her hand to grab her arm and stop her.
"Marina." Inés' eyes filled with a sudden sincerity that was unfamiliar to both girls. In those fleeting moments, she had made a decision that would change her life forever. There was no more pretending her family wasn't falling apart. She was spiralling downwards, and God forbid, she was taking her father down with her.
"Tell him to get the red watch." Inés smiled, "It's worth the most."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
hope u r all staying safe :) if anyone needs some support feel free to message me (pa i won't think u r weird i never message people when they do stuff like this cause i think they will think i'm odd but DW I WONT I PROMISE (i'll respect u a lot more thank u think dw ))
act one, scene seven
L I A R .