Bad Girl (TYG)

Chapter 4; Interogation

"Report to the mess hall immediately!" I hear someone yell loudly through a megaphone. "Immediately!"

I groan and roll over in my bed as the voice keeps yelling for us all to go to the mess hall.

I sleepily rub my eyes and look over at my room mate, Natalie, who is doing the same think.

"What's going on?" I ask her.

"How would I possibly know that?" She sneers. "Use your brain, genius."

"Well alright then." I say quietly.

She's been nothing but mean to me since I was put in the same room with her. Maybe she doesn't like me because she used to have her own room before I came here and now she has to share with me.

Fifteen minutes later it seems like every soul living in Riven is crammed into the mess haul, which I believe is three hundred and thirty six bodies. The only ones with any breathing room is us seniors, who are being interrogated in two straight lines.

"I'm asking you again, who did it?" Eve says angrily. She's answered with complete silence.

I've never seen her so angry before. It's scary. I have to hold my hands behind my back to conceal the shaking in them. The worst part is that I'm in the front row and I'm awful at lying. Sure, little lies I can do, but something like this is a whole different story. I'm shaking like a leaf. It can't be going unnoticed.

Chris catches my eye from the side and shakes his head at me. I give him a glare before quickly turning away. No, I'm not gonna rat him out. If I did he would most likely just turn it around on me anyways like he said last night. It would be the equivalent to shooting myself in the foot.

"Who?!" Eve shouts at the top of her lungs and I flinch back.

I feel a warm hand entwine it's fingers with mine and I spin around a quarter of the way to see Carl. He raises his eyebrows just a little bit, telling me to turn back towards the front so we don't draw attention to ourselves.

I turn back around to watch as Eve whispers with Rick and a few others that are on the town council while Carl rubs circles on the back of my hand with his thumb to calm me down. After a couple of minutes she turns back towards us with a look on her face.

"Since you all seem to want to protect the culprit, we'll question you one by one. Everyone return to your daily activities and clear out!" She yells.

I nearly sprint out of the place. I suck a deep breath into my lungs when I get outside in the fresh air. How am I going to survive interrogation one on one?

-

"Zachary Grayson." The attendant calls.

He gets up from his desk and follows her out of the room while I gulp. They're going in alphabetical order by our last names, calling us one by one. I know I'm next.

I can barely pay attention to Mr. Jacob's lecture on the dangers of alcohol. He seems to be having a little bit of trouble giving it. Every couple of minutes I catch him massing his temples or sighing.

I wouldn't care at all about being interrogated if I didn't know who did it. But I do. I wish Chris would have just let me drink the stupid lemonade. A hangover would be better than all of this guilt. Anything would be better than this.

I can hear the seconds ticking by thanks to the clock on the wall, powered by batteries of course. It's enough to drive anyone insane.

The door creaks open again and Zach walks back to his seat.

"Anna Greene." I hear my name being called.

As slow as possible, I close my notebook and stand up from my seat. Chris shoots me another look and I give him a dirty look on return.