No Happily Ever After

Chapter 4

Zoewoke up screaming.

Images of herselfsuffering unspeakable violence in the torture chamber remained vividin her mind's eye for several moments as she woke. Nurses rushed tosoothe her as she thrashed wildly.

When finally thenightmare dissipated, and the oppression of slumber lifted, sherealized she was in a hospital bed.

And she washandcuffed to it.

"Where am I?"Zoe gasped.

A police officerwho was seated in the corner of the white sterile room rose andapproached her bed. He was tall and stocky. He wore long shiningdark hair pulled into a neat ponytail. He had a dashing mustache andgoatee, and an eye patch covered his right eye. She recognized himas Officer Hook, a man who'd operated the D.A.R.E. activitiesin Faraway school for as long as she could recall. She'd alwaysthought him quite smarmy to be a cop, and suspected he didn't alwayshave the best interests of the public at heart. She'd often wonderedwhat dastardly event had cost him his eye. And had he deserved it?

"Ms. Locke,are these your boots?" he asked pointedly, holding up her blacksnow boots.

She shook her headgroggily, trying to free herself of the dizzying confusion in hermind. "Yes. But, where-"

"Ms. Locke,"he said again, in his brief snippy way. "What do you know abouta series of break ins here in Faraway, ending with the Bar residencelast night?"

Zoe frowned. "I...Uh..." Once again, visions of the awful lair in the Bars'basement assaulted her. "Listen, Officer Hook! They'rehorrible, rotten people. Murderers! Their basement-"

"Ma'am! Answer the question!"

Emotion bubbled upinside Zoe. She began yanking against the hand cuffs, so hard thatthe cold steel bit into her flesh. "PLEASE! You've got tolisten to me!"

"Zoe Locke,because you may have been incoherent before when I did this, we'll gothrough it again. You have the right to remain silent-"

"THEY HAVE ATORTURE CHAMBER IN THEIR HOUSE!"

"Anything yousay can and will be used against you in a court of law."

"PLEASE!PLEASE LISTEN TO ME!" she screamed, weeping.

"You have theright to an attorney."

"P... Puh... PLLLLLEEEEEAAAASE just LISTEN!"

Officer Hook pausedto glare coldly at her. But then he resumed his somber reading ofher rights completely ignoring her screams.

***

Zoe told everybodyshe encountered about the Bar's basement, but nobody listened to her. They treated her accusations like the lunatic ramblings of acriminal desperately trying to stay out of jail.

Contrary to whatZoe had believed, many of her burglaries had been reported. Andduring the sixteen hours she'd lain unconscious in the hospital beingtreated for her broken leg and frost bite, authorities had collectedDNA to link her to the crimes. She was arraigned the followingmorning and sentenced to six months in a juvenile detention centerjust outside of Faraway.

As officersescorted her inside the big stone building that day, she looked overher shoulder at the last she would see of the outside world for halfa year. But she did not feel sad to be going to juvie.

For she knew if shecouldn't make somebody believe her about the Bars, the real tragedywould be waiting for her when she was released.