"Let's go, let's run, dammit!" He pulled at our handcuffs, pacing forward, but I resisted, gripping the nurse's shoulder.
"No! I won't escape from the law anymore!" I snap back as the nurse grabs my wrist and locks it in place. She is a bit taller than me, with slanting green eyes and light blonde curls pushed up in a bun. She looks like spaghetti with meatballs, owing to the roundness of her face and the curls in her hair. Her freckles look like sesame seeds sprinkled over the dish of her face — or, I might be really hungry right now.
I had contemplated for a few seconds and reached to the conclusion that running away with James would be an immense uncertainty. He would abandon me and go on his own merry way, whilst I'll be a criminal for real!
But if I surrender, whilst he's trying to escape, it would look like I turned him in and because all the real evidence would already point at him, I'll be in the clean! I would only have to convince the police to not contact the school about it... and everyone can go on their merry deserving paths!
My resistance would be a win for all.
So, I resist, pulling him back with equal force as two cops run up to us. His face is contoured in a scowl, sharp brows mushing together in a frown and lips reading 'treacherous girl.' I cannot help but smirk at him, his betrayed face soothes my ego.
"It won't end well for either of us," he seethes out as the cops stand before us. Blaire and Stephanie running right behind in their heels.
"Thank you for your services, ma'am," the cop greets the nurse as she hurriedly lets go of my hand. Her small face blushes crimson, much like a meatball, as she replies,
"Of course! It was my duty!" Before pressing the files closer to her chest and walking away. I stare at her retreating back, wondering if I had seen her somewhere.
"Now," the cop turns to glare at us, "Interrogation room! Now!"
I had never, in my entire twenty years of life, been escorted out by anyone. Not even a bird. Though, here I am, reincarnated with another chance at life and within a week, I've already accomplished more than I had in my past life.
Be a girl, get bullied, live with hot girls, catch a thief, get arrested.
Being escorted in a police car felt almost ceremonial, as if my life were a slow motion movie scene, all eyes on me, barefoot and probably looking like a ridiculous mess, I am being sat inside the police car with handcuffs chaining me down to this world's legal system and reality.
Along with this man, this strange, eccentric, conscious-less man who keeps disappearing and reappearing to ruin my life. Blaire and Stephanie are speaking something to me, but all I see are their mouths moving. I am in a daze as the car zooms away and the towering structure of the hospital becomes a blurry blob of the past.
As if James and I weren't insinuating innuendos mere minutes ago. Now we sit apart, him on one end of the seat, looking out the window and I on the other end, looking out the window. This world is too real to not be taken seriously.
Inside of the police station looks exactly like I had seen in dramas and movies. We are walked past the security check through a well lit hallway, so bright that it would make the cleanest criminal's nose pores stand out. It was lined with occasional snake plants on simultaneous sides and led to the main hall. There was a waiting area which was occupied by slouching journalists and an occasional nail biting person.
An officer saluted our cop as we made our way into another hallway, leading up to the cop's office at the very end of it. All the while James shielded his face with his free hand.
"So, skipping school for thievery. I am so disappointed in you as the representatives of youth," the cop tsks, settling his big body on a wheelie chair opposite his desk. James and I are sat down on steel chairs, another's cop's hand over both of our shoulders. Blaire and Stephanie stand on my right, participating mentally.
"I did not skip school to steal! Sir, I was merely working at my job! You can ask the owner or anyone! I am an honest victim in this case!" I plead my case, brows pushed up with misery.
The cop behind us passes a file to the cop in front of us. The interrogation cop skims through the file and look up at James, brows raised with expectation. I smirk because yes! Catch the real thief!
"She's the thief. I was merely protecting my favourite diner," James sighs, "She also manipulated me to run away from the hospital," he runs a hand over his face and leans in, pressing his elbows to the desk and pulling me along. "I mean I volunteered to keep guard on her, you know, but, she threatened—"
"Woah woah dude!" I couldn't help but interrupt his bullshit, "What are you on about?! What theft?! What threat?! I was the one who saw the door being wedged by a marble! I went inside to see you hiding behind the counter—"
"I was on a stake out for you—"
"Ha! Shut the fuck up! You — you broke into the place! You probably stole something because you were trying to run away—"
"I was merely escaping you since you could have had a weapon on you," he shrugs his shoulders. I gape at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish, flabbergasted beyond speech.
Say what ?! Is this how you manipulate people?!
"I— no, officer, he has been stalking me since yesterday morning! Liter—"
"Hey! I left both the places first! You were the one turning up after me!"
"You absolute shit-forsaken liar—"
"ENOUGH!" Our Interrogation cop bangs a hand over his desktop, which makes us both flinch away from eachother.
"I'm not the thief," I mumble in my defence.
"I reckon you will have to reconsider that thought, Ms. Beckett, because we have found evidence against you," the cop claimed in the calmest voice possible.
"What evidence? If you look into the cameras of the diner, you'll know exactly what the truth is!" I explain, breathing out hard. My fists clench on their own accord as the cop pulls up a box and takes off its lid.
"This is all the stuff the doctors found on you," he explains, pulling out its contents and I nod. My phone, my identity card, my uniform, a wad of cash—
"You were stealing money," he holds up a thick wad of dollar bills wrapped in a plastic bag and sways it in my perspective. "Do you need anymore evidence?" He quirks up a brow as my jaw hinges down.
What the actual heck?!
James spares me an obscure wink from his sob fest and I stomp over his foot so that he could feel my very enthusiastic reply. His groans are killed by Stephanie's stabs at my defence.
"Woah mister! Winnie may look cheap and dress cheap and think cheap but she would never steal money! It goes against the moral principles of cheapness!" Stephanie says, very eloquently, I must add. Thank you very much, Your Kindness.
"Oh? And you are?" The cop questions, attention shuffling between Blaire and Stephanie.
"We're her roommates," Blaire introduces, which somehow makes the cop smile every so coyly.
"Well fuck it, what about the cctv footage?" I tap the desk, grabbing his attention away.
"There are no cctvs. The diner runs on a very honest trust system. It's pretty old, you know," the cop from behind us supplies.
"Well then where's the trust in me?!" I shout in exasperation right as James announces,
"But there is one footage, sir!"
I shoot him a dirty glare.
"Ah, yes yes!" The cop behind us retrieves a laptop from a desk somewhere behind us and passes it to his boss. The interrogation cop plays the video and turns the laptop for us to see.
The very familiar sight of yesterday morning greets me. Standing under the rain, at the bus station, going, "Fuck this, I'll skip school. Heck, I'll leave school. I'll run away from this place. But to do so, I need to get money. This woman's social security number, passwords, family ties, everything. It would probably take me a week but I'll hold out."
He pushes the laptop shut and as its lights die out, I feel the light leaving my future as well. It looks dark and bleak, very manipulated, very dreary. I slump in my chair as the cop continues,
"And we also found these," he picks up the pair of school shoes I had been wearing all day, yesterday, "Two different shoes on your feet, stolen of course." He smiles victoriously, as if having deduced an award-winning case.
"No— that lo—"
"No, you know what? Fuck it!" I cut Stephanie's words short and stand up, "If I'm going to jail then I might as well fucking choke him to death and be done with it," I turn toward James but the cop behind me restrains me down with his meaty arms.
"Leave me! L-leave me I said, I will fucking kill this manipulator! He's been stalking me all day! He's was inside, stealing, he was the one proposed that we run away and never get caught! I STAYED! HE—"
"Ms. Beckett! He's the one who volunteered to be chained with you to keep an eye on you! He's the one who was with you in the ambulance! Even after—"
"Oh so that's when you slipped that money in my pocket, didn't you?! You lying imposter! His name isn't even James, you k—" I shout, but before I could say more, my mouth is pressed shut by a hand and I'm thrust into a very feminine chest.
"Hush it, you're not making it better," Stephanie whispers in my ear, raising goosebumps all over my neck and shoulders.
"Why would his name be James, Miss Beckett? That's Evander Blackwell."
Wow, I'm fucked, aren't I? You, me, all of us.